The Complex Rapid Review
Fast Facts
Title: The Complex
Developer: Wales Interactive
Publisher: Wales Interactive
Website: The Complex
Genre: Unique, Movie, Action, Thriller
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Age Rating: 18 PEGI
Release Date: 31/03/2020
Price: £9.99 – Rapid Reviews was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.
Welcome to my review of The Complex, the new interactive movie by publisher Wales Interactive. It’s joining the host of new interactive movies like the popular Netflix Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and You vs Wild. This is the 90’s sci-fi version of the films, and that comparison should lead you into what to expect from this latest release.
Close to Home
Now without giving too much away, The Complex (not that you could spoil the plot) is about an outbreak of nanotech in London and the scientist team in charge of keeping the thing under wraps while learning from past mistakes and knowing who to trust along the way.
The game plays out early on from a past perspective giving you some history to the two main characters in the film and trying to provide you with difficult choices from the off. Once this short scene is over your onto the present day, and two scenes play out at once that you have little influence on which leads to the main story of the film.
I got to say with the current Corona Virus fear spreading around the world this game has either come out at the ideal time to capture the people stuck indoors or will put people off with the subject being so close to what’s actually going on right now.
Stars of the complex
The main story of The Complex follows the scientist named Dr Amy Tenant as she tried to persuade her major company that nanotech is the way forward to help them be the first people and country on Mars. Things go wrong, and you spend most of the film in a lab below the earth that is sectioned off from the world to stop the nanotech from getting to the general public.
Your not alone as your ex-boyfriend and old colleague joins you to add a relationship factor to the game while you try and decide what to do with the member of staff who is locked in an airtight container after contracting the supercells.
Of course, this would already sound like a tough situation, but then you also have the bad guys breaking into the complex trying to get hold of the employee and the nanotech for some evil scheme.
Complex, Choices, Choices, Choices
As I touched on the game is an interactive story, you get points (around 75 times a play) that you can pick one of two routes or responses from your character, Dr Amy Tenant. The first time you watch or play the film, it’s quite entertaining my wife, and I picked what we wanted to do and watched to see what happened by the end.
It has a few funny moments between Dr Tenant and her colleagues, and the choices though didn’t seem to make much of an influence on the film in front of me. Although you had relationship percentages while playing, I purposely placed one in my bad books to try and influence interaction on screen without much luck.
It took around 90 minutes to play the game the first time, once you load it back up you can use R1 to skip parts that you cannot change or have seen previously meaning you can get your second ending in around 20 minutes. The game states it has approximately nine endings, but as of now I have only seen two (i think I need to be more ruthless!)
B-List or Z-List
Apparently, you can kill all the people in the film, I haven’t managed this yet, but I will succeed eventually. The acting is very much day time TV or straight to video with so don’t expect anything cinema worthy here.
One thing I did notice about The Complex was the special effects in some places were very low budget, the green screen tech has not been pushed to its limits, and the sets used although good to the eye are obviously cheap and nasty when you see people push or fall against them.
If you are a fan of a low budget sci-fi film though and want something to watch during isolation that can be viewed again and again if you want to experience varied endings then this game or film will be right up your street.
Rapid Verdict
This was a hard game to review as essentially its a movie, and I can’t spoil the movie for you so I can’t go into too much detail of mechanics, gameplay and story without doing that.
I would say the interactive and choice aspect is only apparent in the end game of the film with everything before that just there to keep you thinking you influence the outcome.
Grab the family have a watch and enjoy the 90 mins of fun, just don’t expect anything groundbreaking.
Rapid Reviews Rating
