A bit of Shadow Complex lore. Before the game debuted on the Xbox 360 Microsoft released a demo. Uh oh, then they found out they had actually released the full game albeit you could not save. Once this was discovered anyone who accessed the game had an automatic patch applied disabling the full game from being played. Of course if you disconnected your Xbox from the internet and set it offline before the patch you could in fact play the whole game for free in one sitting.

As for the game itself it is classified as a Metroidvania 2D shooter, plays great, looks great, supports resolutions up to 4K and controls effortlessly with either a keyboard mouse setup or controller. Steam support includes cloud saving, achievements, leader-boards and remote-play.

So excited to finally see this game on Steam. I played it multiple times on Xbox 360 years ago and it was great fun, one of the best Metroidvanias I have ever played. I also replayed the game on Xbox One when they added backwards compatibility and then again on PC when it was given away for free on the Epic Games client. Now it's on Steam and I bought it day one. What does that tell you?

If you've never played this game before, think near-future 2.5D Metroidvania set in a mazlike military base. You kill enemies, search for hidden collectibles and slowly build a futuristic suit which allows you to double jump, swim, breathe underwater and power punch enemies into oblivion. It's a blast.

This game is a fine example of 2.5D side scrolling fun metroidvania style!

You play as a random guy that stumbled upon a secret terriost base and try to save your girl. It's really just one man army vs one army of man. Very interesting map design with Metroid type of door opening abilities. Nice smalll animation cutscene, Good musis, Nice graphics, cool weapons and a good story line.

It's actally quite long of a game if you trying to get 100% items but you can make due without them.
A bit of extra replaybility since many of the achivements centers around new game+.

8/10 fo a very enjoyable side scroller.

I'm having a ball with Shadow Complex Remastered. It's my opinion that they just don't make games like this very often anymore, and this has been a refreshing gaming experience for me. I love RPGs, ARPGs, Metroidvanias, and Platformers. This game as elements of all of these genres.

As a casual gamer, I do my best to avoid permadeath games and those that are unrealistically difficult just for the sake of being difficult. This game caters to both casual and hardcore gamers, because there are mechanisms for turning off the "blue line" showing the route to your next objective and Master Challenges for those looking for a greater degree of difficulty. The blue guide line can be turned off and on at anytime, so if you get stuck or can't figure out where to go, this guide is there for you. Gamers are rewarded for exploration off the beaten path with upgrades and items, but if you stray too far, it's easy to find your way back to where you were.

Another plus for me is full controller support, and this game has very responsive controls. Jumping, shooting, takedowns, it all works just as it should. The graphics are really good, and while it's technically a side-scroller, there's an open world feel to it, because the character can go in any direction, even under water. New areas open up as new weapon upgrades are discovered, and gamers will find value in revisiting new areas to obtain hidden items they couldn't access before.

I can't say enough about this game. I paid full price for my copy, and it's been worth every penny.

I've played this game extensively on the Xbox 360 since it first came out around 2009. Now that it's on Steam, I recommend this game even more!

TL;DR review here: All major flaws in the original have been fixed, so if you're a fan of sidescrollers or MetroidVania games, buy this masterpiece of video game development. It's a display of what video games SHOULD be on release day; properly tested and 99% bug free. No rating is high enough, and a full price of $16 is perfectly fair for this gem.

Longer review:

This remaster of Shadow Complex finally fixed a major bug in the original game; getting one of the major, hidden items in the game caused the final cutscene to screw up with Jason's head and hair being covered by an untextured ball. The fix was to just fully show his face in this version, which actually works out better for that final scene, so that bug got squashed.

The main menu music, while always great, is even better in this version, as it's now a great electronic remix of the original violin music. This is really small, I know, but I still found it to be a nice touch and addition to an already astounding game.

