lag0s
107,092
TA Score for this game: 402
Posted on 28 July 11 at 18:47 |
This review has 15 positive votes and 1 negative vote. Please log in to vote. |
Summer of Arcade 2011 continues with Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. The game opens with a dramatic overture by Dimmu Borgir as you watch a tiny (but sinister looking) alien blob approach a pristine planet, completely terraforming it into a twisted monsterous version of itself. You are placed behind the controls of a small UFO sent out to explore and clean up the mess that has become of the planet. After a brief introductory section to learn the basic controls, you are whisked away to the surface of this dangerous and inhospitable place to explore and puzzle your way through 5 different themed worlds.
At a glance the game looks like it will be a difficult twin stick shooter but in practice I found it to be much closer to an exploration action game like a Metroid. Timing and precision are a factor in Shadow Planet but the emphasis seems to be placed on puzzling through solutions to access new areas. As you explore each world you will unlock new weapons and attachments for your ship including a robot arm (which they use in some interesting ways), a laserbeam, a missile launcher, and more. These new weapons will unlock parts of previous areas and will be more or less effective on the enemies you encounter. It never felt like I was backtracking for no reason, and I often would return to previous areas to open new sections because I was enjoying the experience so much.
The shooting in the game is usually not too difficult, checkpoints which save and replenish your health are frequent, and as you upgrade your ship's defenses you can eventually withstand up to 6 hits without dying. Your UFO controls like a dream. The movement controls are precise and I found myself floating and dodging enemies pretty easily. The left thumbstick controls the ship's movement while the right thumbstick controls the aim of whatever attachment you have equipped. The trigger pull fires the weapon (or in the case of the arm attachment it clamps on). Holding RB brings up a radial menu that allows you to select a different attachment with the right stick while on the fly, but you can also hotkey up to 4 attachments to the face buttons for quick access.
Visually the game is stunning. The art style includes lots of black silhouettes with accents of bright coloring. It always seems as if something is moving either on the surface of the cave walls you or in the background. The world really does feel like a living place and very alien. Each world has a different theme and the theme is clearly expressed through the art direction of the scenery, enemies, and puzzles you encounter. These themes range from lush organic jungle to industrial and mechanical.
I appreciated the fact that the devs did not feel the need to spell everything out for the player. There is an attachment to scan your surroundings which gives you a hint as to how to progress through a puzzle but this is definitely a game about exploration. Each area ends with a boss fight that is a culmination of the mechanics you have used to get through that area. There are also a few "chase" sequences where you must move quickly to escape something coming from one side or the other, including a very memorable section where you are being chased by a giant monster in the dark.
This chase mechanic is the inspiration behind the multiplayer mode, Lantern Run. In this mode, a giant monster is constantly approaching from the left as you and up to 3 other players must fly through tunnels to the right while dragging lanterns. At various places the tunnels open up and it spawns a number of enemies, becoming a brief multiplayer version of Geometry Wars or Asteroids until the monster shows up and the chase continues. It's a marathon mode with no end point, but (at least playing it solo) it is a tense, challenging experience.
There are only two problems I see with this Shadow Planet. First, some may find the single player campaign short. It took me about 5 or 6 hours to progress through all 5 of the worlds and beat the boss, and this includes the back-tracking to unlock 100% of the map and try to find all the collectibles (there are 18 artifacts, 24 concept art, and 18 weapon/armor upgrades to find). Personally, I enjoyed every moment of the 5 hours and think it is absolutely worth the price but many may balk at the 1200 MS price tag. Second, the game is not particularly challenging. Those looking for a difficult, bullet-hell style twin stick shooter, this is not exactly what you are looking for. The puzzles aren't too complicated and the boss fights are pretty forgiving once you figure out the ways to beat them.
All in all, I loved Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet and would give it a very high recommendation. I know it is a little bit pricey, but they nailed the controls, the game is stunning visually, and I found exploring this delightfully strange world to be well worth the $15.
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This review has 15 positive votes and 2 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Lavindathar
347,735
TA Score for this game: 356
Posted on 01 August 11 at 15:58 |
This review has 7 positive votes and 0 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Picture the scene. A beautiful, picturesque planet with lush gardens, serene lakes and a skyline to die for, a secluded paradise. You play the part of an alien happy in paradise. Until one day, from out of nowhere comes a toxic contagious monstrosity – a plague, a virus, which lands on your planet and consumes it from the outside in. Where there were fields, there is now a sticky black mess, where there were lakes, there is an icy tundra, and the skyline is filled with darkness.
