Reviews

• 

  SaMMiii

  Oct 9, 2021

  beautiful relaxing game , but boring as hell
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  svenevil

  Oct 25, 2021

  [table][th] Review by [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34633003-Gaming-Masterpieces/lists/] Gaming Masterpieces [/url] - The greatest games of all time on Steam. [/th][/table] Is this game a masterpiece? After playing a few minutes and really enjoying the visuals, I was absolutely prepared to say so. After finishing the game, not anymore. It is a run-to-the-right-side platformer. Run, jump, climb. Sometimes you have to duck or solve a few simple puzzles, that's it. There is a lot of.... just moving to the right (and avoiding robots or some plants/animals). The visuals are not so good the longer you play. Sure, there are still amazing backgrounds now and then, but large parts of the game take place underground, with bad or no lightning at all. Often things in front of the screen obscure your view as well. Furthermore, I did not understand the story and finished the game with only 5/16 cheavos. Guess I oversaw a few things... although I did take my time, and explored a few things on my left side as well. The whole game does not include any text or conversations, so you need a good imagination... or you just stay as clueless as I am. It was a nice experience, but not really a timeless masterpiece. And that comes from someone who really enjoys those Limbo-style games. [u][b] Conclusion:[/b][/u] Simple Limbo-style platformer without the devious puzzles, but more running and jumping.
• 

  Obunny7

  Dec 12, 2021

  Did I like this game eh, It is not bad just some of the areas during the puzzle when you are figuring out how to go forward without an enemy killing you is a bit of an annoying process as some things hide you and others don't so its trail and error until you figure out where the safes spots are per each time you encounter an enemy/enemies. Some areas make sense as to why you'd be able to hide there, others don't but again just trail and error. It is honestly a very beautiful game but even after finishing it that one flaw is what makes me not want to play it through a second time.
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  IwanttohavtheDamBurger

  Jan 3, 2022

  I mean i get that its visually beautiful n all, but its so boring...
• 

  Glix

  Feb 2, 2022

  Oh, Planet Alpha, what you could have been! Planet Alpha is a very pretty game, that in my opinion, with just a few tweaks, could have been wonderful. Sadly, despite having some excellent qualities, the game misses the mark. Planet Alpha is from the Another World/Limbo lineage of games. 2D plane, very little exposition, lovely graphics, and the like. You begin the game on a strange planet, with little to no explanation of what is going on and no exposition. You move the stunningly beautiful world, avoiding death and solving puzzles. While you do so the scenery is unreal. Very alien landscapes, with all sorts of action going on, it is by far the most impressive part of the game. But basically the whole game is moving through the environments, and solving mediocre puzzles. Nothing really happens that invests you in your avatar or their quest at any point, they have no idiosyncrasies that would endear them to you, and you know nothing about them, and that is by far my most massive complaint with the game. It felt completely passive to me. I would boot it up, just sort of play for a little, and then be like "okay" and just stop. It never made me care at all. Not to pile on too much but the game has some frustrating technical issues as well. Whenever I launch it, it launches steam VR as well, which is annoying, and would create a real issue with the game recognizing my gamepad. So not only was I not that into the game, but half the time when I would launch it, I wouldn't even be able to start playing. In looking up solutions on the internet, I found that the game can actually run in VR if you add a command to the command line. I tried this, and it elevated the visuals to an even greater level. Sadly, it is not tuned to played this way and there are all sorts of camera issues and what not. This is a massive shame, as it does not seem to be that much work to script the camera a little bit, and the rest of the mode works great and the environment is mind blowing. With some extra time spent on technical polish and if some more character and personality were added to Planet Alpha, it most likely would have been a big hit with me. As it was, however, I did not even deem it worth it to spend the time finishing the game, especially considering the frustrations I would have with the gamepad. A missed opportunity. 5/10
• 

  SneakyPimp

  Jun 8, 2022

  I honestly wish I could write a review for this game as it has awesome visuals and graphics. However, I cannot write a review for a game that I cannot play at all. The game still suffers critical crashes seconds into start up and my PC crash cannot be recovered unless I perform a complete reboot. Still hoping for a patch or an update that will correct this. So many possibilities with this game, but so far it is a waste of time and money.
• 

