Lifeless Planet

 PC
User Score
6.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 177 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 71 out of 177
  2. Mixed: 65 out of 177
  3. Negative: 41 out of 177

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  1. barnz3000
    Jun 17, 2014
    4
    While the game LOOKS wonderful, and occasionally stunning. It is not worth the time and effort to play it. There are defunct mechanics such as "need oxygen" which only serve as mcguffins to make you move in a particular direction occasionally.

    It has trivial puzzles with exceptionally ham fisted story telling. Instead of a voyage of discovery there is a "oh looks like this happneed"    While the game LOOKS wonderful, and occasionally stunning. It is not worth the time and effort to play it. There are defunct mechanics such as "need oxygen" which only serve as mcguffins to make you move in a particular direction occasionally.

    It has trivial puzzles with exceptionally ham fisted story telling. Instead of a voyage of discovery there is a "oh looks like this happneed" dialogue.

    Alot of jumping, some occasionaly rocks to push around which are bizarely difficult to stand on. And creatures just vanish into the ground.

    The sound design is really quite great, and it looks pretty. But everything else (particularly the awful cutscenes) is unpolished and sub par. I feel robbed :P    … Expand
  2. Avadon
    Jun 12, 2014
    2
    I was easily sold on this game. You crash on an alien planet, there are mysterious things going on, explore and find out what happened. Sounds like the plot of a good sci-fi/horror movie. You soon discover that Russians had been on that planet a long time ago. Cartoon Russians apparently, because on the majority of their logs that you discover, they go on about how amazing the MotherlandI was easily sold on this game. You crash on an alien planet, there are mysterious things going on, explore and find out what happened. Sounds like the plot of a good sci-fi/horror movie. You soon discover that Russians had been on that planet a long time ago. Cartoon Russians apparently, because on the majority of their logs that you discover, they go on about how amazing the Motherland is and how glorious Communism is and how butthurt they are because a long time ago Americans landed on the moon first, so they are "getting back at them" this way... Really? That's Red Alert 3 levels of silly right there, and Red Alert 3 was a comedy. Yeah... Doesn't bode well for the story. Unfortunately, I did not finish the game so I can tell you where it all leads to, because the game is just insanely buggy. I fell through the world geometry 4 times in 2 hours, and had to reload and replay the entire areas, which are pretty big. One elevator caused my character model to freak out and become weirdly "magnetized", moving through the air even though I was standing still. On another elevator at the power plant level I fell through its floor while it was going up, every single time. I only managed to not fall by spamming the jump button while riding it. Also, while the game is very heavy on platforming, the physics and controls are extremely shaky. While running on some surfaces in order to make a long jump, your character suddenly, out of the blue, decides to slow down a bit, which causes you to miss the jump. I cannot express how frustrating this is, especially when the jump you miss is the 4th or 5th in a row and you have to restart the whole thing. At some point I decided that I shouldn't be playing a game that's broken and frustrating, when I could be playing a game that isn't. I think this game was made by one guy, but I really don't care. If you ask for 20$ for a game, you'd better at least make sure it's polished and that the player doesn't fall through everything. It's impossible to recommend this game at its current state.… Expand
  3. DannySwish
    Jun 23, 2014
    4
    It's a platformer. It's a walking simulator. It is NOT an action/adventure story-driven game. Yeah, there's a story, and it had potential, but you'll literally spend the entire game jumping to and from various rocks and mounds. It's a five-hour-long platformer with beige mountains and valleys as scenery. The "puzzles" are nothing more than placing a glowing green rock in a glowing greenIt's a platformer. It's a walking simulator. It is NOT an action/adventure story-driven game. Yeah, there's a story, and it had potential, but you'll literally spend the entire game jumping to and from various rocks and mounds. It's a five-hour-long platformer with beige mountains and valleys as scenery. The "puzzles" are nothing more than placing a glowing green rock in a glowing green hole followed by a lot of jogging, or simply more platforming. Honestly, the game would've been better if it was a condensed version that focused more on the story, rather than the endless miles of jogging and jumping. It has the contents to make a good thirty-minute game, but it was dragged out, made long and boring. Also, expect the data logs and entries, along with whatever scientific samples you collect, to be wiped whenever you quit the game. Not that they matter, really.… Expand
  4. Cyrien
    Aug 19, 2014
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This really isn't a game at all but more an interactive book with simplistic puzzles and needless platforming. As it is in fact a book not a game I will review it as such. It's still bad. The ending is bad. So bad I'm going to make up my own that is better. You're character never explored the planet at all the whole thing is a hallucination caused by oxygen deprivation when the ship crashed and then you die. See. That's a better ending than the crap you get. Early on it hooked me with its strangeness and uniqueness. It didn't live up to that. As far as I can tell there is no point to this game, sorry, book at all. You land on a planet. You do some stuff, and suddenly SOVIETS! Then you go on an epic hike across its dead surface following a green trail that takes you past pretty much every obstacle. Weird **** and contradictory story elements via read text translated from Russian voice over and then you go home after your only companion kinda sorta sacrifices herself and sorta kinda fixes the planet. The whole experience was a waste of my time. Glad I got this on a humble bundle with some actually entertaining games as well.… Expand
  5. TheLeonKing
    Sep 7, 2014
    1
    Read all the bad reviews, take out all the worst points and you have this game summed up in a nutshell. Walk, jump, repeat.....every now and then you die. The "puzzles" in the game can be as hard as picking something up....then putting down. Think you are smart enough to do that??. I have given my 1 point for the story and occasional trip out in it which was just enough to keep meRead all the bad reviews, take out all the worst points and you have this game summed up in a nutshell. Walk, jump, repeat.....every now and then you die. The "puzzles" in the game can be as hard as picking something up....then putting down. Think you are smart enough to do that??. I have given my 1 point for the story and occasional trip out in it which was just enough to keep me interested to finish a game i just could not wait to end.… Expand
  6. Zuthilios
    Jun 9, 2014
    4
    At first it is intriguing, by the end however you are just hoping that this is the last turn, the final stretch, that this game will just end already.

