Aliasalpha: If anyone is interested in some fancy 2D shooties, Shadow Complex is up on the xbox marketplace.
From the demo I can see both the good and bad parts of the game.
The story looks like it'll be a cliche (I'm expecting the final boss to be "Dad") but not a bad one and it's told in a pretty good way for an arcade game.
The game is reminiscent of bionic commando only with finer control over your gun so you can shoot at the turret on the wall rather than the wall above it or below it since you're standing too far away for a perfect diagonal shot. The downside is that the gun is a bit weird to control, the right stick angles it and its nice and sensitive to when you want to shoot things in the far background but the stick is a bit... well... sticky, the laser sight on the gun tends to jump around between angles a little bit too much but that may just be my controller, its a wee bit dodgy.
I kind of like the torch revealing the secrets and the tool you need to get to them, it makes the secret less of a "where's that last collectible?" and more "Well how the hell do I get up there?" which are the type I prefer.
The boss fight with the IFV was pretty cool though the trick seemed to be a bit cheap, run into a room with infinite grenades to take cover when its shooting you, run out & toss grenades when its not. Not really BAD but not as exciting as it could be. I imagine later ones will be better, this was the first boss and I suspect it was more meant to wow you with size and novelty than it was meant to be a real challenge
Overall I enjoyed the demo and am going to get the game tomorrow I think.
If you want more of the story after you beat the game, read "Empire" by Orson Scott Card, he was contacted by the developers to write the game's story and produced the book empire and it was released back in 2007. Its set in the same world as shadow complex and follows some events during and after complex's end, but don't expect the game's main character to be their, hes not in it, though card has suggested he might make an appearance in the book's sequel coming out late this year.