This is the basic premise of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. Your planet,is infected by a virus. It’s your job to cleanse the planet, and return harmony to your world. So you jump in your space ship and set off to right the wrongs.
The game opens beautifully. The opening cut scene is an amazing cinematic with incredibly sharp animated graphics to which I was immedietely intrigued. The whole thing, just looked, sharp. Upon entering the game itself, a thought struck me immediately. “This is Limbo, with colour”. I’m purely referencing the visual style here, but if you were to colour in Limbo’s world from it’s black and white tones, this is what you’d end up with. It’s at this point I finally get to take control of my spacecraft, which responds beautifully as I lift off from the docking station – and off I go, to save the world.
It’s fun, even if a little easy. It’s got a decent length, without getting boring. The visuals are stunning and varied, and the controls are spot on. Simple is never a bad thing.
At it’s core, ITSP is a platforming shooter/puzzle game. It reminds me of both Lunar Landar with feels of Echo the Dolphin. Each zone has a start point and a final destination – with a combination of enemies and gates along the way impeding your progress.
The game itself is set into seven zones incorporated into one huge map. There are no loading screens here as you can freely move from one zone to the next without having to wait. Each zone is distinctly different, from the submerged Ocean zone to the darkness of the Electric zone. The enemies in each zone are different too, although some are shared across multiple zones ; but there is still a unique feel in each. The Ice zone features snowflakes which break up upon destruction, the Ocean zone features Jellyfish that release a deadly ink cloud when they get shot. ShadowPlanet Productions have done a good job in making the worlds feel different, despite the fact the game runs on the same concepts all the way through.
To tackle the various enemies throughout the world, we’re going to need some serious firepower. Unfortunately, when the game starts, we have no weapons whatsover; but it doesn’t take long until we obtain our first, the gun. It’s as simple as it comes, but its effective. Click the right trigger, fire a bullet. It’s like a HD version of Asteroids. As you progress through the game you are slowly drip-fed weapons and utilities until you have a collection of eight, including a shield, a buzzsaw, an EMP pulse and rocket missiles. Each weapon has an enemy that it works incredibly well against, so you’ll find yourself using each weapon as you progress throughout the game.
The weapons also have a secondary purpose – most puzzles involve gates, and most gates can only be opened via usage of the correct weapon. It’s here that ITSP tries to offer some longevity ; for example, putting a gate in the second zone that requires the Traction Beam to open yet you only recieve the traction beam towards the end of the game. If you want to explore everywhere and get those collectibles, you’re going to have to backtrack.
Speaking of collectibles, there are quite a lot of them. We have 24 concept art icons, that when picked up open a new set of art in the extras menu of the main menu; we have armour and weapon upgrades, that as you collect more your ships armour/firepower will increase, and we have artifacts. There are eighteen artifacts, but I couldn’t discern their purpose. They do offer a small cutsecne when each tier is completed, but aside from that I think its just an added incentive to go back.
The opening cutscene is all you will get - no dialogue, no in game cutscenes to explain a bit more of the plot. Pretty much, the planet is infected, go save it.
The soundtrack in the game is of a mediocre standard. It didn’t stand out to be in any way, yet it was ambient enough so that I didn’t hate it by the end of the playsession. It did a job : the gun sounded like a gun, the saw, like a saw, with an eerie feel to the ambiance in the background.
The puzzles in the game are intriguing. Some were so easy they couldn’t be classed as puzzles yet some required such an obscure solution that I spent thirty minutes trying to solve them (I’m looking at you Mr Snake in the wind tunnel!). Most puzzles just consist of playing the game, selecting the correct loadout then backtracking to shoot a switch/move a box/grab a rock. There is no real tutorial system in the game, with the exception of one screen explaining the controls for each weapon – it means that you have to work out the best way to utilise your loadouts. The “info-beam” is a handy tool though; you fire it at an object, and it then tells you the corresponding weapon that interacts with it. Unfortunately, it takes away a lot of the intrigue and mystery, and ultimately makes the fairly easy puzzles even easier to solve. If I need to saw through a wall, let me figure it out on my own – I don’t want a big “saw” icon slapped on the wall when I use the info beam on it.