    Unfortunately the game-play leaves little to be desired after the first half hour of game-play, sure the visuals are okay, but it's not enough nor quality enough to keep you entranced enough to distract you from how much walking there is    At first it is intriguing, by the end however you are just hoping that this is the last turn, the final stretch, that this game will just end already.

    Unfortunately the game-play leaves little to be desired after the first half hour of game-play, sure the visuals are okay, but it's not enough nor quality enough to keep you entranced enough to distract you from how much walking there is to do in this game.

    But ultimately, the story just isn't that good of a pay off for the amount of time taken to tell it.    … Expand
  7. Dux
    Jul 17, 2014
    4
    This game falls really short on a lot of different levels, and here's why.

    My friend picked this game up, and asked me if I was interested to play it to have a laugh. I booted up the game, and began playing. At first sight, this game really intrigued me. The reason for that was that I thought this game to be some sort of open world exploration RPG type of deal. Never had I been so    This game falls really short on a lot of different levels, and here's why.

    My friend picked this game up, and asked me if I was interested to play it to have a laugh. I booted up the game, and began playing. At first sight, this game really intrigued me. The reason for that was that I thought this game to be some sort of open world exploration RPG type of deal. Never had I been so sorely dissapointed. The first locale you step into is a desolate, deserted and barren wasteland. You must navigate it and 'manage' your oxygen before it runs out. You are locked into one path you can follow, because of the oxygen limitation, which conveniently dissapears and reappears later in the game.

    I will not spoil anything, but the next location was also quite interesting, with a bunch of minerals to collect, represented by tiny light-orbs. I thought that it would be wise to collect them, so that I could perhaps craft them into something or use them in some other way. Turns out I can't. These minerals are scatterd around for absolutely zero reason. But I wasn't aware of that yet.

    I arrive in the third locale. At this point, I've been playing for a good 2 hours, scouring every inch of the absolutely monotonous and linear path. And this is where I start realising what I'm playing, and am left wondering why I'm playing it. But in a few minutes I finally get a tiny cutscene, serving as an introduction to some semblance of a story. So I pursue it, and end up forcing myself into another hour of this nonsense. After that, I tell my friend that I will be sick if I don't stop playing this game and propose to stop this torture. He gladly agrees, and we quit and delete the game entirely.

