Publisher: Wales Interactive
Developer: Wales Interactive, Good Gate Media, Little Jade Productions
Platform: PS4, XB1, Switch, PC
Genre: Interactive movie

Preface: I know this title is 2 weeks old from release, but since I got swamped on playing RE3 and later Mount & Blade II, I thought I give this one a shot.

FMVs are a thing of the past...or are they? While they don't have popular mainstay, with a platform like Steam, they co-exist alongside other obscure genres including in other platforms.

The Complex is an interactive choice-based FMV game from the publishers of Late Shift. While Late Shift was a masterclass of its own, The Complex leaves a lot to be desired somehow. While the game holds up the quality of high budget TV films, it feels like a tacked on tryhard Sci-Fi opt that only has few endearing qualities.

The game is short, even if they are different ways to end the game, some of these choices you'd wish had more impact or finesse on the overarching storyline of the entire product.

Story/Gameplay

The game begins in a fictional totalitarian ex-British colony, Kindar. As a prologue from the rest of the game, you play as Dr. Amy Tenant, the assigned chief of Nanocell Tech from Kensington Corp. As you and your fellow constituents battle against other forces trying to eliminate you in order to wipe their tracks from what could a conspiracy within.

So to put this bluntly as possible, the writing is good. As good as you can get from any B grade television series with effort that is. I almost thought this was going to be a good game till some of the plot lines made little sense, not to mention the choices you made would often amount from little to no variation on the main plot arc. God forbid there's some head turning plot twist in the midst(spoiler alert: well there actually is but it doesn't pay off well.)

There are junction points that are supposed to change the flow of the game, but they don't. Some of them don't do anything at all yet decisions exists for some reason. The game has these points where one bad decision could kill your character, but decides to bring up some deus ex machina moments to prevent you from doing that. Heck, most of the time it doesn't feel like you're taking much risk and the stakes feel lowered.

The characters all suck, first of all who's going to believe a young, hot scientist in her mid 20s basically uncovered a way to repair damaged tissues or limbs? The other guy, talks nonstop with cheesy and annoying quips. It's just regurgitating banter and that's mostly it. The complexity of the story doesn't mend well with the dialogue at times and can be jarring. Even the side characters leave some to be desired, provided yes they did act well but it doesn't save the trashy dialogues sometimes.

And the confusing part is? The actor's performances are good. Like they buy into the premise even if dialogues being bad notwithstanding.

Now there are different ways to end this game, in fact there are a total of 9 different endings. Although some of them even lack variation, others just don't feel like they've earned that right to be there and was supposedly there for effect and nothing much else. Even with some interesting ideas lying around, just not in good ways to boot. Some of these endings don't even get proper elaboration or some form of continuity that connects the rest of the story.

Thankfully for a game that lasts 2hrs to play, once you've finished the game once, you can skip scenes by pressing tab in second newgame. This allows you to fast-forward to points of the story where you want to make a different decision from the one you've made last session. There's even an option to pause choices; without the timer on.

The Complex is nice try for Sci-Fi attempt but the premise falls apart because of the meager story and dialogues. Playing it felt perfunctory as it fails to elevate or at least respect any good FMV games before it. Though I've had few instances of surprises like actual good plots and some jump scares thrown into the mix even if they did little to assuage the problems this game has.

Technicality

So the visual presentation in this movie seems great, the production seems nice as there were times I saw the cinematography, I thought this has relevance to the themes of the game. It just worked well, but as a connected tissue, some of the footages and editing tries too hard to be hard edged thriller, but can be little disjointed as well. I felt disconnected at certain periods.

Sound quality is way too loud, like they're speaking through some kind of filter with the audio in high pitch. It sounds loud and a bit muffled at times. I've seen enough movies and TV shows to know that the audio quality here is little subpar.

Summation

It's pretty half-assed. I mean there's so much you can do but the motive is lost after seeing some of its issues resurface.

While it's a fine game, it barely scratches the surface for greatness especially considering it's from the same people who made Late Shift.

6/10