Shadow Complex for free

Update: The Video has now been taken off Youtube, because of "a copyright claim by Epic Games, Inc.". That's to be expected I suppose. I've added a little more detail to the instructions so that it is still clear without the video.

Original Article:

This is kind of naughty, and I feel a little bad for the developers, but here it is.

Play through the demo as normal, and just after you acquire the grenades, there is a boss fight with the big spider robot.

Beat the boss as normal, and as soon as it's health bar is down to zero, and it starts exploding, keep hammering the start button. It won't let you pause immediately, but when it does, select "load last save".

This glitch allows you to play the full game of Shadow Complex just from the Demo. It essentially skips the point where the demo ends, and lets you carry on for the rest of the game. I've tested it myself, and can confirm it works.

I assume you'll need to play the whole game in one setting, since I don't think you'll be able to resume you game from the demo, but it's not too long a game anyway.

I think it's probably for the best if you treat it like an extended demo. If you play beyond the demo, and enjoy it, then buy it. You'll probably want to replay it anyway.

45 comments:

George said...

I don't think you should be posting this stuff here. There's a line between "get a good deal" and "here's how to steal".

Anonymous said...

"This is kind of naughty, and I feel a little bad for the developers, but here it is." - not bad enough to stop yourself from teaching people how to steal their game, obviously.

Anonymous said...

So how long before you start posting torrent links and cracks on SavyGamer? Great deals!

LewieP said...

Well, I'm not going to try and be in charge of your consciences, if you're not comfortable doing this, then I urge you not too.

I have done the glitch, and to be honest, am now planning to buy the game, whereas just based on the demo I wasn't convinced.

Anonymous said...

Bullshit.

Paul Moloney said...

I can't see the moral difference between posting this information and posting a link to a torrent.

P.

Anonymous said...

Pretty low blow frankly. Don't see why you felt the need to post this here.

Anonymous said...

horrible. scamming game.co.uk was equally bad.

Claus said...

I realize that you're not the judge of your readers' sense of morale and hence you feel "safe" in posting this.
But I am disappointed in your own morale for posting this.
Doubly so because the game is bloody brilliant and deserves to be a commercial success.

As "Anonymous" posted above: How long before tou start posting torrent links? same thing.

Vordus said...

It's certainly an interesting bug/exploit. It's hardly stealing the game though, as it doesn't allow the player to save, gain the achievements, or keep the game without using the exploit every time.
I'd also expect this to be patched out pretty much ASAP.

Come to think of it, considering that every XBLA game is deliverd as a full game with a limitation imposed by the software, I'm actually suprised this hasn't happened before.

Jesus2nd said...

I honestly don't see whats wrong with doing this, Like he said, if you like what you play then buy it

And there is a MASSIVE difference between torrenting and legally downloading a demo from Xbox live marketplace then pressing the start button a few times

If you dont like it then dont do it -.-

PS.fucking love this site

MohamedJihad said...

Good post man.

It's a glitch, not a link to a freakin' torrent, so don't bother with all those twats who have some morality issues.

Great site by the way.

ape2man said...

Its not stealing. Your playing demo even after loading the save game. Its there mistake. Your not responsabele for there mistakes

Adam said...

This reminds of a Destructoid article, which proposed the idea of paying (or in that case donating) for a game after you finished it, rather than beforehand.

The moral issue is not with you for posting a glitch, but whoever takes advantage of it and doesn't pay.

Anonymous said...

This is a very different issue from posting cracks and torrents. This is part of the developer code. Savvygamer has probably done the developer a favour and this obviouly got through testing and they can now fix the code.

Persus-9 said...

@ Adam: Lets say your bank erroneously sent me a letter with your debit card details but I didn't take any of your money for myself but rather posted the information on my website. Would you say I'd done anything wrong there? After all I haven't taken anything, I've just told other people how. Would you say in that case that the moral responsibility for any subsequent loss of money from you account was entirely the moral responsibility of the people who actually steal from you?

@ Markusdragon: But by the same token downloading a torrent is often (so I hear) doesn't give you access to achievements, multilayer parts of the game or being able to play it without breaking DRM every time. I agree that downloading

I don't see the difference myself, the act seems essentially the same, what you're doing is gaining access to content which the developer intended that you should only have access to if you pay them. The method strikes me as irrelevant as long as it isn't done accidentally.

