Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

"It's like getting snow in your boots."

Now when I first saw the commercial for Lost Planet, I was very intrigued. Here we have a game that's set entirely on an icy snow covered planet in which you engage into some epic battles with giant ugly killer bugs. I figured this game was going to be a lotta fun. Oh how wrong I was. Lost Planet instead turns out to be a stale 3rd person shooter that has "extreme" levels of boredom and frustration. It's a shame too.

Earthlings managed to find their way to new planets in the dark black of space, and many decided to live and colonize there as well. They landed on an ice planet called E.D.N. 3 (stupid name but whatever), and things were okay until they got overrun by alien bug creatures known as the Akrid. Turns out Akrid carry a powerful and amazing energy source inside them, so naturally the humans are trying to slaughter them all. You play as a kid named Wayne, who is on a run and gun with his father and some troops. Then a giant Akrid known as Green Eye comes and wrecks the party. Long story short, your crew and your father get killed saving you, and you make it out and almost freeze to death. Saved by a band of Snow Pirates and suffering from amnesia, you're now working with them and taking the fight to the Akrid menace. Then stuff happens, plot twists galore, and yet it never seemed to pull me in.

The game has a whole slew of cutscenes in between the missions and even during them as well. They can go on for as long as 10 minutes sometimes. Solid voice acting I thought also. But for whatever reason, I just never cared about the problems of the characters. I never wanted to find out about the plot developments, I never even knew the name of the final boss when I got to him. They said it a lot, but I just keep falling asleep. Either way, I just couldn't get into it. But at least the story is still skippable if you don't want to watch it. Still, it has okay presentation and you might enjoy it....me, I don't understand it but I just felt nothing.

Maybe I was still taking in the gameplay. Well let's talk about the crummy game shall we? Here's a 3rd person shooter where you go around fighting off evil alien bugs and snow pirates and evil corporations and the like. You go from Point A to Point B, kill the boss at the end of the level, and that was pretty much the whole game. You never have any escort missions or puzzles to solve, you don't get any teammates or upgrade your abilities or anything. It's just wave after wave of enemies, and you scrounge around for some Thermal Energy. Oh good ol' thermal energy. See, because Wayne is on an ice planet, that adds this whole new dynamic that he could freeze to death if he doesn't have the warmth. And what has warmth? The Akrid of course!

So you have this meter in all the levels that is your T. Energy. It goes down by the second, if you're standing still. However doing actions like jumping, using your grappling hook, and even riding in a mech suit, that thing goes down much quicker. If your thermal energy reaches zero, than your health starts to going down because of the overwhelming cold. It also means you can't pilot mechs for some reason, which is always good for a boss fight! Your health also regenerates immediately as long as you have enough as well. The energy is not hard to find, which is definitely a good thing. Any tank or container that you see? It's got it. Any enemy you can kill? It's holding some. The energy isn't really that big of an issue until you get forced into using the VS, or Virtual Suits if you will.

The VS are an important part of the game. In fact, they're the plot point that is emphasized as to why the humans even dared to hunt down the Akrid and take their energy from them in the first place. Thing is, VS need energy to move. LOTS of it. You'll find it wears out really quickly and if you're not careful you'll run low and find yourself walking on foot. Which sucks, not only because you've lost the only useful way to fight these enemies, but because now you're low and more than likely going to die. Seriously with their moderately faster speed and extremely useful firepower, fights become manageable as opposed to the mess that is walking on foot. And some VS' are different. Some can jump really, really high. Some can float for a short period of time. And one even has four legs! How often do you control a four legged mech!? One aspect I almost liked about the mechs was that you could actually attach and take away their weapons. So if your mech becomes unusable because of lack of energy, you could take the gatling gun off it's shoulders, and now use it on foot. That's kinda neat.

I say kinda because the game is a mess of crazy uneven difficulty and a terrible on foot experience. Firstly, the character moves so slow you never get the sense of action at all. Every alien creature that curls into a ball and flings by like nothing, or flying creature that flash past the screen....you're so envious. Because rather than play as those fun things, you're stuck to being the meatbag who can't even roll or make any interesting jumps. He can jump, but it doesn't help in dodging attacks or traversing the level or anything so I don't even know why it's there. You use generic weapons that are known only as "Machine Gun" or "Rifle", and you go and pick off walking bug creatures who look stolen from that movie Starship Troopers. But you gotta love that starting ammo! 300 bullets for your machine gun?! Oh goody! You run out of ammo so fast in this game I was going crazy after awhile. They're encouraging you to kill waves of enemies, so you can get their orange juice so that you don't freeze to death. Well I'd need lots of ammo then wouldn't I? And when the enemies are designed in a way that you're always trying to shoot their weak spots, you waste ammo so much.