Onto the game itself. It's a 2.5D MetroidVania game. A huge map with lots of hidden passages and items, plus full 3D environments where enemies can come from the background but are still able to be targeted and killed. A few points in the game also change the view entirely to give you a full 3D perspective on the player character, Jason's, point of view. Like any good MetroidVania, there are areas and passages locked by doors that require certain weapons or items, as well as upgrades to your main weapon, which has unlimited ammo as per the genre, but as a modern-era shooter, your guns do require reloading. Traps exist throughout the environment to use against enemies, the bosses are unique and one interesting thing is a couple are actually optional unless you're going for that 100% item collection. The enemies themselves have voices and radios, meaning that in some situations, stealth will help you by keeping enemies from being alerted and thus causing more enemies to rush to your location. Other enemies can be skipped entirely, or heard while crawling through a vent above them or sneaking under the bridge they're standing on.

The biggest con with Shadow Complex is its length. It could be a lot bigger, but remember, this was an Xbox Live Arcade title back when XBLA was just starting to really get off the ground and each game gave players a lot for very little. This game is only about 1gb in size, and is packed with a decent (if short) story, a large semi-open world, a plethora of items to collect and secrets to discover, and a variety of enemies in a very near-future setting. Basically, this has everything a good MetroidVania game should have, with no real bugs or glitches to speak of.

I want to be more critical with this review, but the game has aged very well despite maybe lip-syncing that a little bit rough, but this game is an example of good development, with the only game-breaking 'bug' to speak of (if it's even still in this remaster) being that there's a couple points where you can pick up an upgrade to an item before you have the item it upgrades, and doing so prevents you from getting one other item to allow you the full 100% rating on that single playthrough.

I don't really like to do ratings, but for those of you that might need one, this is a rare, unsarcastic, completely serious 10/10. If you like MetroidVania games, get this pocket-sized masterpiece.

I had completely forgotten about this wonderful game until it was bestowed upon the Steam community. I was afraid it would be another bad PC port, and I was wrong. It's just like I remember it from XBOX 360, and works pretty darn well too. Never any bugs or lag. Enough about the porting side of things. Let's talk why this game is good.

The game starts out with you having nothing but a pistol. As you progress through the game, you get better weapons and useful side weapons. These can be used to access parts you weren't able to access earlier. The game's story is actually really short, and you can finish it in under 2 hours (hence the achievement in which you have to complete it under 2 hours.) However, there's a lot of items placed around the map that take a while to get if you want to actually 100% complete the game. What I really like is you can complete the game with 100% items (which is quite satisfying, as most games won't let you do that until after the game ends) or with the least amount of items you possibly can. Whether you're wanting to do a speedrun or absolutely complete the game, it's all fun.

The only negatives I really have about this game is that the graphics aren't completely "remastered." They look just a bit worse than I remember them looking back when I first play this. That doesn't take away from the fun at all.

Pros: Great for speedrunning, great for taking your time to complete 100%, super fun combat, smooth gameplay, replay value (leveling up, trying different approaches), overall a unique game.

Cons: Graphics are old looking.

Shadow Complex Remastered is a remake of the critically acclaimed Shadow Complex, which was released on the Xbox Live Arcade back in August 2009. The remake was released on Steam in May 2016, with a console version of the game being released in March 2016. The Microsoft Windows store offered the game for free back in December 2015 for a brief amount of time. Having no exposure to the console version of the game, I went into this game only with the knowledge that it was one of the better games to come out of the Xbox Live Arcade.

Game play is done in a 2.5D platforming style which includes a handful of 3D elements. Your movement is restricted to two-dimensional systems though. You find yourself in the middle of a huge spy plot, as you explore an underground base which is holding an entire army ready for overthrowing the American government. Throughout this underground complex, you are faced with plenty of different puzzles to solve. The puzzles aren’t massively complicated; they normally involve some sort of jumping mechanic. Other puzzles will require the use of other pieces of equipment which you will discover throughout the course of the story. These pieces of equipment vary from different weapons such as rocket launchers, grenades, foam guns (question mark?), grappling hooks, all the way to supersonic speed for running through walls and boosted jumps for scaling walls.