It’s here that I start to point out flaws with ITSP, and for me it has a few big ones. My main concern was the sheer lack of story. I know not all games need a story, but this is not Tetris. The opening cutscene is all you will get – no dialogue, no in game cutscenes to explain a bit more of the plot. Pretty much, the planet is infected, go save it. Seven hours later when you complete the game, we get the opening cutscene again, but this time in reverse (or near enough). I just felt that in between zones, a small 30 second clip to just hold the pace for a minute would of been wonderful. I wanted to be more immersed in ITSP, but unfortuntely, there was nothing to be immersed in.
My second huge issue with the game, is that most enemies can be bypassed. It’s a risky decision for any developer to make ; do we keep you locked in that room until all enemies are destroyed, or let you go where you want. They chose the latter, and unfortunately the game suffers for it. Players need a reason to stay and fight, and it just wasn’t offered here. I found myself nimbly dodging most enemies in my hunt for the next collectible, just because it was faster. Not necessarily easier, just faster.
My final issue, is once again related to the combat. ITSP is a puzzle/shooter, which is fine. The problem here I have, is the pace of the game. The puzzles slow the game right down, but unfortunately the combat sections do not speed it up. The enemies are usually slow, and killing or avoiding them is easy. They feel more of a nuisance than a threat. In fact, aside from boss battles throughout the game, I didn’t die once.
So how was the Multiplayer? It was great. Fun, fast and frantic.
The boss battles were entertaining enough, and I could sense inspiration from many older games. In fact, I’m pretty sure every boss mechanic here has featured in Sonic in some form or the other, but it wasn’t until I hit the last boss that I thought “Hey, I’m actually fighting a boss”. There were hundreds of mini enemies screaming towards me, whilst I’m dodging them and also trying to destroy my objective. The previous five bosses were much slower paced, and rather than being a frantic pot of mayhem, they were slow paced and co-ordinated exercises of patience. It’s a shame really, every boss should of been like the last boss – it would of made for a much more fun experience.
There is only one multiplayer mode on the game, and it’s called Lantern Run. The premise is simple (again) – your team has to drag your lanterns as far as you can go throughout the “rooms”. For every player there is a lantern, and they can be pulled or left at your discretion. Be warned though, you’re being chased by “The Hunter”. If he catches you, you die. If he catches your lantern, it pops. If all lanterns pop, or all team members die, its game over.
So how was it? It was great. Fun, fast and frantic. I played with three Americans (I’m English) and suffered no lag whatsoever, which is always a great start. Lantern Run brought the frantic feel of Asteroids that I was longing for, but co-operatively. There are mini puzzles here, but its more of a case of working as a team and communicating properly to get down the corridors to the “room”. Each room has a fight in it, where as the aim is to clear all the enemies then dig yourself out, get your lantern out, and get to the next room.
Every upgrade from the campaign is here in multiplayer, but its an added tactical choice as to who gets what. If a player dies, there are “checkpoints” where you will be reborn. If I was sounding like the campaign, was too slow paced and too easy, this is the exact opposite. It’s difficult in the later stages, and its incredibly fast paced. You can’t rest, not for a second – and if you think it’d get boring fast, doing the same thing over, your wrong. The corridors are random – corridor #1 on one playthrough will be different from corridor #1 on the next run. The random generation of the order of the corridors combined with the increased Hunter speed at later levels means sometimes getting the hard parts first is better – but you never know, and it just adds to the suspense. For a multiplayer mode so simple, the depth is incredible. With the decision of who gets the upgrades, whether you carry all four lanterns or just one, if you have an assigned shielder, shooter, carrier ; the possibilities are endless, and I can’t see it getting old.
Now, you’ve read the review to this point and your probably thinking it’s a very negative review. You’re wrong. ITSP is a very hard game to review due to it’s total simplicity. It’s hard to praise something thats good, if there isn’t much depth to what your praising. I can write about the flaws, because there is something there to write about – ITSP is a good game,I’m not sure if it’s 1200msp’s worth, but at 800msp I’d be happy with my purchase. It’s fun, even if a little easy. It’s got a decent length, without getting boring. The visuals are stunning and varied, and the controls are spot on. Simple is never a bad thing, just look at beans on toast.
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