The End is Nigh: Shadow Complex
‘The End is Nigh’ is a regular column by Play.tm’s Martin Gaston, pondering the nature of videogame endings and why we do or don’t choose to finish the games we play. This week: Shadow Complex and the irresistible prospect of spending four hours crawling around in vents. Enormous spoilers ahead – you have been warned!
Furore surrounding the funding of a homophobe aside, Shadow Complex is a fantastic game.
Much ado has been made about its story, set in a universe created by Orson Scott Card and with a script penned by versatile comic scribe Peter David. As it takes less than five hours to run Jason Fleming from beginning to end, it’s a tale gamers are likely to see concluded.
There’s a strong start. The bogeyman of the game is terrorism, something society considers more frightening than Dracula or a spooky brain in a jar, in a thematic environment that resonates with contemporary political issues in a post-9/11 world. Impenetrable exoskeletons and bipedal robot monstrosities aside, The Restoration’s far-right notions of home-grown terrorism – destroy the current America and what survives will be stronger – are similar to many thematic elements buzzing wildly around the USA’s TV and movie industries. If Nolan North had turned down the role of Jason Fleming, I’m sure Kiefer Sutherland would have felt right at home with it.
Chair haven’t ham-fisted their political message into the game, however, instead opting to cunningly integrate the narrative via snippets of overheard conversation. This means they can sew their seeds of political intrigue without having to come up with anything overly substantial, or ever risk distracting the player from the joy of navigating the shadowy complex’s labyrinthine tunnels. It’s also more fun as the player rarely finds themselves disconnected from the gameplay.
Jason Fleming is, spectacularly efficient military training aside, a competent everyman. He’s in the story solely because he fancies a bit of spelunking with his girlfriend, and his character feels like a breath of fresh air in the world of videogames: popping someone in jeans and a t-shirt into a giant paramilitary complex produces a striking narrative image. As the player observes, and controls, Jason’s slow progression into a semi-mechanised merchant of death it’s easier to become attached to the character than if he were dropped into the game already donning the armour extraordinaire. For such a short, budget-priced game, the opening sections of Shadow Complex are surprisingly delicate in their execution.
But by the end of the game the plot is being excavated with a JCB, and the previously delicate touches have been trampled by an enormous, ultra-powered boot running at Mach II. It’s sad that as the story ends we’re just another hulking super-soldier, blithely following orders, being stuffed onto a futuristic transport ship with the promise of more muscle-pumping adventures to come. Jason’s initial motivation for bearing arms, to rescue his helpless girlfriend from the clutches of a nefarious paramilitary organisation who have mistaken her for a spy, were for naught: Claire is a spy. As she shoots the leader of The Restoration, she remarks that she couldn’t have Jason kill in cold blood, completely forgetting the mountainous trail of bodies that have led us to this point in the story. She even reveals that Jason isn’t an everyman after all; he’s an all-American super-soldier-in-waiting whose fate has been preordained by the NSA. And whilst he doesn’t seem to care, I certainly do.
But a clunky ending, in this instance, isn’t nearly enough to unravel all the good within the game. It’s not a surprise to see it so warmly received. I completed Shadow Complex five times in total, often booting up a fresh game as soon as the end credits finished scrolling. In this instance, Shadow Complex’s diminutive brevity and excellent gameplay mechanics pick up the slack when the story falters: why wouldn’t you want to go back to find out where those last pesky few items were hiding?
