Well I bought the remastered version of Shadow Complex. It is currently on Sale on the PS4 with an extra 15% of for Playstation Plus members. Not bad value at £5.59.
I brought it on the Xbox 360 when I was suffering from a severe chest infection and could not leave my bed. I enjoyed it then and still do. It is a fun mix of Metroidvania mixed with 2.5d shooter. I also like the amour and mecha design. You will have seen ChAIR designs in Infinity Blade 1-3 on iOS.
Now the remastered version does not seem to add any thing to it as far as I can see. I mean it clearly high rez and it seems the animation is smoother. But if you ask me to tell you were the one hundred plus addition and enhancements I simply could not tell you. Now I looked online and one review mentioned the extra close combat animation but which ones are new I could not tell. Only place I could find any information about the addition was on Steam were they mentioned a ‘bonus proving grounds’.
Well I guess it does not matter really.
The game is still a fun blast to play. Just don’t expect a great story or even much of one. The story is not where is it is at.
You play a young man chasing a women in to a forest 1and the forest just happens to be on top of secret military base. And that is it for the introduction. Most of the rest of the plot is told with over heard conversations and flash backs. There is much to be said for a game that sticks you directly into the gameplay without burdening you with a lot of exposition.
What interest me the most is something else. A lot of what is missed with games these days is the idea that games are created in isolation and come completed in perfect form. This is barely the case and missed by a lot of gamers. Hence the furore around No Man’s Sky.
When they first Shadow Complex on Xbox 360 in 2009 they advertised connection to Orson Scott Card. I faulty remembered that he had created it with ChAIR. But a quick wikipedia check revealed that ChAIR licensed it to Orson Scott Card2. But in the new version there is not mention of Orson Scott Card two Empire Duet novels3. The only thing on the Epic’s website is that story was penned by Peter David.
As did some quick check I found that the founder of ChAIR Entainment, the epically named Donald Mustard, worked on another gamed called Advent Rising. It was not a very good game but it story was written by Orson Scott Card and Cameron Dayton.
There is a good article on wikipedia that goes in to the detail of creation and how a chance to work with apple diverted them to create Infinity Blade.
What this tells me is that if you don’t do the research it is very easy to have preconceptions the colour your views. I thought that Orson Scott Card’s history related to his anti gay marriage issue had caused bad blood between him and ChAIR. Not only was I misinformed, I was factually inaccurate. But it does lead me to think that some time some of the most interesting aspects to a game are related to the story that happens behind the scenes. How sometimes small mishaps shape how came is created or released. And sometimes a company greed can cause it to reach even greater heights only to crash.
TLDR
I recommend Shadow Complex if you want fun without the expectation of plot it is worth a check .
Also recommend the article on the fall of Lionhead Studio by Wesley Yin-Poole on Eurogamer.