The gun play in Shadow Complex is a little tricky to get a hang of. The game uses twin stick controls for aiming meaning you don’t always get a huge amount of accuracy. The 2.5D environment also causes a lot of confusion and hassle when trying to aim at enemies but you have to be in a certain position in order to shoot at enemies in the rear of the scene. You will come across plenty of enemies whilst exploring, these can be dispatched in a number of ways, using range combat, or an easy to use melee combat system which changes style depending on where you are attacking for example, if you are jumping from above, you’ll land on top of the enemy to knock them out, whereas attacking from behind will result in you being a little more stealthy.

Boss fights throughout the story mode differ a fair amount between them. None of them are your usual style fight where you just volley a ton of ammo in their general direction. A lot will take into consideration the environment you are fighting in, such as needing to throw grenades underneath a tank to hit its weak spot. I found the boss fights to be a nice challenge which you wouldn’t otherwise get from the regular enemies you’ll come across. As you unlock new abilities and pieces of equipment, you’ll often find yourself in a position to be able to backtrack to previously visited locations.
Even though this is a remastered game, which runs on the Unreal 4 Engine, I was a little disappointed with the graphical fidelity of this title. The environments look really poor, and at times you are able to see the textures quite close up and they are really pixelated which take the edge of the remastered effect. The character models look average, nothing special sadly. Animation in character’s faces can be a little off-putting at times if you focus on them whilst they are speaking, as well as a few awkward movements in cut scenes to boot.

Plot wise, the game is fairly interesting but somewhat cheesy at times. The opening prologue of the game bares no relevance to the actual story itself so I was a bit confused as to why it was included. The main protagonist is Jason Flemming, who happens to be on a weekend away with his new girlfriend, Claire. Your new girlfriend gets kidnapped and you are tasked with finding her and bringing her to safety. As the plot unravels everything turns out not to be the way it seemed. Although a lot of it is largely predictable, I still found myself interested in finding out what happens at the end. The dialog between Jason and Claire can be quite cringy at times and often felt like it was written by a twelve year old. Thankfully you don’t need to follow the story too much in order to get the most out of Shadow Complex.

The voice acting across the game is nothing special, and you may even be better off turning it off as it did make me wince with awkwardness at times. The rest of the game’s sound effects are as you’d expect from an action game like this. There are moments where you really should be hearing a sound effect, such as background noise when you are on a factory floor, but you don’t hear anything. This can really knock you out of the immersion of any game, and sadly it happened all too frequently throughout this one.

Shadow Complex comes with a variety of different difficulty settings, most will be sufficiently challenged on the normal mode and however you can change the settings on the fly, and so I would advise start as high as you can to see how well you handle the combat. The easy mode is no challenge at all and you may find yourself getting bored of the combat system if you aren’t being challenged.

I wouldn’t consider Shadow Complex Remastered to have any replay ability unfortunately. There are a number of achievements which people may be after which will force a number of different play throughs, but the regular gamers amongst us will find themselves being satisfied with the single play through of the story. I did like the in game leader boards comparing your progression with people on your friends list who also have the game though; it adds a little competitive nature to an otherwise single player experience.

Other than the control issues being a bit of a pain in the 2.5D environments, the only other technical issue I had was that even when playing in full screen mode, your mouse does not get locked into the game window, meaning anyone who plays with more than one screen will find themselves minimizing their game more times than you would even believe to imagine. The only way I was actually able to play the game without this happening constantly was to move away from my preferred control method of keyboard and mouse to use an Xbox controller. Granted this got around this annoying technical problem that brought along its own problems with the lower accuracy when shooting due to using the joysticks rather than the more precise mouse movement.

Shadow Complex Remastered shouldn’t really be classed as a remastered edition in my opinion. This is the first time the game has come to the PC platform, and it doesn’t really show off the platform to its full potential. The game play itself is enjoyable with a lot of interesting and unique abilities at your fingertips, but there is so much room for a potentially amazing game here that I was left feeling disappointed at the end. The $14,99 price tag is probably nudging the boundaries of being over the average for this game so you may want to wait till the drops in price a little bit before picking it up.

