We get a lot of funny video games. We get a lot of strange games. But wacky video games are rare. Journey to the Savage Planet, a short new sci-fi first-person shooter, is, despite some flaws, wonderfully wacky.
In this game, you don’t punch enemies. You slap them, complete with a comedic thwack sound. Alien birds fart carbon. You fling purple goo at giant frogs. All of this wackiness makes Journey to the Savage Planet feel less like Star Wars or Mass Effect and more like a campy retro sci-fi film that would have been riffed on. And like those films, Savage Planet sometimes feels like a bit of a mess with annoying bugs and a story that never really goes anywhere.
Journey to the Savage Planet is a game about exploration, adventure, and puzzle-solving that just so happens to include some crafting and shooting. The setup is simple. You are an explorer sent to a lush planet called AR-Y 26 by the crappy space company Kindred Aerospace. Your mission is to survey the planet and all of its creatures, plants, caves, and rivers. Kindred boasts that it is the fourth-best intergalactic exploration company, which means they don’t have a lot of money. You are sent to this strange planet with nothing but a spacesuit, a 3D printer, an AI assistant and a ship with no fuel for a return trip. Good luck!
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