  Vagrant Bacon

  Jul 25, 2022

  Wow. I never thought I'd say it, but this disco ball has made me stop playing platformers as it contains every single gimmick a good platformer shouldn't possess. Considering I grew up with Commander Keen and Super Mario World, later having completed the Ori games and Blasphemous and loved them all; then I'd say that it's a pretty unique thing to occur to me that a game has made me seethe with hate. Spoilers ahead so TLDR up front: This is the platforming variant of jingling carkeys in front of an infant with explosive diarrhea. It's quite fascinating to look at due to all the colors, noises and sudden unforseen events, but after the first couple of times you've dodged a squirt only to faceplant straight into a stain on the floor due to having been blindsided by poop, then it stops being something you want to interact with. Long version: Again, wow. Talk about incompetence. Terrible, bland level designs if you take away the sparkles, that'll make you yell explicitives at the screen more often than you'll care to remember. I didn't know that crash test dummies with a bubble on their head was a species that had colonized space? The "thing" you're playing looks like an asset flip and doesn't fit the aesthetic of the world AT ALL! Awful camera handling on levels that often focuses more on having the camera show off visuals in the background than actual orientation for the player. A platformer should have tight jumps and air controls. You're a sliding hacky sack with extremities that doesn't consistently obey the laws of inertia, so even on non-sliding surfaces you'll end up tripping over the edge of most, narrow platforms that needs a running start to reach. The puzzles aren't puzzles at all. They're either 1. tease the enemies into heading towards you so you can sneak past them or 2. get so frustrated that you'll look up a playthrough online and sigh deeper than you ever have when you realize the solution. If you ever dare to scar yourself with this game then just remember "Laser grid" and you'll know EXACTLY what part I'm talking about. The day/night power is completely stupid to have in the game. You'll die to it not being the right time of day in the middle of a rather long chain of jumps/slides/BS/whatever without any good indication of, whether the Sun should be up or not. The "thing" you're playing as has wild, varying durability to fall damage as you sometimes die from a rather meager fall onto what looks like a spongy surface, while other times where the game needs you to survive fallen for several seconds, only to slam onto hard rock and be perfectly fine. I could pick this game apart even more, but in all honesty then I feel I've wasted enough time on it already, so I'll end my NOT REVIEW, but WARNING with this: They pull a No Man's Sky on you after a bland chase scene from the "boss" of the 50's looking robot enemies. And I don't care about a "true ending" as I've already put this BS in my "NEVER AGAIN" folder. To the publisher of this pile of horse feces: You should be ashamed of yourself for releasing this "pretty", yet bland run/jump simulator with a cryptic, nonsense story that serves no other purpose than to push people away from an otherwise awesome genre when done right. And you've done wrong, oh so very, very wrong forcing poor developers to work on this instead of letting them make a good game instead.
• 

  Ygdar Orus Li Ox

  Sep 5, 2018

  Dear developers, thank you so much for deliver a beautiful piece of art, even if you would have given me a free copy of this game I would pay for it. This little game will remaind you why you love videogames. ! highly recommended game .! try it... I'm sure you will not be disappointed at all.
• 

  ⬧Losange⬧

  Sep 5, 2018

  I finished the game and I can say that this is a masterpiece, the game have a gameplay similare to inside , there are platforming parts, enigmas and stunning visuals and scenery, everything is original , you wont be bored in this game, a must have.
• 

  lachie13

  Sep 17, 2018

  Unfortunately, I have to give this game a thumbs down, as a neutral opinion is not an option on this platform. I either have to recommend the game, or not, while I think for this price it is a stretch, and I had to lean toward a negative opinion. In the end, it’s not because of its relatively modest length, but because of a sort of "plays with a series of bangs, but ends with a whimper" experience it had for me. Above all, from a visual standpoint, this game is a huge achievement, and a marvel both to look at and play through. The amount of sceneries and settings it changes, the dramatic sequences it pits the player against, how they are directed, the movement from the tops of the hills to the depths of the planet, the night and days changes that are both a visual and gameplay feature, it’s all very well directed and exciting to experience. However, despite all the assets, the game failed to be magical and exhilarating for me. Now, I’m not trying to insult the art/creative director here, but I was almost stumped by how this game managed to feel hollow, despite all the beauty it delivers. It’s hard to pinpoint where the exact problem is, but in great part it is the art design. Let’s start with the look of the game from a technical standpoint. It’s and odd mixture of textured and non-textured objects, low poly structures and detailed foliage. For me the most jarring was always the look and feel of the panorama views of the planet, which are absolutely stunning, compared to artificial looking foreground for a great part of the game. It’s just puts you out of the experience. The other thing is the very art design, that meshes a No Man’s Sky type of sleek and almost minimalist fantasy design, mostly represented in the animal life and remnants of an ancient planet civilization, against the cartoonish 50ties sci-fi aesthetics of the planet invaders. The gameplay has a problem of driving the same theme throughout its entire course, summarized to a one long stretched-out last second escape. The engine has a feel of Inside, but the gameplay is quite differently paced. No matter how much the game changes the setting and varies jump and run with stealth segments, it just rinses them one after another too many times, until they become stale, similarly to dropping the player into depths and then rising him into heights, several times during the game. The gameplay offers too little if any exploration segments, real changes of pace, reducing itself to an almost constant running away from this or that foe. And no matter how much these individual segments are excellently executed, the game shoves too many of them, one after the other, that they lose their impact quite quickly, even before the middle of the game. The story is too vague for its own good, diminishing player’s interest to connect the dots, as the very dots are hard to identify, so to speak. The fact that the real ending refuses to reveal or even hint to anything new, is only more frustrating. Roughly, it appears to be a story about an alien stranded on a planet he or his race might or not be connected with, seemingly uninhabited by intelligent life but with remnants of an ancient civilization, invaded by a brutal mechanical force, your character might or not be connected with it, relentless to destroy all life on it and literally suck the marrow out of it. It also involves a sort of a time loop motif. Nothing of this alone is either original or very interesting, and by withholding any background information, the game fails to make any of these individual themes curious. So in my opinion, it should either have been an interesting plot, or a conventional plot with interesting exposition. Nothing of this happens in Planet Alpha. I actually find the length and difficulty of the game perfect for my own personal tastes. And the game succeeds to deliver a good level of challenge, maybe too low for certain hardcore segment of players, but overall, one can’t describe it as too easy. I can’t accept comments of it being unfair or too difficult, as it has an excellent autosave feature that almost never forces you to repeat a segment longer than 20 seconds or so, and it never introduces luck or chance into gameplay. So it’s a game that plays and looks excellent, it only lack the chops to be magical and a transcending experience. I felt the game was aiming for that, and that’s why I’m especially hard on Planet Alpha failing to accomplish that. It just won’t become my Another World, Monkey Island or Star Control 2, a game that I’ll remember forever and that in my opinion, transcends time. It seems like a game created by someone who is still looking for his own voice, and is uncontrollably remixing other peoples’ ideas. Definitely a grab for a discount price, but for its full price it fails to deliver an enough memorable experience. It might feel like that while playing it, but talk to me in a week after finishing it.
• 

