BattleToads
This game has a reputation for being insanely difficult. If you haven't played it, it's a beat-em-up where you play as a toad. A toad that apparently battles, I guess. Anyway, you go around beating up pig men and bats and stuff. Yes, it's difficult, and sometimes even unfair, but it's a pretty fun game. I still can't get past level 2, where you need to swing down this big cave on a rope, kicking bats and robots before they kill you. I'm not generally the biggest fan of shallow beat-em-ups like this, so I don't know if I'll play it enough to make a serious attempt to beat it.
Bionic Commando
I love this game. It's essentially a run-and-gun similar to contra or metal slug, except for some important differences that make it unique. First, you can't jump, or aim in any direction besides straight forward. Instead, you have a bionic arm which lets you swing around and climb up to different ledges. Sounds like a simple gimmick but it makes for a very fun game. The fact that you can't jump makes you completely rethink how you're going to travel anywhere. You also die in one hit most of the time (you can get armor powerups occasionally that allow you to sustain more), so you need to get seriously good with that bionic arm. There's a remake/sequel in development for the 360, PS3, and possibly the Wii as well, which essentially remakes the game with 3D graphics (but still played on a 2D plane). I'm looking forward to it, if it does come to the Wii.
Ice Climber
I'll admit, I only know about this game because the Ice Climbers are in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Regardless, I wanted to try out the game that Nintendo felt was important enough to warrant the addition of these characters to Smash Bros. So, I actually kind of like the concept of the game. Get to the top of the mountain. What I don't like is the controls. The jumping in this game feels terrible. It's basically a guessing game about whether you're going to hit your head on the ledge above you, or jump onto the ledge, or just miss the ledge and fall back down (possibly to your doom). You move very little horizontally when you jump, and the collision detection for your character's sprite is way off. It often looks like you're GOING to make a jump, but then you don't, and it seems like you fall right through half of the platform. I wish this game played better, because it might actually be fun.
Kid Icarus
This is essentially similar to ice climbers in concept. You need to ascend upward by jumping on platforms, and each time you go upward, the screen scrolls up with you and you cannot go back down without dying. The unique part of Kid Icarus is that the stages wrap around horizontally, so if you walk off the screen to the left, you'll appear on the right side. This leads to some somewhat interesting platforming, but overall a somewhat bland game. It's alright, but not amazing.
Metal Storm
Why isn't this game more well-known?! This is one of the most unique run-and-guns I have ever experienced. Again, it's sort of similar to contra, except that each level takes place in some sort of mechanical tunnel with robotic enemies on the ceilings and floors. You have the ability to reverse gravity at will, which will make you fall upward or downward. The gravity of enemies will reverse as well, so if they were on the ceiling when you were on the ground, they'll fall down to the ground while you move to the ceiling. It gets a little disorienting but ends up being a ton of fun. There's a lot of great level design based on this mechanic, that has you jumping upside down, reversing gravity while shooting, and using the gravity of enemies to get past obstacles and other traps. This is like what Mario Galaxy would have been like on the NES, except it includes a badass robot. Bottom line, this game owns.
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