Dark days have befallen the world. There is a noticeable lack of truly intriguing entities that are worthy of the time and effort required to dispatch them. Additionally, an extreme quiet permeates everything. Meanwhile, outreached tentacles and glowing, curled hills straight out of The Nightmare before Christmas offer false temptations all around the lone adventurer. This scenario perfectly describes both the first level of Fuelcell’s Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet as well as your local game store’s new release section.
After an opening scene that is both a visual and aural delight, Shadow Planet thrusts you in control of a creepy little alien character humorously throwing oversized switches in order to pilot his saucer through a poisoned planet. The shadow blight plaguing the landscape makes for a game that looks infinitely more interesting than it actually is. At least, so it will seem during your early time with the side-scrolling shooter.
Actually, calling it a shooter is a bit misleading. Yes, players fly around in a teensy stereotypical ‘50s-looking UFO and periodically fire off their ‘pechew-pechew’ laser gun in at airborne and landlocked enemies that mindlessly attack anything within their reach. That being said, the real attraction here are the puzzles that often have much more depth to them than their innocent appearance would leave space travelers to believe.
The obstacles that Fuelcell has liberally spread around the titular Shadow Planet are not the types that have a propensity for sending players into rage-induced fits of controller tossing. Saw through some cleverly disguised rubble here; guide a fly-by-wire rocket through a twisting cavern here; and, oh yes, properly redirect some lasers through a series of redirections up ahead.
These obstructions are of the best kind: those that pose a legitimate challenge and occasionally flummox adventurers while rarely dipping into the realm of cheap tricks or obtuse designs. Instead, they stray ever-so-slightly from the beaten path and mandate the usage of the latest tool or weapon – of which there are an impressive amount – while requiring some genuine thought and exploration. Backtracking is certainly encouraged for both impediments and upgrade/collectible hunting, but it isn’t overdone to a point at which it would become irksome. The constant usage of a grabbing-arm mechanism that is a joy to operate to overcome these hindrances further props up the problem-solving segments.
The grabber-dealie (for lack of more proper vernacular) is a tool of vast usefulness for getting past barriers as well as for both offensive and defensive maneuvers when in combat. Among the other equipment that players will acquire is a laser beam (different from the laser gun), fly-by-wire rockets, a way pointer and a buzz saw. All have their uses and can be upgraded by grabbing pickups that are stowed away in the twisted bowels of the, um, twisted world.
Despite the lackadaisical nature of the earliest portion of the game, things do gain steam as players advance further into the game. That is a good thing, because the beginning tends to inspire feelings of “Is this it?” Still, most enemies are best avoided rather than fought. This is because nothing is gained by defeating them and they all infinitely respawn in alarmingly quick fashion.
Much of the experience is further dampened by the noticeable lack of music. Gentle ambiance plays for basically the entirety of the ride. Plenty of other titles have gone down that road and done so successfully, so doing so certainly does not preclude a game from boasting an appealing and appropriate sound track. The trouble here is that it is just far too light and there is not nearly enough action taking place most of the time to offset it.
Even on those occasions in which the game play tempo does ramp up for boss fights, the music fails to follow suit. Fuelcell overcomes this issue by providing boss battles that are infinitely more entertaining than your run-of-the-mill shadow combatants. Players must intently pay attention to their surroundings; memorize attack patterns; call upon various payloads; and adjust tactics on the fly during these skirmishes. They’re great fun and the developers deserve any praise they receive for their design.
Speaking of giving props, the artistic wizardry on display in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is most impressive. The environments are both horrific and wonderful; many foes organically blend in with the purely aesthetic vines, mechanical devices and appendages that grow right out of the very earth itself. Much to my delight, the game is not all one big dark world, either; oceanic and ice/crystalloid levels, among others, nicely break up the shadows.
Controls work just fine for the most part, with the option to quick-map four weapons/items to the face buttons and an ability to pull up a wheel for fairly simple access to the rest of the arsenal working quite well. It would be irresponsible not to mention the horrendous mechanics involved in controlling the fly-by-wire rockets, however.
These bad boys are mostly used for puzzle solving – although they do indeed have offensive usefulness as well – and must be guided by the usage of the right analogue stick. I’ve no doubt that their usage will be second nature to left-handed gamers, but righties will groan every time they are forced to use the right thumb to steer them with overly-sensitive controls that operate more like a loosey-goosey arcade stick than a modern controller stick. This odd decision led to the sole instances in which I groaned audibly and walked away from the game in disgust.
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet has the dubious honor of being the second best game to arrive during 2011’s Summer of Arcade. Its silence is confounding and, frankly, boring. Combat, outside of awesome boss fights, is passable at best. On the flip side, Fuelcell and Gagne International have delivered a charmingly beautiful world full of inventive puzzles and enjoyable exploration. Given those elements and the fact that the industry is currently slogging through a summer that is particularly bereft of quality releases, Shadow Planet is a no-brainer pickup for Xbox owners trying to make it through the summer.
