Recently, I blogged about XboxLive and just how fantastic is. I'm about to sing it's praises once again.

It boils down to a rather brilliant little Live Arcade game called Shadow Complex. While parts of it are indeed "Shadowy", the game itself is not very "complex" at first. it seems that what you're buying for a measly 1200 MS points is a simple game. brilliantly presented.

It starts, quite cleverly in fact, by giving you an almost fully upgraded battle armoured soldier who within 2 minutes has blown away a dozen "baddies" and destroyed a chopper loaded to the rotors with rockets.And you feel empowered and strangely happy.

Then, in the very next stage,you getstripped of these abilities and are left, quite literally, alone, clueless andunarmed. The story,is genuinely silly and altogether brilliantlydirected and paced.It's a lot of fun to be Jason Flemming in Shadow Complex.While on a hikingretreat, with potential partner Clairein the mountains somewhere in the pacific northwest, when abruptly, Claire goes missing. Jason, being somewhat normal assumes shehas gone to exploresome near-by caves by herself and must be expecting him to follow. So, off he goes to find thegirl. Of course he would. Nearby, Jason finds that his girl has been kidnapped and now, he has to rescue her.

Not so complex.

The equipmentyou start with is minimal, a torch and a healthy ability to jump and run.Thischanges soon enough though as you are led to a weapon and with it the means to fight.Things start to getintriging from here on in. Secret passage ways andpreviously unaccessable areas become explorable and the game map expands greatly. A lengthy adventure awaits you.Which for the asking price is more than expected.

Combatin Shadow Complex is, in short, genius. Thegame is presented in 2.5D. Enemies can,and often do, appear in the fore-, and back-, grounds of the playing field!Whilejason can't exactly free aim, you can target enemies with the rigth thumbstick while the game does a loose"lock on" to near targets and you can paintother targets and even pull off head shots for instant killsby simply moving the lasersight around the targets body to pin point certain parts. It's really clever. But it doesn't always work quite how it's supposed to. It does feel intuative and is mostly responsive. Later on in the game, I laughed out loud at just how super your super suit is. Not wanting to spoil anything, but the second you try a "take down" with the suit on is something to cherish. Each new enhancement to the character brings new joys, new secrets to find and new ways to deal with some superb set pieces and environments.

Also notable are the boss battles.A little reminicsent of Metal Gear Solid and SuperMetroid. These battles arewell pacedand challenging with out being frustratingor unfair.

The difficulty settings can be changed on the fly, while playing, to enhance your experience(you level through out the game, which "rolls over" into new games) gains or just help your exploration. A masterstroke of design and one that all but kills the "wall" you can sometimes hit when dealing with a particularly tough section or boss

Replay value is all about the achievements, getting100% of the map and items, and the "proving grounds", a series of compelling challenges to test your skill with the super suit. These are fun and some are unbearably difficult, but are worth it for the satisfaction of completion.

All in all, the game is one of the best of the year. And it's a LIVE exclusive. I would never have expected a game of this quality to appear on XLA. But here it is. 1200 ms points. An absolute steal really for one of the finest games I've ever played and an excellent addition to the XLA faves like The Dishwasher, E4,Zombie Apocalypseand Ikaruga.

"Shadowy"? Maybe. "Complex". Certainly.

I must say, I'm loving WET at the moment. I'm quite surprised at GTM's review of the title. I've found it to be nothing short of fun and action packed, The presentation, sound track and characterization are fantastic.
My only gripe with the title is that, occasionally, the controls are not quite as athletic as Rubi herself. Some times they let you down and you fall to an untimely death, but, once you've mastered the nuances of movement and the run and gun gameplay, you should find these annoyances few and far between.
The action and set pieces are astounding on times, especially the rage mode moments. The game opens up into something quite different. Rubi becomes something of a dirvish, swiping her blade through enemies with deadly grace that would worry Wolverine. Rubi is a fantastic anti-hero. Deadly and athletic like The Prince, but brutal and merciless as Kratos. Her sass mouth is different from other heroines, but at least we have stone-cold fox Eliza Dushku to give her substance.
The fact that Bethesda are branching out into publishing different IP alongside their personal epics is not something that should go against WET. A point I feel the reviewer decided to mark against the game itself. Which is a shame as the adventure itself is ten times the fun of, lets say, the last Tomb Raider title.
To quote GTM's review "any extended play soon becomes a struggle". I don't understand. The game is not a struggle. it's pretty much a "cake walk" most of the time. and it can't be blamed on the controls. They are a little loose, but if I've managed to play to compensate, as much of us did with RESI 5, any one can.
The review goes on to slate the titles, actually quite brilliant, use of QTE's. Now, I'm not a fan of the mechanic myself. I feel they served their purpose in Shenmue, and it's no secret that the industry as a whole derides them. But, to say that "a barrage of QTE's soon ruins prceedings" is a bit of a stretch. I found them a thrill. My mrs claimed "That looks cool!" at one point while watching me play!? That never happens. Trust me. Yes, playing the car chase in real time(which, let's face it, most of it is) would be preferable, but surely getting the moments of gawp inducing pleasure from these sections is better than having a 5 minute struggle of a scene so complex that it can't be enjoyed fully by none but those "hard-core" enough to see them through?
The review then moves on to say that the game feels formulaic. Well, I quite like a little formula to my gaming. Not every title that leaves a dev-co needs to be Mass Effect or Fallout 3. WET is fun and challenging with out needing to be an envelope pushing title like the afforementioned games.
All the niggles can be ironed out in the sequal. It deserves the chance to get one. Perhaps WET 2 will score more favorably?
In the mean time, ask yourself this, do you want to play a fun, ballsy and outragous game? Or do you want to play another Tomb Raider?

