 There’s nothing simple about making video games, which is why when a game comes along which goes out of its way to create an experience based on a few simple principles which really works, it’s worth sitting up and taking note, and Planet of Lana is that game.
 The story plays out in just over three hours, with a few new abilities unlocked along the way, and a constant is the beautiful soundtrack. The score is almost hypnotic, with its calming influence bringing the expansive world to life as a peaceful utopia, punctuated by creeping strings as the threat of danger from the robots on the hunt for Lana, which will not hesitate to take her out on the spot. Planet of Lana is a beautiful journey which transports you to a peaceful, and tense, other world which is fun and satisfying to explore... Controlling the character lacks precision in parts, making pulling of complex manoeuvres challenging, though if you feel like you have to do something particularly intricate, you’re probably overthinking it. It’s when you know what to do, but the intentional lag between button press and action catches you out, that the frustration starts to build.  Fortunately, there weren’t any moments where we felt really stuck on a puzzle, thanks to a forgivable but challenging difficulty level, and solving them was consistently satisfying. Outwitting the enemies requires both patience, persistence and, crucially, the ability to not fly into a blind panic, choose chaos and try to run past everything. More often than not, there’s really only one way to get past a situation, which means that, besides a few collectable shrines, there’s not a lot of replayability here. There is a great one-and-done, charming experience here, which – while more common in the indie space – is still hard to come by and definitely endearing. Lana’s determination and optimism comes through with just a few words, as does the emotion of how important her connections to other characters are to her.  Planet of Lana is a beautiful journey which transports you to a peaceful, and tense, other world which is fun and satisfying to explore. While it could have been too one-note, the diversity in the locations and the gradual development in the game experience pulls you through.
The gaps between gameplay sections do occasionally feel as though they are padding for time, but, largely, the mechanics, including the dream sequences which flash you back to the beginning of the game, all come together to create a cohesive and satisfying experience. Developers Wishfully have done a great job in making this game feel polished and complete, delivering a thoughtful, well-executed platforming experience that is well worth the time. Pros
Cons
9/10  It's been 10 years since the second iteration of Relic's famed gritty World War 2 RTS Company of Heroes released and finally the third game is here with new features, factions and for the first time a console edition.
 a PC port then, how's the console controls? For the most part, it's a fairly successful carry over, utilising the 'press LT' to show options wheel that most RTS games use for console. We found nearly all the commands we wanted were easy to access and there weren't too many to remember. That said, we did have some issues with selection as A both selects and deselects units (click on empty terrain), except in some circumstances when it's not and B deselects the order - it would have been simpler to stick to the normal A to select B to deselect formula. Relatedly we found unit selection could be oversensitive and a single click would select multiple units without our intention. There's also no quick way to jump around the map for console either, and we couldn't work out how to chain orders when playing online or outside of Tactical Pause. One jarring act of laziness is that you can't remap any of the controller buttons, but a full keyboard remap option is available.  Well not quite ideal, but what's it like to play?One thing this game has going for it is that it's an exciting RTS to play by virtue of the amount of work that's gone into the visuals and environment interaction (or more aptly, destruction). The graphics by and large are decent but the main focus is the chaos of battle: Explosions kick up huge amounts of dust and debris, almost all scenery can be reduced to rubble and after a lengthy battle the ground will be mostly craters and blood stains (the game does not shy away from showing violent deaths) which unlike most games do not fade so the end of a match is a messy sight. Infantry animations have been improved since the previous game and running, vaulting and such all looks pretty smooth and natural. The AI performs fairly well for the most part, but some of the path-finding is a bit wonky and we frequently found our tanks advancing into combat facing backwards negating any armour advantage. With regards to the enemy AI it's not the smartest in terms of flanking but it makes up for it in aggression – even in a standard difficulty skirmish we found ourselves swamped with enemy attacks within minutes unable to break out or build up forces. Like most RTS games there is an element of RNG to combat which helps prevent instant death but can also lead to some almost comically long battles with troops metres apart missing constantly (think that Viva La Dirt League skit). ...there was a bit of dubious tone discrepancy with gameplay being us fighting for the Germans while the cutscenes tell us about the awful things the Germans are doing... Is there much content?There's three main gameplay modes to choose from: the newly added dynamic campaign for Italy, a standard story missions set for the Africa front and your typical skirmish/multiplayer map control modes. The dynamic campaign is an interesting idea combining an Advanced Wars like turn based top down strategy game with RTS gameplay battles for capturing points, and there's choices to make in terms of your route which will please or displease three faction leaders – however this feels a little tacked on as it's not like you're choosing your own route but instead essentially choosing which upgrade tree you want to go with which is basically what each leader is, albeit with more bickering than a normal upgrade tree has. It's a decent premise but we feel it would have worked just fine as a normal cutscene and mission mode. Speaking of which there's the Africa Operation, in which you help Rommel charge his way through Africa, with decent mix of assault, defence and infiltration missions. It feels a bit short though, cutting off after a handful of missions at El Alamein – a missed opportunity to swap to the British side as they push him back to let us use some different vehicles and new scenery. We also felt there was a bit of dubious tone discrepancy with gameplay being us fighting for the Germans while the cutscenes tell us about the awful things the Germans are doing. The two skirmish options are a capture all points or elimination mode for up to 8 players/AI (4v4), though it's a little disappointing how despite their appearance in the story the Italians are not a playable faction, instead we get the Germans twice (in grey or yellow flavour), and will presumably have to buy the Italians as DLC later. It's also exceedingly hard to come back from getting pushed back to base with little point in even trying when you have next to no resources coming in by default – speed and aggression is key.  And the verdict?Overall we've enjoyed our time with this game, though we spotted a few control issues, visual bugs and minor historical quibbles it's a solid addition to the rather sparse console WW2 RTS market, and though PC is clearly the intended way to play it performs well enough and offers an exciting dose of visually spectacular war action. Though with Sega laying off numerous Relic staff post release we'll have to wait and see what new content it gets down the line.
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