Let’s Play: Lifeless Planet

I had a little extra time this week, so I thought I would take a risk and buy a new game without more than the most cursory glance at information. I chose Lifeless Planet because the cover was fascinating. I didn’t know what kind of game it was or anything about the story beyond what I could extrapolate from the cover image and a cursory glance at Metacritic, but at fifteen bucks, it seemed like a worthy risk. After a few hours of play, I’ll say the purchase was worth it.

Lifeless Planet begins with a space shuttle crash, and as you, the lone apparent survivor, set off in search of oxygen in an empty desert landscape, a mystery begins to unfold. What is this place, exactly, with its Earth artifacts buried in the sand, and who is the mysterious figure seen in the distance? I don’t yet know the answers to these questions, but Lifeless Planet is a chillingly isolated experience featuring a lone, fragile protagonist weighed down by a heavy suit, cut off from everything but the landscape unspooling before him. With no compass, no oxygen meter, no HUD, no nothing, the player sets off in search of answers.

Slightly imprecise controls add a level of frustration to the game’s platforming aspects, but a few fun mechanics help to balance the misery of missing the same jump three times in a row (or thirty). I have some developing theories of what’s yet to come, but for now, all I know is that strange things are afoot on this planet, whatever and wherever it may be. (And I’m not complaining about the controls; they’re are precise as they should be for a fellow in a puffy suit weighed down with an oxygen tank, and I appreciate that level of realism just as I swear at the screen when that level of realism interferes with the completion of a jump.) For all its mystery, Lifeless Planet is a very linear experience, which sounds like it should detract from discovery as the narrative unfolds, but the opposite is true. The path the player follows has its own place in the story, and the story beats, at least up to the point when I stopped, were enough to keep me playing long after I should have retired to bed. Though Lifeless Planet is simple, there’s a lot happening beneath the straightforward mechanics and linear trajectory. I hope it holds up as I continue.

I’ll be recording Let’s Plays for the entire game, but for now, here’s the first third or so. It’s funny; when you go back and watch, you see all the things you missed (and they all seem so terribly obvious now!). Because of that, this is probably longer than it should be, but I expect subsequent videos will not feature quite so much stumbling about.