While I hate to blithely sum up a game as game X meets game Y, there’s really no better way to sum up Shadow Complex than as Metroid meets Uncharted. Chair Entertainment (the studio responsible for XBLA title Undertow) and Epic Games’s Shadow Complex is a 3D-rendered, 2D side-scrolling action-adventure game with a heavy focus on shooting and exploration, not unlike Samus’s early adventures. The aesthetic and modern-day jungle setting, however, has far more in common with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, not to mention the hero who looks and sounds an awful lot like Nathan Drake – always a possibility when he’s voiced by the same guy, Nolan North.

The game starts off with protagonist Jason Fleming’s girlfriend Clare being kidnapped, bringing Jason to the heart of the jungle where he must infiltrate a mysterious military base – a shadowy complex, even – and rescue her. The demo I played began with my landing in said jungle, where I was to find my climbing gear that would allow me to grab hard to reach ledges. The climbing gear is the first of 18 upgrades you’ll unlock over the course of the game, including a full suit of armor and in pure Metroid form an ice-beam-esque “foam gun” that can create temporary staircases and makeshift cover. This was all set against lush, detailed 3D jungle environments, shown off by Jason’s ability to explore his surroundings with a flashlight aimed in any direction with h the right analogue stick.

I soon came upon a military complex, but the door was locked, so I had to hide in an underground maintenance tunnel until my adversaries arrived with Clare captive and in tow. After they made their way through the door, it was left unlocked, so I entered it posthaste. Upon entering the complex, I encountered my first security camera. Since it’s a 2D side-scroller, I couldn’t sneak past or around it Solid Snake-style, but instead I had to learn the importance of the sprint maneuver. I had to run for dear life, hopping over obstacles like crazy; once that alarm goes off, players have to find a safe hiding place to lay low until it dies down. Eventually I came upon an air vent, and in here my flashlight came in handy to illuminate my path.