Lifeless Planet Premier Edition

Lifeless Planet has a lot of issues and the few positives it has can’t come close to make it a worthwhile experience. The major issue is that the performance is terrible and the graphics are not very good. Even for a game from 2014 they’re sub par in most areas. The object detail; shadows; lighting; and physics are all sub par to bad. Now given what I just said imagine a game where even on lowest settings I only hit 60 FPS twice; spent most of my time between 30-40 FPS and if I put the settings on highest I drop to 20-30 FPS. Even on highest settings the graphics quality are bad enough that any system that is above onboard graphics should be slicing through this game with ease. There was also a fair bit of pop in regardless of settings. The story started off well enough and had me interested but I wasn’t overly on board with where it went near the end. That’s more a subjective opinion but still. I also think there were several little plot points that needed more work. I liked finding the past reports as a way to shed light on past events. The voice acting was well done. The game play itself was overall pretty decent. Platforming was, for the most part, fun but it could get a little clunky at times. The clunkiness was mostly in the jet pack being pretty finicky in my view. I understand the idea between timing your jumps at the right time but sometimes it just felt all over the place. The puzzles were a mixed bag. Some were very easy, some annoying. They did get a bit repetitive as there are about five kinds of puzzles but two of them made up the majority of puzzles. There were also times where you couldn’t go certain places and the game would kill you for trying. Literally killing you with an invisible wall at times. Fall damage was also all over the place. Sometimes a short fall could kill me; a long fall wouldn’t; and everything in between. I never could get used to the fall damage levels.

Very nicely told and creative (but not too important) story-line, impressive atmosphere, many puzzles of the type "how do I get there". There are also a bunch of jump'n'run parts, but also some passages were you a rather calm hand, too, like balancing on a powerline. :-) Even after hours on your journey, the game surprises again and again with new ideas and environments. Actually I kinda expected I'm through after a few hours. But I'm playing like 8h now and still not at the end. :-) Played the whole night through when I started it. :-) Some criticism: * icy rocks in the game are not glassy, you don't slip away. * a bit too many and too difficult jump'n'run sections for my taste. * safe-points sometimes quite far away. No possibility to manually save the game. (at least on the PS4 — played it there as it was massively discounted there once — actually still is at the moment of writing.) * You get translations for most, but not for all Russian texts. Nevertheless, the game is a lot of fun for me to play and can recommend it if you like nice graphics, a creative story and jump'n'runs. Still 5 stars from me.

This is mostly a walking simulator with some scripted events. If finding logs and watching small cutscenes is your thing, go for it. I want more interactability of which I found none. The storyline seems fairly generic and some of the assets stick out like a sore thumb. Jumping is fun for a few minutes.

Pros: - Excellent platform puzzles that don't wear out their welcome. Master it once, have another go, then it's on to something new. - Exciting gameplay. Extended boost jetpack = pretty fun. - Amazing set pieces. I found myself stopping to look around all the time. Cons: - Tedious story, you know what's coming and it doesn't keep you interested. - Too long. Could have been an hour or so shorter to maintain momentum.

I have just finished the game, and the first thing I have to say is I liked it. The music is great, some landscapes are wonderful and the story is addictive. I would not play it again, but I certainly do not regret buying it. On the other hand, an addictive story is not the same as a good one. I wanted to know the end, but it is far from being the best game storyline I have seen. As I said, landscapes are wonderful, but that is despite the graphics quality, which is at a much lower level than the design. The game is also too simple: just a few movements and two usable tools. That alone is not bad, but a simple game which is long at the same time is not a good idea. It is too repetitive at some stages. On summary: good idea, great music and beautiful design, but too limited (or too long), technically poor and a wasted story, which could have been much better without many changes.