Top 50 Video Game Moments: Number 25

We've made it to the top half of the countdown! Today's moment comes from Shadow Complex, which I recently named my 31st favorite game ever. It's sort of end-gamey, but what I'm duscussing isn't too spoiler-y, so I dunno, proceed with caution/disregard?

Top 50 Video Game Moments: Number 28

We reignite the list at number 28, with one of the most enjoyably badass moments I've had the pleasure of playing. It comes from Gears of War 2, and is located near the end of the game.

Top 50 Video Games: Number 31

Stats of Import

Platform: XBox 360
Absurdly Specific Genre: Metroidvania
Difficulty: It was pretty easy, I'd give it a 4 or 5
Beaten: Yes, I'm actually closing in on 100% completion, which I've only ever done with one other game.

In Christmas of 2009, my brother-in-law's gift to me consisted of a sheet of paper with this image printed on it, along with a download code. I had heard of the game Shadow Complex, but downloadable content still seemed an odd gift. My brother-in-law sensed my questioning and simply gave me a little smirk and said "trust me".

Several dozen hours later, I would say my trust in him was well placed.

The story of Shadow Complex has a bit of interest to it, but most of it is manual fodder, and the overarching themes that are presented in game boil down to the standard "bad guy wants to conquer the world, power up over the course of several gameplay hours and stop him". It's an old formula, but the second half of that formula is what makes this game so glorious. At the beginning of the game, you're essentially a hiker who has a handgun, what you become... is a bit more badass.

This image does a good job of describing how shiny you become, but a poor job of describing badassitude.

Indeed, the powering up is half the fun of the game, and like Metroid before it, each new powerup allows further exploration of what is actually a pretty huge world. The gameplay morphs from the player sneaking around, using the terrain to his advantage to fearlessly walking up and punching a bad guy into oblivion. Some players found that to dull the beauty of the game...  I found it to be liberating and cathartic.

Yeah, we're dancing right now. If you would have met me in 15 hours, I would've rocket punched you TO THE MOON.

Factor in the actually kind of awesome speedrun training missions and the massive replayability (trust me, you want to complete the armor suit... make sure you do this), and Shadow Complex easily stands on its own as a pinacle of its already excellent genre.

Not bad for a downloadable arcade title.