Tom's Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Not Recommended
3) Only recommended when on sale
4) Recommended
5) Highly recommended
6) This is a must play

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First things first: I do recommend Shadow Complex to any and all with an interest in Metroidvania titles. It's more Metroid than Vania, mind you, despite the whole arbitrary leveling system and even more arbitrary (and actually entirely useless) stats gained from leveling up. Furthermore, I've played it for at LEAST 150+ hours in total across platforms, so I know the game better than 90% of all the people who've ever played it. But anyway... movin' on.

I've actually been holding off on writing my review for Shadow Complex, mostly 'cause I've played it so many times on Xbox 360 and the free copy I got through EPIC's own Steam-esque service, but also because... I have no idea, actually. Anyway. One thing I noticed with Steam's version (that I never had ANY issues with on EPIC's version nor the X360 version) was that there were a whole lotta more bugs and glitches in the game.

Nothing game-breaking (so far, at least), but some REALLY nasty framerate drops and a few minor graphical fûck-ups, but it's still noteworthy that Steam's version seems to be markably worse than EPIC's version. Which's weird, 'cause they really are the same bloody game! And I don't mean just generally "the same game", but literally, they're supposed to be the EXACT same version.

Still, despite the various fûck-ups that Steam seems to have added for absolutely no reason aside from meeting their retärdedry-quota, the game's a solid buy. You'll easily be able to wring at least 15 hours of fun out of it, unless you're an imbecile or a speedrunner (though as I see it, those're entirely interchangeable words when it comes to Shadow Complex, or even Metroidvanias in general).

I mean, graphically it's not exactly the shiznitz any more, but let's not forget that the game is over 10 years old now, and it has aged far more gracefully than most Unreal engine titles have (yeah, I'm looking at you, Killing Floor 1! You looked like shït even when you were new, you ugly fûck!)

Adding to that, the sound quality is quite excellent. The music isn't exactly thrilling, but it does what it's supposed to do, i.e. adding atmosphere to the game, without overpowering the rest of the sounds or sensations in it. And I know a lotta people hate Nolan North for literally no reason whatsoever, despite his atrociously annoying performance in the Uncharted series (which - let's face it - was the writers' fault, NOT the voice actor's fault), but in Shadow Complex he delivers his lines pretty damn smoothly. No bullshït quips, thankfully.

Gameplay-wise, as I said before, it's more Metroid than Vania. You got your super-sprinting, double-jump, triple-jump, wall-jump, various weapons and sub-weapons, and even a grappling hook, which unlike the one in Metroid, is actually USEFUL outside of trying to get to a few VERY arbitrarily positioned power-ups. And let's not forget... FOAM. Big selling point when the game was announced/released, it was. And let's just say... it should be.

Yeah, shooting an enemy in the head is fun. Yeah, blowing him up with a well-aimed rocket is also fun. Yeah, shooting down a Bomba from the ceiling and causing it to self-destruct/explode from excessive damage/otherwise detonate and kill the guy is ALSO fun. But launching a fat ball of foam at the enemy and watching as he basically freezes in place, tossing a grenade at him and seeing it get "absorbed" into the foam before going BOOM and taking the guy out... it's fun on the same level as the Stakegun in Painkiller was fun. It simply elevates taking out the enemy to a whole new level.

But moving on from the fun of fairly mindless violence to the fun of fairly mindless story-telling, the story is possibly the weakest aspect of Shadow Complex. See, unlike certain other Metroidvania games, like Axiom Verge and Metroid Prime, the story is barely present at all during gameplay in Shadow Complex. It's a shame, because it's an interesting set-up. You're not some "chosen one" or "spawn of god" or whatever. You're a regular dude who's had some basic father-and-son flavoured weapons training, and that's it.

