Review: Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (IGM)

"I’ll come out and say it, I LOVE concept art. There’s just something so pleasant about seeing a creator’s pure unadulterated vision; one that isn’t clouded by the harsh realities of modern game development such as hardware limitations, finite budgets and the incessant cries of “add more space marines” from the marketing department. But for something so beautiful, it gets treated pretty badly; mainly being relegated to obscure ‘bonus’ sections as a cheap and easy way to fill them out. I think the most apt moniker I’ve heard it be given in recent memory was “the mechanically separated chicken meat of video games”. Lovely.

But that makes it all the more interesting that Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet was headed up by hollywood artist Michel Gagné (of Iron Giant fame), an immensely talented concept artist who, by his own admission, knows absolutely naff-all about games. His mission? Create a video game that truly captures the essence of that high quality 2D artwork without any compromise.

So, did it work?"