This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
Missed opportunity. This game starts off promising. You crash land on a strange planet with no idea what's going on. You begin searching and you quickly find the ruins of an old Soviet town/base/facility with nobody around and audio logs establish that the missing colonists both discovered something and were subsequently decimated. This is probably the peak, maybe a hour in yes, but it has potential to lead into... Oh. It's a weird vine monster. Ok, well at this point the story actually basically disappears, with the odd audio log that clumsily provides exposition to what happened. Some bits are actually interesting, such as finding an audio log for a group that's pushing towards possible safety, only to find their bodies a few feet away. But most of it is rather disjointed and clumsy. I'll break down a few positives and negatives
- The early town is very eerie, with a Fallout vibe. Unfortunately this is actually the only scene like this. There's some buildings here or there. But none have any real vibe to them, or really any sort of context either.
- outside of the voiceless crew members who die seconds after seeing them, there's a female character who you occasionally interact with. At first it's as a distant mysterious observer, but by the end she's essentially a tag along to you and spends the last bit of the game (all the time your actually together) basically standing around. Also her design is similar to ones you'd see in a cheap Xbox 360 indie game and who's animations probably should've been limited, instead of focused on at times).
-levels are alright. There's a dead forest, a volcano segment, and a whole lot of desert (makes sense why. But variety is always a plus). Some levels have some odd "kill zones" with the lava level being the worst for it.
- There's a sub plot about the astronaut having a wife that's in some sort of situation. At first it seems like it'll play a big part of the game, with a few references within the first bit. Then nothing, one voice over between the first and last levels. Admittedly how it was finished was nice, but the lack of any real meat to it makes it ring hollow, like a missed opportunity
- controls are clunky. The jet pack functions as a weak double jump with occasionally a few extra jumps added on. The initial jump is ok. But any use of the jet pack can send you away from your planned landing spot.
- there are oxygen tanks/jet pack fuel that are set up early as vital parts of your characters survival. Problem is that both are set pieces. You only run out of oxygen at set points and same with jet fuel. This is much better then having constant need to refuel. But at the same time why bother.
-The overal story seems to be almost confused. Audio logs all seem to reference different events happening, then they're suddenly dropped. There are neat ideas here. But most are not really expanded on, and most, especially near the end are basically. "Well we screwed up. Now I'm sad". One issue I had was your main character figures things out before they're explained. Like, there was actually continuity errors. At one point your character randomly says "these trees they're the aliens !" Out of nowhere. Only to hear about it in an audio log 5 minutes later.
- the ending specifically. So at one point you and the girl are paired up for no clear reason. And you to keep moving forward before what seems to be Gravemind from Halo shows up suddenly and then you push two blocks together and boom, she goes down a light bridge and sudden it's "she sacrificed herself to save the planet" something we don't see because we immediey leave and enter a portal to go to an "alien world full of advanced buildings and tech" that the soviets had seen themselves but chose to not enter in fear and instead chose to stay and eventually die. It turns out this alien world they see and you go to is actually future earth. A neat twist kinda ruins by the fact that the city is rendered poorly.
-the decision to have the two characters barely communicate was a poor one. The idea of piecing together what happened on your own is fine. But by the time the "what happened" phase ended Nd it turned into a "what are we going to do" it felt like some sort of communication would happen.
TL:DR. Neat start hits its peak early. Then falls apart. Not s bad game at all. Is a textbook case of both missed opportunities and poorly fleshed out ideas. Honestly the best part of the game is what you see in the Xbox thumbnail.… Expand
Lifeless Planet: Premier EditionYour Score0 out of 10User Score