You start out as a basic guy, no weapons, armour, or hell, even equipment aside from a flashlight. You find a backpack and can then climb ledges. Woot. You find a pistol and can now shoot down security cameras and VERY weak/light-armoured guards. Woot. You find some grenades and must now face-off against the first boss of the game, which's an over-sized spider tank á la the one at the end of Ghost in the Shell. Woot. But all this time, you really are just some regular schmuck with no super-powers or amazing training or whatever.

And nowhere is this more apparent than when you face-off against the stronger enemies in the game, like those big fûckers with miniguns or rocket launchers, or those cünty fûcking ässholes with grappling hooks, pulse rifles and grenades, who can take literally half a fûcking M4 mag to the face before FINALLY dying! Because those guys will RIP YOU APART. Seriously. And that's something I really like about the game. I hate it when you come into a game and can basically pick off every single kind of enemy with extreme impunity from the get-go.

No, see, in Shadow Complex you get to enjoy that sweet, sweet feeling of very gradually upgrading yourself into a literally unstoppable super-soldier (well, if you get the Inertia Element and Fusion Helmet, anyway), but until then, you're still very much vulnerable. Granted, some enemies can barely even scratch the paint of your later-acquired armour on their own, but when they gang up on you, they can still do some damage.

I also like the fact that despite the leveling system being almost entirely useless and arbitrary, aside from a few mildly useful bonuses every 10 levels, like an extra 100 health, or infinite foam "ammo", you still regain all your health from leveling up. And since you level up much faster on the higher difficulty settings, the occasional health refill becomes a true life-saver in the most literal sense possible.

Another enjoyable point is the fact that the controls, even for controllers, are entirely customizeable, which's a rare thing in games, even these days. Usually you only get to pick between 3 barely different control schemes, usually with one which is SUPPOSEDLY "good" for lefties. Honestly, though... if any left-handed peeps read this shït, tell me somethin': do you EVER use the Southpaw control schemes in games, or are they just as extraordinarily useless as they seem?

All in all, I'd definitely recommend Shadow Complex. It may not be THE best Metroidvania game out there, but it's definitely in the top 10 of all times, right up there with the aforementioned titles Axiom Verge and Metroid Prime. 91/100

Having played Shadow Complex four times on my Xbox I was very excited to finally see the Remastered version on Steam. Shadow Complex is a 2.5D side-scroller developed by ChAIR Entertainment that originally released on Xbox in 2009. Jump forward seven years and the game has been remastered and released for PC on Steam. In Shadow Complex you play as Jason Flemming, after your girlfriend Claire is kidnapped by a strange organisation you venture into their base to find and rescue Claire. Unfortunately for you this organisation is anything but friendly and they have some serious firepower, you’ll need to learn how to use it if you want to survive here.

Shadow Complex doesn’t have cutting edge graphics but it looked good when it came out and it looks even better with the updated graphics now. The visual effects are also pretty good and all of the in-game models look good too.

The game features a large map with indoor and outdoor portions, it takes roughly 8-10 hours to beat the game. You’ll see pretty much all of the map just by playing through the story but there are some secret areas where you’ll find upgrades. These upgrades range from how many grenades you can carry to how much armour you have and they’re incredibly useful, especially on the higher difficulties.

As you progress through the game it does get a fair bit more difficult, again even more so on higher difficulties. There are a few advanced enemy types but generally you’ll just find more enemies, sometimes in awkward positions making it even harder to fight them. Every so often you’ll also run into a boss. The boss fights are enjoyable and tough to begin with but once you figure out the main strategy to beat a boss they become less challenging. Generally these strategies involve the different equipment items you’ll find over the course of the game: grenades, missiles and a strange foam which prevents enemies/objects from moving. While the main purpose of these items is to break through part of the environment (for example using a grenade to get through a locked door) they can also be used to great effect in combat.