    To sum this probably unnecessary story up: don't buy this game. I had high hopes that something exciting was about to happen for the first 2 hours, but nothing did. I hoped that this game would bring something new to the table, but it turned out to be a simple, extremely linear platformer, with dull locations, a shoddy story, zero gameplay, and 2-3 pseudo-puzzles, which wouldn't even be a challenge for a 3-year-old. All you do is jump from one rock to another, and literally nothing else. I don't know if the game has anything to offer beyond the point where I stopped playing, but that would still not make it deserving of your money. If a game makes you suffer through the first 3 hours (at least), it's not a good game.

    All in all, the dev gets points for effort, since he's a one man team as far as I know, but the game itself is poor to say the least.    … Expand
  8. Dejakritz
    Jun 8, 2014
    0
    This is not a game. This game can be summed up like so: "Jump. Pff Pff Pff. Enter area with brown hue. Jump. Pff Pff Pff. Enter area with green hue. Jump. Pff Pff Pff. Enter area with beige hue."
  9. Sprengsatz
    Jun 7, 2014
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is one of the most pathetic games I have ever had the displeasure of playing.

    The gameplay's basically a jump and run with some random puzzle elements and a bit of "jetpack" (which is actually just double- and triple-jumping) mixed in- but you don't and you shouldn't care about that because the gameplay's quite obviously a cheap excuse right here. It gives nothing of substance to you, this was clear to me within two minutes of playing the "game", it's just a vehicle to move the plot along.

    But this is the other big failing of this game, the plot that's should be good enough to excuse the blatantly inadequate gameplay falls just as flat. The plot starts out with you crashed on this Mars-like planet supposedly 15 light-years away from earth, arriving after 15 years of light speed travel with you and your crew in cryo tubes. Suprise suprise, it was actually supposed to be a lush green paradise but now it's a dead rock with no breathable atmosphere. Your crew dies in short order and you find the remains of a Soviet Russian outpost- they apparently managed to get there via some one-way portal Stargate ring they found on earth.

    They started experimenting with this green moss-like substance that was on the planet -dubbed Green Fire- and also found lots of ancient structures and powerplants left behind by ancient aliens, just like the portal itself. One more suprise, Soviet science goes too far, the plants themselves start rebelling and kill the **** out of the entire colony. In an effort to stop their inevitable demise the Soviets go full Mengele and crossbreed a young woman with the Green Fire until the very touch of her feet on the barren ground makes the moss spring into being around her. They also find a portal that leads back to Earth, however some time dilation effect makes it so the path back would catapult them into the far future, centuries ahead, so they don't take it and by the time they're desperate enough to take it the very ancient alien structures have turned against them and telefrag them as they try to use it.

    SO, everyone's dead, that was years ago. You arrive, see the singular survivor, the Plant Girl, and chase her around the planet, solving rock pushing puzzles along the way. You also have a few really damn disjointed hallucinations for blatantly no reason, learn a bit about the astronauts backstory that involves his wife having a hiking accident, falling into a coma and being put on life support indefinately, mixed with some vague implications that the Plant Girl is a stand-in? A surrogate for his wife or something like that? It's all vague and goes unexplained. At some point the plant mosters you have to dodge all the time absorb the Plant Girl into themselves and she seems perfectly fine with that, for some reason or another. maybe being alone on the planet for decades on end eroded her sanity.
    Two hours later or so you find the time warp return trip portal rings, jump through them, see a futuristic city on what is presumably Earth.

    And that's it.

    It's the flattest story I've seen since forever. It starts mostly in medias res, then you dig up the prerequisite backstory that should have been clear from the start, then you do a lot of stuff that amounts to basically nothing and go back to where you started. The plot and story that should have been the erecting pillar for this game is pathetic and I've seen better stories told in three pages of manga. Whoever paid for this turd on Kickstarter got scammed like few people before; I'm glad I pirated this game to get myself a first impression.

