Planet Alpha Review: The Omega Adventurer

When it comes down to it, there are two types of stories. There are the ones that take the audience down a set path, never veering off to the side and keeping its audience in a little box and never letting them out; the other is something that we as a society are seeing more and more of, which requires the audience to create their own backstory or draw their own conclusion, piecing together missing parts to form a complete narrative. Much like the adventure games before it, such as Limbo or Inside, Planet Alpha relies on the latter to make up its story.

You’ll begin your journey as an unnamed spaceman that I will refer to as Jim, who early into the game is set loose to explore a strange world. How did he get here? What/Where is here? Did he leave the coffee pot on? Most of these are questions that, to be quite honest, you’ll have to draw your own conclusions for. The game does not hold your hand, mechanically or in reference to the narrative, requiring you to fill in the blanks. A brief tutorial will give you some minor hints as to the fact that Jim can control time – not in the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time kind of way, but more like just changing the time from day to night and vice versa. I know, this sounds like a lame power, right? Well, Jim uses this ability to essentially control or manipulate the otherworldly flora and fauna to his advantage. Can’t find a way forward? You’ll probably need to change the time of day, forcing freakishly large mushrooms to form a pathway, or psychedelic flowers to bloom giving Jim super speed for a short period of time, allowing him to gain momentum for a long jump. This ability is really easy to use and is explained quite early into the game, but is used so infrequently during the first half of the game that I actually forgot it was even a thing and that it was limited to pressure pads.

The first half of the game is primarily focused on stealth and platforming with some light puzzle solving, while the second half makes use of the time alteration. You’ll spend the early hours evading robots that are also visiting the planet, but seem to be dead set on destroying each and every last living creature. There are also plenty of animals and in some cases plants that think Jim looks like a tasty snack, so be weary of those as well. The enemy forces are quite varied, requiring you to often think outside of the box to either evade, distract, or destroy the well-designed bad guys who come equipped with a better than most AI presence. There is a single weak link in this area, and that is the gigantic hornet who looks like he ate the meth, meth lab, cook, and RV in one swoop. While meth-hornet normally sleeps all day, as meth addicts tend to do, they will often ignore their own instincts (or game mechanics), requiring you to either run head first into death just to respawn, or sit there patiently changing the time from day to night, hoping they break free of whatever trance they are in. In addition to this, their sting can’t seem to decide if it wants to be lethal or not, often allowing you to be stung three or more times and still make a clean getaway, whereas others a single prick is the end. I know, I know, “the suspension of disbelief” and “it’s just a game;” I am all for imagination time, but if you’re going to make the game’s rules, I need you to stick by them.

The sneaking and platforming mechanics work extremely well, with the jumps often feeling overly forgiving when compared to similar games. The controls are precise yet accessible and the puzzles are intuitive, using simple common sense or physics in most cases, with the only point of frustration stemming from a few segments later into the game that require you to use momentum to make some extremely long jumps, requiring extremely careful planning before you can even see them coming. I found myself dying repeatedly in these areas, requiring me to take notes or even memorize the pattern to progress. Death is merely an afterthought in the world of Planet Alpha, with frequent checkpoints being the norm. The checkpoints come so often (it feels like you receive one every time your feet hit the ground) I found myself jumping off into the nothingness below in an effort to find secrets tucked away within the beautiful levels.

The stealth gameplay functions beautifully, with most of the enemies providing visual or audible tells that they are searching for you, patrolling the grounds as a normal guard would. High grass is plentiful, allowing Jim regular points to hide in. Functionally, sneaking is well executed, but a nagging glitch I encountered saw this tall grass randomly jerking and twisting about as I moved between cover, not flowing as it normally would (or does during most of the game) and breaking what would otherwise be a very immersive experience.

The visuals are highly stylized but manage to retain amazing amounts of detail, with items regularly poking in and out of the background or foreground giving a true sense of depth while it pans in and out organically as you explore the stunning game world. The strange planet houses lush jungles, awe inspiring waterfalls, and glorious sunsets that run on a regular cycle, all the while being a nice visual treat. It’s really hard to believe such a small team released a title with visuals on par (if not better) than many AAA studios. The minimalist background noise and ambient sounds set the mood, being calm during the slower paced exploratory segments, booming during a chase sequence, and going completely silent to crank the sense of tension to the max when sneaking.

As I stated at the beginning of this review, the story is a bit vague – it left me with more questions once I completed the game than what I had at the onset. I feel like this almost requires a second playthrough, although that may be more demanding than you expect. Around the fifth chapter I had a number of hours sunk into the game, really enjoyed the experience, and it seemed that I was on the brink of the finale, looking forward to a satisfying ending to my adventure. This feeling was present, but slowly started to fade as I progressed through the next five chapters of the game. It’s not that the second half of the game is worse than the first, or really all that bad in its own right – it just felt anticlimactic, which was heightened by the fact that the ending was so damn vague. I can’t help but feel that the game would have broken over into a perfect score had a definitive ending been in place.

Planet Alpha, Team17’s 100th release since inception, is an amazing visual treat, offering outstanding gameplay that is just shy of perfection due to its underwhelming conclusion. When I started playing the game, my initial thoughts were that this is just a prettier version of Limbo. After taking in the entire picture, this is the game that Playdead should be taking note of when making their next release. Meanwhile, I will sit back in anticipation for what Planet Alpha ApS brings us next.

9 out of 10

Pros

  • Outstanding Presentation on Every Front
  • Satisfying Gameplay
  • Intuitive Puzzles

Cons

  • Underwhelming Conclusion
  • Runs a Bit Long
  • The Meth-Hornets

Planet Alpha was developed by Planet Alpha ApS and published by Team17 Digital Limited. It launched on NS, PC, PS4, and X1 on September 4th, 2018 for $19.99. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Planet Alpha, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

Check out OpenCritic for a better idea of how our review stacks against others.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.