Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

[YellerDog]

Because touchscreen controls are WTG on old-school Konami style games?

[Joust Williams]

no but neither is having two small ass screens separated by a big ass gap

[YellerDog]

wah wah wah

[Yoshi]

Thus the $0.99 qualifier.

[YellerDog]

I hope it's worth it. You'd pitch that fancy spacephone out the window after about ten seconds on that game.

Touchscreen touchscreen *dead*.

[Yoshi]

lol Good point.

[bVork]

Turrican is similar to Contra (with a dash of Metroid) but really goes its own direction. If you haven't ever played Turrican II, you've missed out on something special. There's also Ruff 'n' Tumble, which initially looks like a blatant Contra clone but actually requires you to play a lot more conservatively.

Still, I think you're doing it wrong if you're trying to find Western games that play exactly like Japanese games. That's not really the point. If you simply prefer Japanese game design, fine. But there are plenty of unique Western games that do what they do just as well as Japanese classics.

There are games like Uridium 2, which is a unique two-way shooter whose closest cousin is Fantasy Zone, but that doesn't even begin to describe the way it plays. There's The Chaos Engine and Alien Breed games are vaguely in the style of Gauntlet but definitely go their own direction. Apidya is an awesome shmup that stands up to Japan's best. Extase is an utterly unique puzzle game with a fantastic dynamic soundtrack that beat Rez to the whole synaesthesia concept by nearly a decade. Moonstone is a hack-and-slash and boardgame combo with a lot of emphasis on very careful positioning. It's one of the last games to use the old International Karate control scheme. And then there's the single-screen platformer Qwak, the vaguely-arena-shooterish-but-not-really Virocop, Gem'X, Captain Blood, and many more.

Anyway, if you just want to be lame and check out the best-of-the-best, play Turrican II, Extase, Magic Pockets, and Qwak.

[Yoshi]

Anyway, if you just want to be lame and check out the best-of-the-best, play Turrican II, Extase, Magic Pockets, and Qwak.

Noted. Thanks!

[Mzo]

So this is finally out, and my Xbox is in a home where it can't reach the router and my model doesn't do wireless.

Has anyone bought this yet? Impressions?

I loved what I played at PAX.

[epmode]

I heard it looks great, plays well but is more linear and simplistic than most Metroid style games.