Review: Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

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Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet presents the player right from the start with a bit of back-story, as twisted creatures fall from space onto helpless planets turning them into corrupt biomes for the dangerous things that lie in wait. While all of this madness unfolds right before your eyes you make haste to teleport to the mysterious planet in search of survivors and to find out exactly what happened. With the back-story out of the way there’s the game itself with your lone UFO to traverse a whole map full of unique environments with some absolutely gorgeous artwork all throughout and enough challenging puzzles to confuse the most bold of players.

As you’re thrown into the Campaign of the game you’ll need to fight your way through seven different environments on one very large, and extremely well done map.  While traversing the world you’ll be collecting a total of nine unique tools ranging from the typical blaster to fight off shadow enemies, a claw to collect objects, remote-controlled rockets, ranging all the way to the classic UFO tractor beam in order to survive, collect relics, and progress. The relics for the campaign provide a glimpse as to what progressed through the evolution of the shadow planet creatures that came and went to conquer the galaxy as you collect relic pieces hidden away on the map. With the elements such as the map and tools the shadow planet will constantly throw you a curve-ball as you try to progress through the levels with the beginning easy puzzles, to the crippling puzzles further into the game providing a challenging, yet rewarding experience.

As a bonus the developers included a game mode known simply as “Lantern Run” which can either be played locally or online via Xbox LIVE with up to four other people. The goal of this game mode is a race against the clock. You carry up to four lanterns with you on a grappling hook as a giant tentacle monster chases after you trying to extinguish all of them and destroy your ships. Along with simply trying to stay alive , you’ll also be given the opportunity to gain extra points through killing enemies scattered around as well as gain points from the lanterns you have. For what it’s worth Lantern Run is a fun little mode to take your mind off of the extreme puzzles of the main game and is great fun with enough friends, or if you’re adventurous you could even try it alone, either way you’ll be climbing the leader-boards.

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The best element of the game by far is the graphics seen all throughout the landscape, while the game-play is fun and challenging and the music in the game is rarely heard the graphics really bring this game together. The vibrant and detailed graphics for every part of this game is spectacular with the detailed dark shadow areas, to the tron-like electronic areas, the chilling (and bright!) winter areas, and everything in-between looking gorgeous in HD. This game is an instant classic simply for the sheer excellence presented in everything this game has to offer, even the concept art collectables scattered around the world look wonderful as they give you a glimpse as to how the game progressed through the varied development stages.

Onto one of the lesser parts of the game, the music which in the menu screen, credits, and relic videos you can clearly make out the music but when you’re actually in-game for the most part you’ll be hearing complete quiet to help you concentrate on the puzzles and amazing sound effects from the game. While the music is rare in the game, the vibrant sound effects for the weapons and creatures make up for it, but a nice background track would have been a welcome addition to keep the player moving along. Regardless, the actual music you hear is a great mashup of orchestral tracks that add a lot to the the short occasional videos you’ll see from relics and opening videos.

Overall this game is a true side-scrolling UFO puzzler for anyone, with enough challenge and items to keep the player coming back for more and more to finally hit the 100% completion mark in about 5-6 hours depending on how often you’re going to be playing the game. While the time to complete the game is short for $15 it is still an excellent game for anyone that enjoys a solid 2D side-scrolling shooter, with some of the best artwork I’ve seen since the likes of Limbo, and a few other XBLA gems in the past.

Hopefully the games following after this for the Summer of Arcade promotion keep up the high quality game-play and style presented from Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, as they have a lot to live up to now after the three great games already released. While Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet may not be the longest game for the whopping $15 bucks, there will undoubtedly be a discount on the price in the future if you’re on the fence because of the price.