I know I'm glad I picked up WET. It makes a nice change to the Bioshocks, Gears of War and the next MW title.
Where GTM scored it 5. I read 8.

Roll on WET 2....

A few months back, before Street Fighter 4 arrived, I hadn't tasted the LIVE experience. My 360 Elite was under used. Sure, i'd play Dark Sector and Lost Oddysey and be happy that i had one, but it wasn't reallygetting the play that my GameCube and PS2 or DreamCast had enjoyed prior to my jump into the"NEXT" generation.

It was much less of a jump, more of a shallow wade.

Then, perusing Gamespot and the monthly magazines EDGE and GAMEStm, I started to notice that there was this hugeonline community of like-minded gamers all playingtogether.There were whole segments of the mags dedicated to the community of LIVE.

This began to play on my mind. MY Elite was not getting what it clearly deserved.A 120gigHDD that had NEVER seen any action except fora few game saves of Assasins Creed and Dead Rising. I decidedI needed to rectify this.

So,I went looking for ways to get my 360 up and running onthe Super Highway.

BeforeI continue with this, I need toexplain my living circumastance, only quickly. I run, and live in,a Pub. Split level. With an apartment upstairs andthe bar down. The building is old and the electrics and wiring are not exactly, what you would call, up to grade. I have ONE main telephone socket, in the downstairs pub. But, I have, inmy living quarters, my desk top, wireless laptop and my Elite. The phone line runs from the hole in the wall downstairs, up through the ceiling/floor and into my appartment. The wireless router is in the pub, the desk top and Elite are upstairs. Both of which need to be connected to the internet as i'm also an avid World of Warcraft player when i'm not playing on my PS2, GC, DC, DS, Saturn, SNES and MD.

So my dilemma was simple at first but tricky later.DoI get the 360 Wireless internet adaptor? Or doI move my 360 to the living room and run a 15 foot ethernet cable from the living room, through the floor, down to the router in the pub?

I decided to get the wireless adaptor as an unsightly 15ft grey Ethernet cable running through the living room was sure to upset my beloved. Next stop, local electrical store, where by the adaptor in question was priced at a wallet-dragon punching £69.99!! the expletives I uttered under my breath were certainly not suitablefor a family website. Next to the adaptor was an Ethernet Cable measuring 15" and priced at the much more reasonable amount of £9.99! Result!

Bought the cable and sped(not really sped, but drove slightly faster than usual)home. With that, it was really ajust case of feeding the wire througha hiddenhole in the floor, and running it down into the bar. Happy days!

With that out of the way,I could finally have a taste of what I'd been missing. After the rigamarole of the initial set up, I was online!!

And it was good.First, I added a MS points balance, thenI bought The Dishwasher : Dead Samurai, EveryExtendExtraExtreme, and some DLC for my games. Watched some videos about upcoming games, added friends with their gamertags. I knew what my friends were playing as they were playing it.FANTASTIC!

But, I hadn't dipped my feet into the competative spirit of it all.I just dabbled at first. Then, with in the same month, Resident Evil 5(The very reason Ineeded to buy a 360)and SF4 were unleashed on my bank balance. Both arrived, thanks to Play.com, a day before release! Co-op mode of RESI 5 IS the only way to play that game. Just try playing it solo after having an online companion help you with the hard work! It's not the same.

And then(and now) therewas Street Fighter 4. Ever sinceI wasa boy, and had been playing SF2 in the arcade with friends after school, or 10 years later playing SF3 : 3rd strike on my DCwith my brothers after work, I have been practicing for something. SF4 on 360 is that reason.

I'm better thanI thought, But not as good as I remember! It's suprising that, aftersuch an absence of Ha-dou-ken's, how quickly it all comes back! And now, it's all the better, I've ALWAYS got someone to challenge. Always someone around the corner to knock my ego back to where it belongs, and always someone I can well and truely thrash!

And it's heaven!

I know now, the reason I bought a 360 wasn't for RESI 5(though, it's STILL a good reason). It was because LIVE is the best thing to happen to console gaming since the DreamCast was the best thing to happen to console gaming.

LONG LIVE XBOX LIVE!!!