The Complex

I normally wouldn't purchase a game like this, but it was on sale in the Microsoft Store. It was a really fun experience - like a choose-your-own-adventure book, except in movie format. I'd categorize the story as a suspense thriller, and while it got a little cheesy at times, it remained both interesting and suspenseful. The acting was very high quality, particularly the female lead. Collectively, these made for a really enjoyable interactive movie experience, which has now interested me in similar genre titles.

Not sure if the game differs between platforms, but my experience was on the Xbox Series X!

Don't waste your life / money on this one. As a game, the technical implementation is all right - it doesn't crash, I didn't encounter bugs and was able to complete the game. It's not possible to pause the movie portions and there's no save option so if you want to see all endings, you'll have to replay from the beginning. (You won't want to, trust me.)

Movie quality is decent and the music is passable.

Now for the negatives:

• Incompetent, idiotic writing. Kindergarten plays have more coherent, thought-out stories with fewer cliches. The whole thing is just so, so very stupid, it's really hard to describe it.

• There are more plot holes than story.

• The "science" is just... moronic. This goes hand-in-hand with the bad writing but as a sci-fi story (heavily focused on science), this is criminally bad.

• Acting ranges from mediocre to poor; I'd really prefer not seeing any of these actors in movies in the future. Everyone would be better off if they switched to other professions.

I liked the X-Files Game and Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within so it's not the genre (FMV game) that is the problem - this one is just really poorly done.

I could keep going but you probably see the pattern already. Do yourself a favor and avoid it.

Some of the acting is a little awkward and the music isn't always seamless between the scenes and choices but it's definitely an improvement over Shapeshifting Detective and Doctor Dekker.

Really loved it, if anything it felt short I just wanted more. Everything happened so fast that it really made each choice feel intense and I loved that..

This is a video game - yet it's also a movie. Or multiple movies in a sense. While the core is the same, you decide the fate(s) ... and depending on your decisions the outcome is different. I personally would have loved a few more variations regarding the ending, but that's me.

Acting is rock solid and this is at least decently told. If like me you're a fan of this kind of storytelling you'll like this too. And will explore different outcomes but also different variations of where relationships are going