Lost Planet for Xbox 360

A while back I went on one of my post payday store runs, and was deciding on which game to choose. I read up on some reviews, and ran across Lost Planet, a game in which you not only run and gun, but fight the clock as you essentially freeze to death. Well, we've hit a bit of a cold snap down here in Louisiana, one that Northerners would probably scoff at, but to us it's entirely too cold. So I figured I could relate to the protagonist of our story, and picked up Lost Planet.

Let's give a little back story. The Earth has been abandoned, and man is attempting to colonize on other planets. The planet in question for this game is E.D.N. III. Everything is going well until a hostile alien race known as the Akrid start attacking. The humans are pushed back, and are ready to retreat when they learn that the Akrid have powerful thermal energy running through their bodies. Man decides to try and harvest this energy, and gets back into the fight. You play Wayne, a colonist soldier whose father is killed by a big nasty Akrid named Green Eye. In the course of the fight against Green Eye, you get frozen, and you're unthawed later, with almost no memory, and a burning desire for revenge against Green Eye. I'll get into the plot in more detail later.

I have to say that my first impression of the game was one of indifference. I wasn't hating the experience, but I really wasn't enjoying it either. You start off in the midst of chaos, with almost no explanation of your abilities or weapons. In fact, you're not even told that your freezing to death and have to keep pumping thermal energy into yourself until the official first chapter of the game. The "training" section of Lost Planet leaves you, well...lost. But you'll get through it, and then the game kicks into high gear.

Reviewing Perfect Dark Zero a while back, I mentioned that shooters, being that there's so many, have to do something different to stay competitive in the market. While I couldn't quite put my finger on it then, I can put my finger on it now. Shooters need gimmicks. Gears of War has the cover system, BLACK has the ability to destroy anything and everything, Halo was one of the first to really incorporate vehicles, and so on and so forth. Lost Planet's gimmick is the fact that you're constantly fighting against the clock. See, E.G.N. III is an environment so hostile that it makes you wonder why humans would even want to inhabit it. It snows constantly, and is so bitterly cold that the second you start playing, you're beginning to slowly but surely freeze to death. You have both a life and a thermal energy guage, which work in conjuction. As long as you have thermal energy, your health will regenerate. If you run out of thermal energy, your health goes down, and if you don't refill that thermal energy bar by killing Akrid, you're toast, or ice I guess. What this does is keeps the game pacing tight. No time for needles exploring, because you have to go kill stuff so that you may survive.

In order to kill stuff, you're given an impressive array of weapons, and vehicles. The vehicles, or VS's (vital suits) are mechs that at first come equipped with just a single gatling gun, but you can not only pick up and another gatling gun, but other weapons if you desire. I find that a gatling gun on the right and a rocket launcher on the left are a nice combination. What's more is that you can take the gatling gun off the VS and take it with you, giving you some pretty impressive firepower on foot. Luckily in Lost Planet we're not teased with the possibility of operating a vehicle and then only get one lousy level where we actually drive it (I'm looking at you Gears of War). No, the VS's are an integral part of the game, and you will operate plenty of them.

Moving on, the Akrid are nothing to scoff at. They don't have the scary factor that the Locusts did in Gears of War, but they're more varied, as they come from the sky, up from the ground, or out of holes that keep generating them until you destroy said holes (the creators of Gauntlet should be proud, as the enemy generator is a concept oft used in games, even years after a decent Gauntlet game has been made). What's so great about the Akrid is that there are so many ways to attack them, and they have many ways to attack you. And there's tons of them. The first real monster you come across is intense, and once you finish him off, you're relieved thinking you won't run into another one of those for a while. Wrong. The next level arrives, and you find yourself fighting four of them at at time. Before you know it, you'll find yourself battling endless hordes of all types of Akrid.

And that's really where the beauty lies in Lost Planet, gameplay wise. This is some of the most intense combat that you're going to see in a game for a while, and while the enemy is harsh and unrelenting, you'll have plenty of ways to dish out your own brand of chaos by not only picking up huge weapons, but also by utilizing objects in your environment. Along with all sorts of destructible cover, there's usually a handy barrel full of explosives that you can shoot. These aren't the barrels from Doom that might kill an enemy or two, if you're lucky. These things EXPLODE, usually causing a chain of explosions that clear out a room of Akrid in a hearbeat.

But Lost Planet is not without its flaws. The controls are a good place to start. The game is third person, and your targeting reticle is a little weird. If you're running and trying to play defensively, the reticle is usually a step or two behind you, causing some missed shots here and there. Also, the basic interface seems backwards. This is not the fault of the game per se, but rather what we've come to get used to. Let's face it: most shooters have the same basic control scheme. The problem is not in the buttons themselves (though I'm not sure why when X has been the action game in so many games, that Lost Planet decided to use the B button), but in the little things. Really, you'll just have to get used to things that control a little differently. It's not bad, it just takes a little time to get used to.

Also in the control department is the anchor, a grappling hook that fires from your arm and allows you to reach higher places. It's a nice concept, but isn't very practical. When you're in the heat of combat and try to escape, you'll be knocked off your anchor before you have a chance to take cover. The anchor also allows for some attacks, which are cool, but hard to pull off. You're better off just using your gun. But Lost Planet can be forgiven those minor little quibbles.

One thing it can't be forgiven of is the fact that when you get knocked down by an enemy, or are flung around by an explosion, it takes you a pretty good while to get up. The problem is that the Akrid move quickly and unforgivingly, and a lot of times, once you fall down, you've started a vicious cycle. You'll get back up, just in time just to get knocked back down, and repeat until you're dead. Something that might have helped this would be to give you some better evasive maneuvers.

Another downer is the plot. Like in almost all Capcom games, the plot starts off intriguing enough, but quickly gets confusing and goes straight into the gutter (think Resident Evil). Couple that with the bad voice acting, and you've got a plot you may as well not even bother with. Just enjoy the action.

The graphics don't particularly scream next generation. The environments are great, from snowblown, delapidating cities to underground lairs, you'll have lots of great stuff to look at, but nothing that's going to blow you away. The explosion and smoke effects that you've probably heard a lot about already are pretty cool though. The real problem is the human characters. When you're playing, your character looks a bit clunky, and other humans that you encounter look the same way. The Akrid on the other hand, look amazing, with each new monster that you encounter looking more incredible than the last, and just when you think you've seen it all, they throw something new in, and the bosses are especially cool.

The sound is decent. The game lacks real music, but boasts some pretty good sound effects. The sound of Wayne's feet crunching through the snow caused my dog to stare at the TV screen to see who was walking around, and the weapon effects are passable, but not anything to brag about.

As usual, there's a multiplayer. Sixteen players can go online and frag it out, but oddly enough, going online is your only option if you want to play with anyone. You have your basic multiplayer games, all with the Lost Planet touch, but nothing new. It's all fun, but is certainly not the selling point of the game.

Here's the Deal: Despite some issues, you have to take Lost Planet for what it is: an intense shooter that's basic purpose is to give you one big adrenaline surge, and it excels in that right. So buy the game, strap on your gatling gun, and enjoy the ride.

Parent's Note: Lost Planet is rated teen for some language and violence. The language isn't too harsh, and the violence is sci fi violence, meaning that you'll be seeing a lot more alien goo flying around than human blood or guts. I wouldn't recommend it as friendly family entertainment, but it's not going to make its way onto any government watch lists.