Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

"You want to like this game so bad...but in the end, it becomes nothing more than mediocre."

Lost Planet: Extreme condition is Capcom's latest game, following the smash hit Dead Rising. Will Lost Planet live up to it's expectations, or will it be left out in the cold?

Story: 5/10
Sometime in the future, humanity has moved on to colonize many new planets for human use. Humanity has found this planet, but it's climate is too unbearable for normal human life. People have found that they can make life here bearable through use of thermal energy (or "T-Energy"). Problem is, this "T-Energy" comes from the many hostile creatures that inhabit the planet. So there is a war between humans who want to take over and the creatures who want to keep their planet. You are Wayne. You are assisting your father and the military on a mission to destroy an alien presence somewhere in a large facility. During this mission your father is killed, and you escape the facility as the lone survivor, only to find yourself lost in a frozen wasteland. Your VR (or walkers as I call them) runs out of power and shuts down, leaving you trapped. An unknown amount of time later, you are rescued by a small group of three humans bent on destroying the alien presence. Wayne, struck with amnesia, is struggling to remember what has happened to him as he helps these strange people, and begins to uncover a dark conspiracy. That's about as exciting the story gets. There are some semi-interesting plot twists here and there, but nothing too out of the ordinary and most you could see coming from a mile away. The voice acting is not bad, but the script is pretty bad. It evens it out to make the experience bearable.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics in Lost Planet are definitely a strong point. The snow looks amazing, with sharp textures and well done character models. The problem is, the developers spent so much time on the snow and blizzard effects that it seems like they didn't do too much with much else of the environment. The indoor areas (which there are few of) seem pretty bland. The enemies have almost no variation to them. This means that all of the aliens look exactly the same, except for the different types. There are the flying ones, the ones on foot, and the big ones, and that's about as complicated as it gets. The snow pirates are the only human enemies you will face in large numbers, and they all look exactly the same except for two classes, the tougher of the two having some kind of armor on and are harder to kill. The only enemies that are a real prize to look at are the bosses, as they are very different in each way and usually quite visually great looking. You will never see better explosions than those presented on Lost Planet. The smoke effects are nothing short of amazing, and that is almost an understatement. Unfortunately, smoke effects can't save a game, and they almost get in the way. But we will talk about that later.

Gameplay: 6/10
Lost Planet is your typical run n' gun shooter. There is nothing more complicated to it than kill everything. Due to the freezing conditions of the planet, you are constantly on the lookout for T-Energy, which keeps you warm. This will recharge your health when you are injured, but you will wish that you could control when this happens, as it will drain A LOT of T-Energy. You can find T-Energy off the corpses of you dead enemies. It is simple: bigger enemy, more T-Energy. Capcom implemented this to make it
feel as if you must always be on the move and constantly trying to survive, and while it makes for a fresh new feature, it is also very frustrating. T-Energy is always running out. It is constantly dropping no matter what you do. If you try to avoid enemies by taking cover, you risk running out of T-Energy. If you go and fight to gain more, you will more than likely lose more than you gain. If you take damage, you lose an enormous amount to heal yourself. In some cases, it comes to the point where you have absolutely no choice to start over, as when T-Energy runs out, your life bar depletes to simulate you freezing to death. This cycle may not occur much in the early stages, but around stage 5-6 and beyond you will see what I am talking about. Possibly the most frustrating part of Lost Planet is being blown up. Yes the smoke effects are amazing. So amazing that when a rocket comes anywhere near you, you are completely blinded by smoke. While this may be realistic, there is no way to tell if you are downed, staggered, or completely unharmed, and by the time the smoke clears, the enemy will have another rocket heading your way. When you are hit with these suckers, Wayne will plummet to the ground. This is understandable. But by the time you get up, another rocket has hit you, and down you go again. Usually this process repeats until you have either been killed, or dropped enough T-energy that you are about to freeze to death, or will begin that process shortly. Wayne can use a variety of weapons, but you will find that the machine gun and shotgun are the only weapons of real use, unless you go up against enemy walkers which will take heavy weapons which are usually supplied to you if you look for them. Also at his disposal are walkers Wayne can use himself. These things are beastly to use and can use very powerful weapons. Problems: these things will drain your T-Energy almost twice as fast as you would use normally. This means you will have to kill more enemies, jeopardizing your walker which in some cases, if required. Yes. Required. The game will let you continue on without it, but you may as well throw a grenade at your feet if you try to take on just about any of the games bosses without one. The ammo is also limited for the weapons, but more weapons are usually plentiful when needed. The stages are very linear and the objectives are very repetitive. I.e.: Mission: destroy alien 'A' and reach point 'B'. There is a jump button, but it seems pointless since there are few things that Wayne can jump to by himself. Luckily, he has a grappling hook that can be used to reach high places. Unfortunately, he can be as knocked off of this easier than his feet.
The grappling hook is pretty easy to use, just tap the X button and it will automatically pull towards any surface within reach. There are weird exceptions to it though, like you can't use it while falling, so forget saving yourself from a fall. There is no falling damage at all, but sometimes you must climb numerous objects to reach higher ground, and it can be frustrating to climb it all again.

Controls: 7/10
The problem here isn't that the controls are bad, it's just that everything will seem awkward to someone who plays regular shooters. It's hard to explain, but the controls will seem natural after a few minutes of play. The left stick moves and the right aims. Click the right stick to reload your weapon. Right trigger fires, left throws grenades. A jumps, B does a melee attack (not particularly useful but still nice), Y switches between current weapons, and X is grappling hook. Tap up on the d-pad to zoom in and down to zoom out.

Sound: 6/10
Really not much here. Basic weapons fire, explosions, enemy chatter, and instrumental music. There is nothing really all that special. Moving on.

Multiplayer: 8/10
If you are going to play this game at all, you should do it for the multiplayer. There isn't really any new game modes that you can't find anywhere else, but they are well presented and fun to play. Since it isn't anything SUPER SPECIAL the online community is likely to die out with all the AAA titles coming soon.

VERDICT:
Lost Planet is a decent shooter with good graphics, control, and decent story, but that can't make up for its linear level design, frustrating gameplay, and overall mediocrity that doesn't bring a whole lot to the table. The multiplayer is fun, but with it's lack of lasting quality, it can't save this game.
BOTTOM LINE: 6/10
RENT OR BUY? Rent.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/07