Must post about how awesome Splosion Man is. toythatkills must be on crack!
It's okay at best. I'm sure I've posted about it a bunch of times but for me it has an issue which just should not be present in a platformer - inconsistent jumping. When you press the button you know pretty much what you're going to get, but you can never be 100% sure when you press it twice more that it's going to do exactly what you want. In Mario, for example, the mechanics are perfect, in Splosion Man it just doesn't feel right all the time and it means it's often not that fun wall-jumping or doing anything which requires precision. Add to that some horrible checkpointing, too. It has a habit of having looooooong easy sections followed by hard sections, and rather than put checkpoints at the start of the hard bit, it puts them before the easy bit which means you have to do it over and over again - this problem is especially prevalent later on. It's not like it's the worst platformer ever or anything, but it's nowhere near the best.
So here's 30 platformers on Xbox that I'd rather play than Splosion Man. Actually there's something like twice that, just in case you don't really define stuff as platformers the same way I do. I've tried to just include stuff that I feel has really strong platforming elements, so while not everything is going to be the same kind of thing as Mario, if you like Mario you should like pretty much everything here.
They're not all OMG INCREDIBLE, but they're all
absolutely worth playing, and they're all better than Splosion Man. In my opinion, obviously.
RETAIL
Sonic Generations is the best Sonic game ever, probably. Wasn't expecting to like it but I got 1000/1000 on it because it's just so well done.
Rayman Origins is amazing
Toy Story 3 has Toy Box mode, mainly, but the traditional platforming half is good fun too.
Prince of Persia, the 2006 one, is one of my favourite games this generation. The way you can get in a zone with it as you elegantly leap from one thing to the next is so chilled out.
Mirror's Edge, the time trials (and the DLC), are proper pure platforming and yet are unlike anything else, really.
Alice: Madness Returns is so good on easy, but pretty shit on hard because the combat really gets in the way. Worth playing on easy, though, absolutely.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary from when the series was about platforming and puzzles and not shooting mans in the faces.
Majin is kind of Zelda-like, if the entire game was one dungeon.
Mini Ninjas, I'll confess that I can't entirely remember how platformy this was, but I remember enjoying it tons.
Other stuff you could maybe consider with strong platforming elements like Portal, Ass Creed, Batman, Crackdown, etc.
XBLA
Sonic 1, 2, 3, Knuckles are, well, you know these. There's CD too, I guess, but I'm not so big a fan of it.
N+ is a lot like...
Super Meat Boy, they're both hard arena-platformers, but with really tight controls.
mercury Hg is amazing with your own soundtrack going.
Marble Blast Ultra you can't actually get any more, but if you were lucky enough to get it before then you'll know how good it is.
Trials HD, Evolution probably need no explanation.
Switchball is a bit like Marble Blast, but slower and more puzzle based.
Gripshift is a driving game, but it plays a LOT like a platformer, you'll know what I mean if you've played it.
Spelunky is probably second only to Trials in how great it makes you feel when you play it well, because you genuinely feel yourself getting better the more you play.
FEZ is FEZ.
South Park: Tenorman's Revenge is one I'm getting shit for, but it's genuinely good post-patch. There are tons of collectibles, tons of hidden areas, and the mechanics of it were improved massively in the patch so jumping isn't shit as it was before.
Warp is a top-down puzzle game, kind of, but there is loads of platforming elements. It's also brutal as fuck. It really surprised me how much I enjoyed this because I didn't enjoy the demo a great deal.
Outland has some of the nicest feeling jumping on XBLA.
Adventures of Shuggy is single-screen platforming with a ton of neat mechanics so hardly any two levels feel the same, you're always doing something new.
LIMBO is LIMBO.
Raskulls is kind of a racing game in a 2D platformer crossed with Mr Driller, and the formula works astonishingly well. The single player mode is kind of like Shuggy in that every level feels like it offers something new, and the multiplayer is excellent.
Doritos Crash Course is a game with a sequel I'm really looking forward to. It was a surprise how good this was and how much scope for time trials there is.
Cloning Clyde is little-known, but it's really good, you have to make clones of yourself to solve puzzles, etc.
Banjo Kazooie, Tooie are games you know.
Braid is Braid.
The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom is more puzzle than platformer, but it's still worth considering.
Mega Man 9, 10 are, well, pretty self-explanatory I guess.
Hell Yeah is on my to-do list at present, because I liked the trial.
SVC: Alex Kidd and co. has Alex Kidd in Miracle World as well as Shinobi.
Mark of the Ninja is the best stealth game I've ever played, I think. It's definitely way up there with MGS.
Lode Runner is Lode Runner. I prefer the puzzle mode to the more platformy mode, but here it is anyway.
The Maw is Twisted Pixel's one good game.
Lazy Raiders is a game where you control the world rather than the character, rotating it to make him tumble around.
Castlevania: SOTN, obviously.
Shadow Complex, also obviously.
EXIT, 2 are puzzle games with loads of inch-perfect platforming to do.
XBLIG
Apple Jack, AJ2 are the two best platformers on Xbox 360, they are incredible.
Little Acorns Deluxe is full of single-screen levels with stuff to collect and unlock.
Gateways is one huuuuuge lab which you have to explore with portals and gravity and all sorts of other stuff to mess with.
The Deep Cave is a hard platformer with pixelly graphics.
Ninja360 is 100 levels with a medal system and rotating levels, speedrunning is ace.
Volchaos is a nice platformer which both looks and feels really retro, in a good way. Gets tough, also.
Growing Pains has a neat mechanic where you're constantly growing, so you have to keep getting to bigger and bigger parts of the level as it shrinks around you. It's really clever.
Escape Goat is single screen puzzles, mostly, but with jumping and stuff.
T.E.C. 3001 is an over-the-shoulder running game, with a decent amount of risk and reward 'cause the faster you go, the harder it is, but the better your times will be.
Chester is pretty pure 2D platforming with loads of customisable art-styles
Platformance: Castle Pain, Temple Death are single screen games where you just have to make it to the end in as few deaths as possible. Kind of surprised this sort of thing wasn't done before, they're really good.
Blocks That Matter is an excellent puzzle game, kind of Mario meets Minecraft meets Tetris, with TONS of content and challenges.
Astroman is Metroidy.
Curse of the Crescent Isle is a NES-style platformer.
Whakman is a ball who rolls through levels collecting stuff.
Antipole is a platformer with gravity and various challenges and stuff.
Treasure Treasure: FFEE is a huge level you can play with a friend to overcome puzzles as you try to collect everything in one run. Beautiful GBA-esque graphics.
Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp, Saves Christmas are two platformers which are incredibly British, and have loads of cool stuff like rolling off enemies to reach higher platforms, etc, they can get quite hard late on. Silly amounts of content for the prices, much like most of these XBLIG recommendations.
Arkedo Series 001: Jump, 003: Pixel are Arkedo, and so obviously excellent.
Banana Split pretty much takes the Johnny Platform base and puts a banana in it.
Carneyvale Showtime is a thing where you swing around platforms and use momentum to reach the exits or collectibles.