Sent on a mission to explore a planet supposedly rich in life, an astronaut awakens from a crash landing to find himself alone on a barren planet with no signs of life.And thus begins the adventure that lies ahead of you in Lifeless Planet from indie developer Stage 2 Studios. With an intriguing premise, a worthwhile mystery to unfold, a simple and mostly effective aesthetic, and welcome roll out of new mechanics throughout, it is undone by loose controls, wonky physics and being entirely too long for what it is trying to do.As the mystery of what happened to the planet unfolds, so too does Lifeless Planet’s greatest strength: the story. Almost consistently intriguing, the little layers of the story peel back to reveal a strong, sci-fi tale with something to say. Told through visual cues like locations and art design, audio logs, and found documents, the story is what pulled me through almost the entire game. Towards the end, however, once the mystery was revealed, the game continued for far longer than it should have. Visually, at least at first, Lifeless Planet is striking.

Almost complete covered in desert, the planet has remnants of plant life, if lethal, and ruins of man-made colonies, edifices, and ancient ruins. Simple and almost like claymation, Stage 2 Studios paint a desolate picture of a planet in decay and add to the mystery of what happened there. As you progress through the game, environments do get varied, however, there are long stretches where things look too repetitive and the technical shortcomings start to rear their muddy textured head.

Aug 03, 2016  Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition Review. Lifeless Planet started its life way back in 2011 as a PC platformer that garnered attention by shredding its. Aug 11, 2016  Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition is also available on Xbox One, PC, and Mac. The PlayStation 4 download version was used for this review. A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. PS Nation Review Policy. I only knew of this game very recently when the trailer came out showing off the PlayStation 4 version.

And while the animation for the playable character is fine, eventually another character looks two generations behind and doesn’t animate much better.Gameplay is fairly varied; combining platforming and puzzle solving, Lifeless Planet manages to introduce and spread out new mechanics and scenarios throughout its runtime. The only mechanic that is used almost consistently throughout is the platforming. This would be fine if the controls were tight and responsive, but far too often they would feel loose and way too easy to oversteer leading to many falling deaths. Puzzles fare much better. Never mentally taxing, solutions are fairly easy to suss out but add to not only the sense of history in the environments, but offer respite from the wonky platforming. There are also some intermittent physics-based puzzles which can be frustrating because the items you need to use can inexplicably fly in the air, far away from where you need it to be, meaning you have to use the wonky controls to get it back to where you need it. And on more than one occasion, the item would fly away again and I would have to repeat the process.There are also some obvious mechanics that are introduced that are artificially timed.

For example, at the start of the game you have a leak in your oxygen tank and the game informs you via text that you need to refill the tank. Conveniently, there is always an oxygen station or tank available nearby when this occurs. Once filled you’re then informed that you have eight hours of oxygen. What this really means is that you have enough oxygen until the next time you’re in an area with an oxygen station or tank which only occurred a handful of times in the game and without any sense of the supposed time limit actually mattering. The same thing happens with the jetpack. Normally you have one boost to let you reach further gaps or higher ledges but occasionally you’ll acquire fuel that gives you more boosts to cross larger gaps and reach higher levels.

Once the mechanic isn’t needed anymore, you’re informed that the fuel has been depleted. Some levels are longer than others so the length of time you have access to this extra fuel is inconsistent. These may seem like nitpicks but they feel entirely too artificial and gamey which breaks the immersion and don’t serve the story.This also calls into what I find to be the biggest issue with Lifeless Planet; its length.

It ultimately feels padded out and by the end of the game I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I can point to at least five areas that could have been excised to make the game a tighter experience and make the game much stronger. Even more that could have been shortened.Lifeless Planet tells an intriguing story with a compelling mystery that is worth experiencing. As a game, Lifeless Planet could have used more polish to tighten up the controls and physics as well as some judicious editing that would have made it a really good game. Instead, what is there is simply average and that’s a shame.Lifeless Planet is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Accounting software small business. We reviewed the PS4 version.