    Not recommended, especially not for twenty bucks.    … Expand
  10. RedhNine
    Jul 12, 2014
    0
    This game should be called "Jumping and walking like an idiot on the Planet"

    I can't believe I wasted my money in this game =[ Everything is soooo bad in this "thing" (if you can call it a game) that I can't express how much I hate it = The graphics are "mediocre" for a indie game (there are a lot of stunning indie games, this is not one of these) The Story doesn't even worth    This game should be called "Jumping and walking like an idiot on the Planet"

    I can't believe I wasted my money in this game =[
    Everything is soooo bad in this "thing" (if you can call it a game) that I can't express how much I hate it =
    The graphics are "mediocre" for a indie game (there are a lot of stunning indie games, this is not one of these)
    The Story doesn't even worth telling, really,doesn't worth =[
    The audio is OK but not great
    The gameplay does not exist '-'

    This game should be called "Jumping and walking like an idiot on the Planet"

    You will walk a lot and jump a lot.. That's it! Nothing more! Except for the countless times you'll die because you'll be stuck on rocks and the HORRIBLE performance drops (seriously, on my HIGH END ENTHUSIAST machine, this game runs at 25 average fps when there are any objects, walls, anything nearby).

    And sorry for any grammar issues, I'm still learning english :)    … Expand
  11. Brakiri
    Jun 10, 2014
    4
    I had high hopes for this game, but the story gets rather uninteresting, the puzzles are to easy, and most of the time you run through empty landscapes and perform platforming/jump&run.
    This might be an indy game, but that doesn't mean that it has to be good. In fact, its not. For a 20$ price tag this 4 hour game offers repetitive platforming in an empty world with little story. Avoid and    I had high hopes for this game, but the story gets rather uninteresting, the puzzles are to easy, and most of the time you run through empty landscapes and perform platforming/jump&run.
    This might be an indy game, but that doesn't mean that it has to be good. In fact, its not. For a 20$ price tag this 4 hour game offers repetitive platforming in an empty world with little story. Avoid and grab on a sale for 3 bucks or so if you into that sort of thing.    … Expand
  12. Taliz
    Jun 10, 2014
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I get that this is an indie videogame so few people worked on it but really... This game is horrible. from the models to the textures to the animations to the plot. Also the gameplay is a pile of sh*t since all you do for hours is to follow footprints and do few jumps, there is kinda nothing to explore because the maps are so flat... Anyway always remember this rule: if it has been made in unity and has been funded on kickstarter, DO NOT BUY THAT GAME.… Expand
  13. evilgamer3560
    May 23, 2015
    2
    At the start it tricks you into thinking it's about exploring the place, it's actually just following a straight path for hours with annoying sound effects and some **** excuses of a puzzle like "hurr durr the current is off I wonder if that lever two meters behind will turn it on again and you'll be able to proceed"
    It's so boring I don't think the creators even bothered playing it    At the start it tricks you into thinking it's about exploring the place, it's actually just following a straight path for hours with annoying sound effects and some **** excuses of a puzzle like "hurr durr the current is off I wonder if that lever two meters behind will turn it on again and you'll be able to proceed"
    It's so boring I don't think the creators even bothered playing it through the end    … Expand
  14. sonjahtroll
    Apr 29, 2023
    0
    Pretty damn average, clunky platforming, average graphics, simple puzzles, excellent short story, game only lasted 3.5 hours not worth more than £2.50.
  15. arctic_fox_sa
    May 31, 2015
    1
    The game begins on a strong note, with a strong ambiance and a compelling mystery. These both quickly fall to pieces. Further, the gameplay and utterly repetitive environments make this game insufferable. I quit and deleted it after two hours of this tedious walking simulator.
  16. PublicNuisance
    Dec 9, 2022
    4
    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 onLifeless 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.

    I played the Premier Edition of Lifeless Planet and I played on Linux. The game only has one graphics option that you can only edit on startup so if you want to try a different setting you have to quit and go back in. This is made even more terrible by the save system. The game has checkpoints and the spacing has no rhythm. Some are spaced out fifteen to twenty minutes apart while others are four or five minutes apart. The main screen also says “save and quit” but that is a lie. It loads the previous checkpoint not where you quit from. As I mentioned performance was terrible yet none of my hardware was taxed very much. Alt-Tab didn’t work. There is an option to brighten dark areas but when I tried it the dark caverns I was in looked the same as before. The game seems to be locked to 60 FPS not that it hits it often.

