Last Friday, we sat down with industry couple Donald and Laura Mustard, lead developer for Epic and PR for Chair Entertainment, respectively. This XBLA platformer Shadow Complex, a joint project between Epic Games and their Chair Entertainment studio, is due August 19 as the final release in Microsoft's "Summer of Arcade" event.

Donald Mustard talks about his love for Metroid and Castlevania as major sources of inspiration in creating this game, stating that he hopes old-school platformer devs will look at Shadow Complex, think, "You're doing it wrong!" and make an even better one. Regardless of his inspiration, he's promising gamers a unique 3D action platformer with plenty of challenges -- a welcome change, since many gamers have been complaining about the gradually decreasing learning curve for most games today.

Aside from that though, this game is showing a lot of promise. It's on the Unreal Engine 3, so you know it'll look good, at least.

When Epic stepped out onto the stage at Microsoft's E3 2009 Xbox 360 media briefing in June and announced an Xbox LIVE exclusive platformer, many gamers probably brushed it off. Indeed, the entire conference was bursting with major franchises that an IP like Shadow Complex eluded the spotlight and ensuing Internet chatter.

While Shadow Complex was available for preview at E3, we didn't catch up with Microsoft until last week at Comic-Con, during which we were able to sit down with industry couple Donald and Laura Mustard on the 19th floor of the Omni Hotel, overlooking the San Diego convention center. Donald, lead designer for Shadow Complex at Epic Games, demoed the release build for a small group of press and professionals, joking that because this was the retail version, he couldn't use any cheats to show us later stages, weapons, and other late-game perks. So we made due with checking out the beginning of the game, setting precedent for the overall plot, what drives our hero Jason Fleming to don armor and fly around with quirky weapons. Laura, Chair Entertainment PR, provided excellent commentary, keeping the mood light.

...

Shadow Complex takes place in a world constructed by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game) for his best-selling novel, Empire. The game's original story was penned by comic book author Peter David, known for his work on Star Trek, Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Factor and more.

In this alternate universe, Jason and his girlfriend, Claire, are on a hiking date when they get separated, and we wind up with a very confused man searching for his damsel in distress. While snooping around, Jason discovers this "rogue paramilitary group," affectionately named "Restoration," and soon learns of their plans to overthrow the government and consume America in civil war. Let this be a lesson to you gamers -- never take your cheeky girlfriend hiking in the woods because a technologically advanced anarchy group will invariably kidnap her.

RabidChinaGirl via neoseeker.com »