Having picked up some Microsoft moon money a couple weeks back, I wasn't sure what to buy (though I did highly consider Burnout DLC). After trying the trial, I decided on Shadow Complex.



Shadow Complex, as the official DToid review states, is freakin' fantastic. Having gotten 200 gamerscore on it after 2-3 days of playing, I can honestly say at 1,200 MS moon dollars, this game is a STEAL. My first play through was on Normal difficulty; getting all 100% of the map and items, I clocked in at a little bit over 10 hours. Mind you, I'm not good at Metroidvanias, but still. 10 hours. A buddy of mine who is a huge nut for Metroidvania's finished in just under 8 hours, so I wasn't far behind. Honestly, This is my favorite arcade game of all time!



As far as gameplay goes, Shadow Complex doesn't do anything to revolutionize the genre; however, it does have some nice little advantages to being 3D. Think of Shadow Complex being like LittleBigPlanet in a sense; all the enemies can be on different 'planes' in a sense, so you end up shooting at enemies in the background. It's also the only fault I found in the game; Sometimes, because of the way the aiming system is set up, you'll think you should be shooting someone, but you're not. Or, you have a guy across the room you wanna shoot first, but instead you end up capping some random bystander in the background. It's not very often that it happens to not work, but its annoying as shit when it doesn't. However, it also brings another nice aspect, being that there are 2-3 times during the game where you go into an 'FPS' mode, almost. For example, one of the boss battles is getting on a turret and blowing the shit up out of some mechanized walkers and a virtual fuckton of guys. It's so amazing.



The game offers a HUGE map to explore and conquer, and honestly has an intensely old-school feel to it. What I mean by that, is that there are a lot of areas that you can get to by 'alternative' methods. For example, if there's an area you technically shouldn't be able to reach because of a character limitation, by working your way around certain ways, and using your items to your advantage, you can sometimes reach them. It allows the newer players to search their hearts out for that item to get there, and the classic players to put their thinking caps on. All in all, I've played through Shadow Complex 4 times already, and even having 200 gamerscore on it, this is by far my favorite arcade game of all time. EVERYONE who liked ANY Metroid game EVER or Castlevania should try this, because it's mind blowingly good. I have no more fears about how 3D will work for Metroid: Other M.

[for you number fags: 11/10]