For a game that consistently shows up on best-games-ever lists and fond retrospectives of mid-'90s classics, "Super Metroid" has surprisingly few direct imitators apart from the past decade's "Castlevania" games.
But now there's one more, and "Shadow Complex" is a darn good "Super Metroid" clone.
The hero of the game is Jason Fleming, who gets drawn into a struggle for survival when his outdoorsy date, Claire, is captured by soldiers from the sprawling base built into the caves she and Jason are exploring. What starts as a plan to rescue Claire turns into a full-on battle against a legion of goons.
The game ties into Orson Scott Card's novel "Empire," about a second U.S. civil war. The villains are the same as in the book, a radical leftist group called the Progressive Restoration. But politics aren't on display; to a player going into "Shadow Complex" blind, the Restoration forces are just the latest in a long line of faceless video game goons.
Jason starts out with climbing tools for hanging onto walls, and he soon finds a pistol. As he explores the sprawling Restoration complex, he'll find more powerful guns as well as several special weapons useful for combat, exploration and opening up new passageways.
Access to new areas is carefully blocked off by color-coded barriers that can be destroyed only with the right weapon.
Jason also discovers a suit of high-tech armor and several attachments for it, such as double- and triple-jump modules, a grappling hook and a sound-barrier-shattering speed booster that allows him to run through barriers.
The base is also littered with modules that increase his ammo for each special weapon, as well as boosters for his health and armor, and several bars of gold and card keys that unlock secrets.