  General Porcupine

  Sep 23, 2018

  As most critics have emphasized, Planet Alpha is a beautiful game. The visuals are truly dazzling! I'd say that 80 % of the game's value is in the looks, and it's worth bying just for the scenery and natural wonder. The world felt so alive, and at some sections my jaw was literally hanging open. There is limited story, but once you've finished the game, you (kind of) understand what's been going on for the past 4 - 5 hours. I actually like that you're not held by the hand and that not everything is explained - it leaves room for your imagination, kind of like with INSIDE (albeit INSIDE has more story than Planet Alpha). Some critics have said that the lack of story takes away from the experience, but I don't agree. There is just enough purpose and mystery to propel you all the way to the ending. The gameplay is a little bit repetitive, with some sections seeming to go on forever. Around halfway through, I lost interest and paused my run through for a day or two before resuming. I'm glad I kept going though, because just another half hour later there was a drastic shift in level design and the game got interesting again. The final hour in particular was really, really good! Planet Alpha's greatest weakness is the action sequences and enemy mechanics. It just feels completely random. Stealth mechanics are weird and it's hard to understand how you're suppose to use the surroundings to your favor when bypassing enemies. Most of the time, I just threw myself against a section, died 5-6 times and then on the 7th time I just breezed through. It annoyed me that I didn't actually know what I had done differently that last time. I think it would have been better to just leave those parts out than to half-ass them. Overall, I'd give Planet Alpha 7/10, with the action sequences, stealth mechanics and repetitiveness around mid-game taking away 1 point each from the 10.
• 

  reddog

  Sep 30, 2018

  This game is beautiful. Really. The graphic style is stunning and the light effects create a unique neon bio-sphere of life. If this game was an actor it would be Jane Fonda in Barbarella. However, get closer, play more than a few minutes and problems start to become apparent. This game is annoying. The stealth sections arre maddeningly random and seem to make up a large chunk of the game. Those beautiful flowing moments where you glide from one area to the next get bogged down in a mire or stop-and-start crawl one pixel at a time, retry, retry, retry until I sob outloud "Oh dear God Jane, change out of your space bikini and leave me alone - I've got a head ache." You see beauty is only skin-deep, but being annoying runs right the way through to the middle. This game may be Jane Fonda on the outside but once she does change out of her space bikini the horrific realisation is that underneath lies Beavis and/or Butt-head. What's most disappointing is Planet Alpha could have been so good. If it had been a little less excruciatingly, maddeningly, spree-killer-inducingly annoying. Also if the developers had mastered the caps-lock key before typing the name of their creation into Microsoft Project it would have helped. If you just want to play it for the graphics then go ahead, be my guest, but insure the furniture first. If I had to sum this game up in one quote it would be "Just a minute, I'll slip something on. Us-huh-huh. Uh-huh-huh. Heh-heh-heh."
• 

