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| | Genre: Adventure & RPG | | | Min OS X: 10.7 |
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Lifeless Planet
September 29, 2014 | Ted Bade | |
Requirements: Mac OS X: 10.7 | CPU: 2 GHz Dual Core Intel | RAM: 1.5 GB | HD Space: 900 MB Review: Lifeless Planet is a first-person movement based adventure game that takes place on a stark and desolate planet. As you move across the planet, you slowly unravel a rather unusual and somewhat sad story of the land and the people who somehow managed to get there before you. This game consists mostly of motion based (movement, jumping, avoiding hazards and so forth) challenges, with a goodly amount of observational type challenges thrown in. Even though the environment is stark, the graphics are well done. I found the story that unfolds in LP really drew me in, wanting to learn the whole tale. The game begins with you watching opening sequences as the main character leaves planet Earth heading out to a planet far away from home. The journey takes quite a while, while the character sleeps. When you and your crew arrive at the planet to land, something goes wrong and you crash, although you survive. When you awake, you find that your crew has left to begin exploration. You head out to follow them, and quickly learn two important things. Although you were sent because the planet was supposed to be full of life, it is now bleak and desolate. Secondly, people from Earth have already settled here, but their settlements underwent some disaster that destroyed them and most of the life on the planet. More and more of the story is revealed as you move across the planet. You’ll find the view to be bleak and desolate. However, in it’s way, it is remarkable and even beautiful. Not the beauty of a lush paradise, but more that of a desert or prairie. The vistas are interesting and very well done, using relatively photo-realistic graphics, that moves and changes as your character runs and jumps across the environment. You can control the camera angle to look at your character from most angles, and zoom closer in or farther out from him. Lifeless Planet has you running across the world. Generally, there is something that guides the player toward the correct direction. If you miss these clues, it is all too easy to head off in a direction that essentially wastes your time. Running is easy. Your character also has a jet-pack that can be used to enhance his jumps a bit, allowing a longer leap. There will also be times when you’ll need to locate a buff that enhances the jet-pack for significantly longer jumps. You quickly learn that hitting the jet-pack just as your body begins to arc downward offers the best movement, while jumping too often will exhaust the jet-pack’s fuel supply. When this occurs, your character generally plunges to his death. There are a variety of movement puzzles to deal with, including finding perches to gain height, noticing points that you can jump to, and even using features of the environment to enable the movement. Overall, the movement puzzles are pretty simple, although a few will make you think about your methods, or try a bunch of possibilities until the correct one is found. In addition to the movement puzzles, there are many places where you need to interact with the environment or the equipment you find there. For instance, getting power to a lift so you can ride it upward, or finding explosives to open a blocked passage. There are a lot of little things, some of them consist of a long sequence of tasks to cause the needed effect. This world has certain alien artifacts that need to be used. Reaching the controls can be an issue, since they tend to be high up. A robotic arm can be added to your suit which you use to manipulate these hard to reach alien machines. There are a whole set of relatively simple controls for operating this arm to perform specific tasks where it is needed. The game clues you in by showing an icon with the arm as the symbol. Engage the arm and the controls change to its controls. A neat and helpful feature is a cam that gives you a view from the end of the arm. Very useful for careful manipulations.
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