    Game Engine: Unity
    Graphics API: OpenGL
    Disk Space Used: 922 MB
    Game Version Played: 2.0.0.0 from GOG

    Game Settings Used: Fastest; 1920x1080
    GPU Usage: 0-20 %
    VRAM Usage: 238-536 MB
    CPU Usage: 11-29 %
    RAM Usage: 2.2-2.7 GB
    Frame Rate: 32-60 FPS

    There are a couple good elements to Lifeless Planet but it is a technical mess and the rest is just decent at best. I can’t recommend it even on sale and certainly not at it’s current price of $26.99 CAD. I finished the game in four hours and twenty two minutes.

    My Score: 4.5/10

    My System:

    Intel i7-6700 | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Mesa 22.2.3 | Samsung 870 QVO 1TB | Garuda | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.0.11-zen1-zen | AOC G2460P 1920*1080 @ 144hz    … Expand
  17. Topliyak
    Aug 3, 2020
    0
    there is only 3 mechanics: walk, jump, force rock. With it you must play very long time and solve lot of boring tasks, which are same
  18. ConsumerPro
    Jul 12, 2020
    2
    At first I was quite enjoying this game. It looked nice enough, the gameplay was acceptable (but is quite clunky at times) and the story was at first intriguing. However after the first hour or so you have experienced about everything this game has to throw at you. It just becomes a very over long game with repeating gameplay and the story loses most of its charm. It was just far to longAt first I was quite enjoying this game. It looked nice enough, the gameplay was acceptable (but is quite clunky at times) and the story was at first intriguing. However after the first hour or so you have experienced about everything this game has to throw at you. It just becomes a very over long game with repeating gameplay and the story loses most of its charm. It was just far to long and repetitive and was a grind to finish. It needed either new gameplay mechanic's or to be much, much shorter (which says a lot for a game that is only 5 - 6 hours). by the end it was nothing more than a waste of time. But if you like walking sims with an uninteresting backdrop then you might like this game.… Expand
  19. Skapple
    Dec 5, 2020
    1
    the only thing good about this game is soundtrack, but the game it self is absolutly boring, i got it free on epic games store, played 55 minutes
  20. AlbYSaN
    Jun 26, 2021
    2
    A useless and forgettable game, that doesn't give anything of relevant and rather poorly done
  21. turbo365
    Jan 14, 2022
    0
    I've picked this game up for free on Epic Games Store, so I'm not influenced by wanting to get my moneys worth out of this junk.
    The game is not worth your time.
    Beating it took me almost 4 hours. It probably takes 5 if you're colorblind, cause the entire game boils down to following the green goo. On top of that the game feels like it's purposly wasting your time, there's a    I've picked this game up for free on Epic Games Store, so I'm not influenced by wanting to get my moneys worth out of this junk.
    The game is not worth your time.

    Beating it took me almost 4 hours. It probably takes 5 if you're colorblind, cause the entire game boils down to following the green goo.
    On top of that the game feels like it's purposly wasting your time, there's a substantial amount of backtracking towards the end of the game and elevators and carts are extremely slow.

    I loved Deliver us the moon and What Remains of Edith Finch, walking simulators with good story and occasional puzzles are definitely my jam, but this ain't it.

    I won't repeat what others said as I agree with them 100%
    Puzzles are laughably easy, move the rocks so they become a circle, put the green rock in the green hole.
    There's one more thing: translation, it's very lacking, there's no subtitles, at all, and there's one part in the game where you have to listen to what's being said, in Russian.
    You find Russian documents that are fully voiced, they sound really good and if you don't want to listen to them all the way through, they will keep playing after closing this document, cool, you can keep exploring, but not really, because there's no subtitles, so it's a pointless function if you don't know Russian.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

75
#75 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
59

Mixed or average reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 22
  3. Negative: 4 out of 22
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Aug 25, 2014
    60
    The game engulfs you in its setting but brings it down with dumb platforming. A pity - this could've been so much better. [Issue#244]
  2. Games Master UK
    Aug 24, 2014
    58
    There's a great idea in here somewhere, but it's hard to find it when it's buried under so much space dust. [Oct 2014, p.80]
  3. Gamer.no
    Aug 21, 2014
    40
    Lifeless Planet is, unfortunately, a little too lifeless. It starts off well, but the story is boring, the locations are bland and the platforming just frustrates.
    Read full review
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