Thus I believe this is the moral equivalent of piracy; I also believe most games piracy is wrong; I also believe that people have a moral responsibility for all the consequences of their actions (even if all they did was someone else the choice to perform another action) and so I believe that informing a large and unremarkable group of people how to perform an action that's morally equivalent to piracy is likely to be wrong.

Unknown said...

@Adam Oh Snap

Vordus said...

@Persus-9
In a similar regard, if someone gives you a book, but puts a chain around the second half of it and puts a lock on it, then tells you that to read the second half of the story, you should pay them money, is it your fault when it turns out that they forgot to check that the lock was actually locked?

But in any regard, the argument is rather pointless as it's going to be patched to oblivion as soon as it hits the mainstream blogs.

Adam said...

@ Persus 9: Playing a cracked demo is not the same as taking money from their account, but I see your point.

I honestly think LewieP thinks better of his readers than to steal a game they enjoyed without paying down the line.

Zuhzuhzombie said...

Wow.

So to combat a guy who has an opinion you don't like, you encourage people to STEAL?

Way to trade one terrible quality for another.

Nice loss of credibility there.

A Leeds Cyclist said...

Persus-9 talks too much.

So, you can't save the game? If someone does this, then sits through the game for 12 hours in one run purely to avoid paying for it, then there's something desperately wrong with them.

As an extended demo (A time limited demo if you will) I don't see the issue.

In fact an awful lot of demos would give a much better impression if they gave you the full game and just disabled the ability to save :)

TheMinusFactor said...

Everyone complaining about the "morality" of this article fails to realize two things: 1) Doing this is NOT illegal, and 2) You pointing this out allows the developer to fix the problems, while at the same time increasing exposure to the game.o

Peter said...

LOL, what all of you whining about, if developer cannot control his code, it his loss, its far from stealing.....

Mandy said...

@ indicating a bug is not stealing; this is entirely different to the case of showing card details. Remember the card details is personal information. A program bug is not.

@ i won't try the glitch. But even if it works, it doesn't mean "gaining access to content which the developer intended that you should only have access" is valid, as nobody know what content is forbidden. Maybe the content is an "package" of gameplay + achievement + leaderboard. Unless you have legal definition, what you accuse is your subjective opinion.

What I mean accusing people stealing is serious, are you sure you has right to do it.

@ For me, I won't post it if I know it works, not because of morality issue, (no issue at all), just save me trouble!

Paul Moloney said...

"Everyone complaining about the "morality" of this article fails to realize two things: 1) Doing this is NOT illegal"

Yes, well done. That's we didn't say it was illegal, we said it was immoral, two entirely seperate concepts. Jesus, there is now straw all _over_ the place.

P.

Anonymous said...

Oh for crying out loud people, Cliffy B touched this game and therefor it should be made free, cuz that sodomizing boy lover needs to be sterilized, then shot in the face.

Stop worshiping the ground that dude walks on. Gears of War is a shitty game, and Unreal Tournament became shitty when Cliffy B rubbed his grundle on it.

Anonymous said...

This is not either immoral or illegal, stop whining you losers, besides he's just pointing out that there's a glitch in the demo that lets you play through it, its not like he's telling you to do it and to not buy the game, as he is gonna buy it.

Joe said...

Pointing out this bug increases exposure to the game and of the bug itself (so that it can be fixed rather than being a dirty little secret that a few take advantage of.)
It also has and will, in at least one case (LewieP's) actually increases the number of copies of the game sold. Though it may also in some cases reduce sales ("I won't pay if I don't have to") but some of the people who do that would be the ones who feel ripped off because they think the full game is not worth the cost anyway.

Basically - it is not a cut and dry, black and white situation. There are both good and bad (moral and immoral) consequences to this post.
Also, the assumption that "each 'pirated' copy = one less sale" is simply incorrect.

Johnnie Mac said...

hmmm - seems like a sure fire way to get your XBox Live account blocked to me...

Anonymous said...

Interesting to see SavyGamer decide to share this with people, knowing full well its encouraging gamers to steal the game. I guess its good legit media decided to show more respect.

Persus-9 said...

@ Markusdragon: Yeah, I'll bite that bullet. I think you have a moral obligation not to read the 2nd half of that book without paying. I admit that's a counter intuitive result but I think it's probably right.

@ Adam: Maybe, I guess I just don't think that much of any group of people found on the internet.

@ Kie: Maybe, maybe. I should say I'm not entirely convinced Lewie was wrong to post this and if he was right then I think it'll be for the reasons you describe.