  Antidamage

  Oct 22, 2018

  I can't recommend Planet Alpha. Two months after release the game is unplayably broken, for one very easy to fix reason: Planet Alpha was compiled with the UE4 VR plugins enabled. The PA devs and testers obviously don't own any VR hardware, because if they did then they'd also find their games crashing on load. It really speaks to how amateurish this effort was that nobody fired up the plugins browser and turned off everything they didn't need. Worse, they're ignoring advice on twitter on how to fix it, but maybe they'll pay attention to a bad review. Aside from that the game is lukewarm at best. It lacks soul. It's sort of pretty in a glitchy mixed-media sense, with a weird combination of low poly and high poly stuff. There's nothing really heart-touching or exciting. It lacks narrative or a voice. Games like Far: Lone Sail manage to say a lot without words but this game manages to say nothing because ultimately it's assets painted on to a landscape and that seems like it was the entire thought process put into it. The lead-in marketing for PA was entirely "We're such a small team so we'll be the best!" with all sorts of "game awards" pasted all over the marketing. But this game isn't worthy of any awards. Maybe those awards are run by some gaggle of easily impressed children, but adults who have seen more than The Lion King kind of expect a little more. To top it all off, in response saying the game doesn't work in their support thread the developers are banning users from their shitty little corner of Steam. The developers also hang on their on their non-studio accounts arguing with people and belittling them, but refuse to acknowledge that they are obviously the developers incognito. So they have time to argue with people and lie to their customers, but not to apply a single fix to their game. Eh fuck it we'll all be extinct in 80 years anyway. Play it, don't play it, whatever. Just don't give these cocks your money.
• 

  B!

  Dec 31, 2018

  I'm giving this a thumbs up because it's a beautiful game. Near the end it gets quite tedious because you have to time certain things quite precisely. And figuring that out requires a lot of dying. The ending was also a bit strange. I watched the proper ending on Youtube so I coud make some sense of it. Was still left a bit confused if I'm honest. This game isn't really about the story, as there doesn't seem to be one. It's more about the art and visuals.
• 

  MrMeeseeks

  Mar 24, 2019

  Credit where credit's due: the graphics Planet Alpha are beautiful and the game is at its best when it plays like an interactive Roger Dean painting. Sadly, the actual gameplay is terrible. The majority of the game can be summed up as "walk right for a few minutes, get killed an unforeseeable hazard, get past it using trial and error, repeat". A handful of these pitfalls could have been avoided if the camera let you see a bit further ahead, too.
• 

  Ancientspirit

  Jun 9, 2019

  Overall I didn't hate the game. I'll give it a 2.5/5. Credit where credit is due, visuals and sound were on point. This game was very beautiful, and the music was a wonder to listen to. The issues I had were the ending, and the AI. I've seen a quite a few comments in regards to bugs, or glitches. I had no issues with either of those, but boy did the AI annoy me. There were points were I would be on a ledge and the AI would spot me from a mile away, or they would seem to be out of sync with each other and catch me with my pants down because I had nowhere to go. The ending was also disappointing. I had finished the game once only to realize I didn't get the True Ending. Turns out the True Ending [spoiler]has you fly off screen in a space ship[/spoiler], but the extra work put into it isn't worth it IMO. TL;DR Beautiful visuals and sound, boring/annoying game mechanics with little payoff. Buy it if it goes on sale (for like 9.99).
• 

  chaeser

  Nov 30, 2019

  The graphics and details are impressive, but for me it was no fun. I'ts more like a graphics demo than a full game. There is no story, you simply walk, climb, jump, fall and so on. Additionally I had serious performance issues.
• 

  arga warga

  Jan 25, 2020

  I feel like a tourist on an LSD-induced planet in outer space. Maybe I really am that tiny little astronaut who has the ability to change night and day, watching vegetations grow and die, machinery eaten by triple-eyed dinosaurs, fish flying through the sky. I feel so tiny. It's the perfect game to wind down after a long day: puzzles are not too hard, there's a lot of walking happening or just watching plants glow at night, occasionally jumping and sneaking. Don't forget to take some pictures along the way.
• 

  Dedy

  Apr 12, 2020

  Graphic, theme, and music wise, I like this more than Inside. From the beginning to the end, the graphic and the art style never stopped to amaze me. But the controls, the AI and the physics are at times can be super annoying. I died most of the times because of stupid reasons.
• 

  rob.devilee

  May 31, 2020

  From the screenshots, I thought this was a 3d exploration game, buts it's a side-scoller game with 3d animation. That means: puzzles, jumping and I don't like that so I've stopped playing after a triple jump-puzzle (why so difficult...) Other than that, the game is gorgeous! The world they created is very nice. I like that. So I don't regret buying it, just the first few levels are very beautiful and worth the experience! Some advice for other players: I couldn't start the game at first on my 4K monitor. However, there's an option in the steam interface to start a game with parameters. Type -windowed in the parameter-box and then it started fine for me (I found that solution on the forums. If you read it here you can avoid the trouble).