The other item used to get through things in the environment is your gun! Whatever gun you have (the first one you find is a basic pistol but you’ll find others as you progress through the game) can be used to break through some objects, such as metal coverings for vents, allowing you to reach a new area. The gun is also what you’ll mainly use during combat, though you also have a melee attack. The gun is obviously good at range while the melee attack is always your best bet when you’re close enough to the enemy as it’s an insta-kill. The melee attack triggers a mini-cutscene, of which there are a few variations, in which you pretty much beat the crap out of whatever enemy it is you’re attacking. Of course, there are some enemies who can’t be killed with the melee attack but the enemies you’ll see most regularly can.

There are some other pieces of equipment in the game too. You get a flashlight early on in the game which is obviously used to illuminate dark areas in the game but, when shone on objects, it also highlights objects which can be destroyed by your other equipment, for example orange highlighting means it can be destroyed with gunfire. Without giving too much away, you’ll also find some high-tech armour along the way, each piece of the armour adds a new mechanic to the game. You’ll find the armour parts as you progress through the story.

Speaking of the story, it’s actually quite good. The story of Jason trying to rescue Claire is reasonably interesting but it’s the game’s backstory that’s really enjoyable. There are a few points in the game where you’ll be able to listen in to the conversations that take place between some of your enemies in the game. These conversations give you an idea of what the organisation in the game is like and what their goals are. Missing or ignoring them won’t make the game’s story hard to understand but you will really miss out of some cool stuff. The story is based around ideas in Orson Scott Card’s books. While I haven’t read any of his work it seems that he has strong, often controversial right wing views. It’s worth mentioning that Shadow Complex isn’t politically driven so don’t worry if you don’t agree with his views.

Returning to upgrades, as well as the collectible upgrades you find you’re also ‘upgraded’ through collecting EXP and levelling up (an automatic process). The Hardcore and Insane difficulties offer more EXP for killing enemies/completing objectives, meaning you’ll level up considerably faster, but these difficulties are also a lot harder to beat. When you level up, three things happen. Firstly, you’re maximum health will increase. Secondly, you’ll return to full health (this has saved me from death a fair few times). Lastly, one of your stats (such as accuracy) will be increased (some levels also have special bonuses, for example the full map is revealed when you reach level 20). The level cap is level 50 which will take an incredibly long time to get to (after 6 hours I’m level 12, playing on hardcore difficulty) but you keep your level when you start a new game (though you lose your weapons, items etc.)

As much as I love Shadow Complex, it’s not without its issues. The biggest problem I have with the game is the save system, there are checkpoint rooms every so often where you can save your progress and from where you’ll restart if you die or quit and then return to the game later. I always prefer it when games allow you to save at any point and it can be quite inconvenient in Shadow Complex, especially on the higher difficulties, since when you die you’ll have to walk back through a fair bit of the map (dying won’t respawn enemies but when you quit and come back the enemies you killed will be there again). My second issue with the game is with the aiming controls. Being a 2.5D game, not all of the enemies are exactly to the left or right of you, sometimes they’re off at an angle or horizontal to you. The problem is (at least when playing with a controller) that the aiming system is designed for a 2D game, in other words it’s made for you to fire in straight lines in front, behind, above, below or anything in between. Because of this, when aiming at an enemy who’s not in the same plane as you, you have to be aiming at just the right angle so that the gun aims into the scenery/level rather than straight ahead. I realise that’s probably not the best description of the problem but basically it makes some enemies incredibly difficult to hit which results in you spending more time than necessary trying to hit them, often translating into you losing a fair bit of health. Other than that the controls in the game are solid which is important since there’s a fair bit of platforming in the game.


Easily one of my favourite games, Shadow Complex is a great 2.5D side-scroller with enjoyable, challenging gameplay. If you’re a fan of the genre then this is definitely a game you ought to have in your library.

Lone Ranger Reviews.

El K.

Personally, I think this is the best title next to Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360. And especially because of that reason I was stocked when I first found out it'd come to Steam.

Please disregard my playtime. I have beaten the game multiple times back on the 360 as well as the PC port which was free for a while within the Epic Games Launcher.

To the game itself: It's a 2.5D sidescrolling shooting game with RPG elements. Graphics have been upgraded and look pretty decent to me.