@ Peter: If you forget to take the keys out the ignition of your car it's your loss, it's far from mugging. That's a very crude example but still...

@ Mandy: So you think the problem with me posting your card details online would be the invasion of privacy rather than the fact you'd loose all your money?

You're suggesting that this might actually be something like an Easter egg? That is might have been the developers intentions. That's quite an interesting angle, I like that.

Also since most of your message seems to have been directed at me I'd like to point out that I never accused anyone of anything like stealing, I don't think piracy morally equivilent to stealing at all.

@ Paul Moloney: Well said.

@ Joe: Yeah that was kind of what all the qualifications, saying it was only likely to be wrong and that piracy is mostly wrong were pointing at.

I basically agree with everything you said there Joe but I guess I'm just more pessimistic about human nature. In my real world social life I've met an awful lot of pirates who pirate immorally and think it's downright stupid to spend money on games if you can avoid it and I've met maybe one moral pirate who actually buys games that they think are worth it. So whilist I agree that piracy can be a perfectly moral activity I think I've good reason to believe that in general it isn't and in fact the bad consequences are outweighting the good. It would be nice to think I'm wrong but I just don't believe it.

Finally, quoted for truth: "Persus 9 talks too much." - Kie

Anonymous said...

OMFG YOU ARE STEALING!11! Seriously, if people enjoy it they will buy it because its much easier to access when you purchase the full game, if anything this may help boost people to buy it, so stop QQing all of you.

Anonymous said...

ahhh man get over it aint none of yous got anything better to do thn moan they should be mre careful about making mistakes like tht hes only telling u that its there like so why dont yous justshut up dont do it if you think its bad !!

Anonymous said...

Read the Xbox Live terms of use thank you. You can play the full game on payment.

5. How You May Not Use the Service.

"use the Service in a way that harms us or our advertisers, affiliates, resellers, distributors, or vendors , or any customer of ours or our advertisers, affiliates, resellers, distributors, or vendors;" i.e.Loss of potential revenue

"exploit a bug, or make an unauthorized modification, to any software or data to gain unfair advantage in a game , contest, or promotion" - i.e. to play the game in full without payment

enough said

Unknown said...

To... well, the top two comments anyways: This is posted here not to teach us to steal. It's here for traffic. If you do the glitch, you are stealing. It ain't these guys' faults.

Paul Moloney said...

I hope that LewisP takes into account the fact that most of the people backing him up won't even put their names to their opinions.

Personally, I thought Gears of War was utterly boring too, but that's completely besides the point. It's funny how pirates justify their activities because some games don't have demos. Well, in this case, the game has a demo, but that's not good enough it seems.

P.

nateb said...

damn i wish i knew about this before i bought the game. i have friends that will not buy this because of its orson scott card connections i will pass this on.

YalloW said...

Xbox made an update just now 20:00 GMT and now it just loades the checkpoint before the boss :(

Riot said...

Great post, SavyGamer, award yourself 1000 internets.

Anonymous said...

No achievements. Not worth it.

Djeee said...

To be honest , i was hoping for this game to be good and it proved to have amazing graphics and decent gameplay.
Furthermore i like the idea of an exploit because ,I don't openly approve the sudden rise of MS points for another arcade game.Yes this may look good but not for an extra payment.
And i think the moralhuggers should applaud themselves for being so righteous and samaritan.But don't go around preaching other people because it tends to be very snobbish ie your looking down on people from your glass house anyway to end this all here's a rather explicit picture that really sums it up (SFW tho)

Anonymous said...

It is incredible how people complain about morality about using this glitch. Is it moral that people get rich by selling weapons to third world countries?
That patents do not let countries in Africa create their own medicines? Why people keep saying how immoral is to play for free a game? why companies can make profit of the legal system and not us?

Anonymous said...

wowo, thanks! going to try this later.

Anonymous said...

lol

If it weren't for this bug, I wouldn't have even downloaded the demo, let alone buy the real thing.

Blue.X said...

Let's be real to our-self, people.
half of the players are rich, the the other half aren't.

but we all like gaming.

a glitch or a torrent, no different to me, 'cause it is free either way. but one's feeling for gaming can be.

those who just want a time waster, free is what they want.

for those who are down to gaming, they will buy it and tell their friends to buy it.

no hard feeling, that is just how the balance is.

but please do this.
no matter you are buying or not, if you think it is good game, post you idea and feeling about it and send email to those who created it.
give those who work hard to create this little "world" some thank, may be more than nothing.