Lifeless Planet Premier Edition

For a Kickstarter game I obviously did not expect, nor demand, game quality at the level of those million dollar studios, but I was quite surprised. It was a good game. Having only watched the preview trailer before playing, I expected a science fiction type game with a diverse and immersive environment and the feeling of isolation and abandonment. In my opinion, that's exactly what I got. That said, there were two things I did not like about this game. The first was the platform jumping, the extent of which I completely did not expect. The second frustration are the checkpoints. If you die you restart at a checkpoint, but if you "Save and Quit" you restart at the beginning of the level (chapter). Some of the checkpoints are very consistent and some are not at all consistent. I understand that the developer, David Board, is going to be putting out some patches to add more auto-saves, which will be good. Overall, I liked the game and am glad it was available on GOG for purchase, although the opening price of $19.99 is a bit high in my opinion. Other than the few bugs I ran into where I got stuck, or teleported to another place when using the robot arm (use the reload checkpoint option to correct it), the game was enjoyable and the story unique and interesting. I do wish the story line played out a little longer, but it did play to an adequate conclusion.

Walking-sim / puzzle-platformer hybrid. If you're looking for action, you won't find it here. But if you want to wander large open spaces and solve some simple puzzles while picking up some scraps of story on the way, it can be an enjoyable & relaxing time. 7/10

Lifeless Planet is not just a game. It's a Science Fiction book that you "read" by playing the game. The story is one of the most interesting SciFi ones I've played, watched or read. Well, there are some exaggerations about what the Soviets were supposed to have done as an "experiment" to one of their own... Anyway, I'd say it's equally good to the Dig's story. It's about exploring the once-inhabited-now-lifeless world you're on and that's the best part of it. Exploring the unknown. The graphics are really good as well as the sound. The gameplay is fine (could be a bit smoother in some cases but nothing serious) and it's as "repetitive" as every other game. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes SciFi, either if it's literature, movies or games.

Apparently this was made by one person and it shows. The animations are very rudimentary; they kind of remind me of things I used to do in Second Life in college. The movement is weird, too. Why does moving left or right also rotate the camera? If you want to circle strafe something, you're constantly fighting against the camera. There's no in-game button remapping, and if you use the built-in config thingy the game doesn't acknowledge it and still tells you to use e for the grapple arm even though that's your move forward button now. Don't play the game with a controller plugged in. It just spin the camera forever. And no, it's not, as he claimed on the Steam forums, a hardware issue. That doesn't happen on any other game of mine. Those are all little issues. The real problem is the game just isn't that interesting. You aren't really doing anything fun, and the story doesn't do it for me either. Nothing about this game makes it worth $20.

I'm not big on reviews, but this time I just had to make my voice heard. I'm not saying that the game is bad, it isn't. You might enjoy it thoroughly if you like sadistic platforming. However, to me, that intense platforming was extremely frustrating in a game that I expected to be an interactive story with some puzzles. Cons: - Intensive and excessive platforming. You should be grateful that you haven't heard me raving when I had to repeat the same section for the 26435863245th time. Most of the time it felt like filler, it was unnecessary in some places and also unnecessarily difficult. - No user saves. Checkpoint save systems are bad, IMO, especially when the player is very likely to fail some maneuvers very often. OK, I think checkpoint save systems are bad in general. - The "Save and Quit" option from the main menu is a lie. There is no "Save" there, just "Quit". When you start the game again and choose to continue your game, you'll find yourself at the last saved checkpoint, at least on my Ubuntu. Pros: - The story. It's just interesting and sometimes it pushes your buttons, especially towards the end of the game. - The visuals and general atmosphere. To be completely honest, this is what kept me playing until I finished the game and a big part of why I rated the game 3 stars. There's great potential there, but please, PLEASE, don't spoil it with frustrating gameplay or just say it's a platformer and we'll know what to expect of it! That's it. I have a love/hate relationship with this game. End of story.