All of the Akrid have glowing areas on their bodies as weak spots. Some are right there in the open and that's fine. But others can have it behind them on their tail or whatever, and it forces you to try and get behind them. But not without a flexible character you're not! If you run slow and can't roll out of the away, all you're doing is waiting so that they'll lunge at you so that you'll maybe get out of the way and turn to shoot their tails. But whatever. Hard skinned Akrid, make for lots of wasted bullets which again, are sparse and not exactly easy to get. And then there are the human enemies. People with guns are okay. Rocket launching robot mechs? Not so much. They don't even have any weaknesses and require you to waste huge amounts of ammo on them. Then you run outta that last clip in your rifle, and guess what? You're screwed. Melee attacks might work on humans, but with everything else it's useless. The enemies are just so overpowered and it's ridiculous how many man on mech battles you get into.

The rocket shooting enemies are the worst of all. There are these thugs and mechs that will bomb your butt into the next world at every chance they get. But unlike other games, you can't ever get away from them easily without them doing a number on you. See, they hit you once, and the whole area becomes a big cloud of black smoke. So not only are you waiting for your bumbling idiot of a main character to get up, you're trying to run away even though you can't see anything. And sure enough, as soon as you start running away, you get bombed again like 2 seconds after you start running! Their attacks are so frequent and your getting up animation is slow, and you can't roll outta the way or jump over it or whatever. You could potentially shoot the rockets, but that'd be a waste of ammo....assuming you could see it through the black smoke. I had the most brutal time ever in the later levels, especially Mission 8. I couldn't stay in a mech suit long enough with those numerous mech enemies blowing it up. So I was on foot against 3 or more, rocket launching (and auto lasering too) mech baddies and I was tearing my hair out. THIS WAS ON EASY MODE!

One thing I kinda liked about the on foot stuff, was that Wayne can actually use this rope grappling hook thing to climb over obstacles. Any wall that you see, it can propel you up. Even areas that don't necessarily lead you anywhere, you can go with that grappling hook. But it's got it's issues as well. For one, the cord is always too short. Secondly, you can't use it while jumping which to be is a big mistake. You can shoot and jump at the same time....why no grapple and jump? Heck when I'm falling from large obstacles thanks to those lovely rocket henchmen, it would've been cool to fall and use your grappling hook to save yourself from the leap of doom. Or even to use it to pull weapons or enemies around would've been neat as well. Alas, the grappling hook doesn't save this game from being frustrating as heck.

The control of the game is very odd. You use the left and right bumpers to actually turn 90 degrees left or right, and you need to do it because your right analog stick isn't too reliable. The crosshair cursor is just in this position where it only go so far and so high, and the camera seems to follow it. So until the cursor is the most right it can go, the camera won't turn right. And the cursor moves too slow so hooray for that as well! Can you tell I'm not big on this game?

From a presentation standpoint, I will admit the game looks amazing. And it's practically no load times as well which is always nice to see. Giant snow fields and the amazing size and scope of the enemies is quite the sight to behold. In the later levels you'll be in lava factories and whatnot and it always looks great. The actual characters are anime-influenced and they could be a little more interesting to me. They all just wear snow suits for the most part. And the best explosions ever, are in this game.....a shame they ruin your gaming experience with it's black smoke effects. As for the soundtrack, it's an epic orchestral score for the intense action stuff and it sounds pretty good. The voice acting isn't painful and in the audio department everything seems to be fine and dandy.

This game just wasn't fun to me. It was more of a chore managing the thermal energy and trying my damnest to survive in the mech, but also not keep using it's energy wasting abilities so much. To me it was all in the slow unflexible character that you control, and how useless he is compared to these overpowering, ammo hogging enemies. I mean the game should've just been a mech game. Period. The game has Xbox Live multiplayer, but I don't play online so I couldn't tell you how fun it is. Or even if people are still playing it. If the character still handles like he does in the single player, than I'm guessing it's bad. I was just so frustrated with this game. And amazed how hard it's Easy mode was. It has four modes! Easy, Normal, Hard, and Extreme....why?! If you make a game with 4 different modes, than I don't expect to be rocket juggled by impossible to take down mechs on the easiest setting!

IN THE END...
Lost Planet has an interesting idea with great presentation, but it also has repetitive and uneven gameplay that kills the experience. The character's not flexible enough, the story never held my attention, and I just couldn't get into the thermal energy angle. Avoid this one.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/08

Game Release: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (US, 01/12/07)