Although what you might have seen alot of is the open, outdoor, snow covered planet's surface - the game doesn't only confine itself to the great icescape. Throughout the game you'll travel across snow deserts, enter massive fortresses, climb through destroyed towns and cities, ascend mountains, and even fight your way through Akrid hives. And you'll do this all in the greatness of HD (if you have an HD TV that is).
Explosions and weapon effects are my personal favorite though. The smoke and fire of your grenades blowing up is rich with detail and in no way slows down the framerate of the game. It's truly a beautiful thing to match that kind of graphical performance with the 360's power at running it's games totally smoothly.
Lost Planet is essentially two kinds of games - a 3rd person shooter and your mech-shooter game that harks back to the days of say...the Armored Core series. Unlike some other games (Call of Juarez) who restrict you to one or the other during certain parts of the game - Lost Planet gives you the option of using either way to fight whenever you want to. The only restraint of this is sometimes when you need to enter buildings that the mech is too big for or when a cliff or mountain top is only accessible via the turbo jump. Only you need to be able to find a mech to begin with - either sitting in a snow pirate garage or covered in snow on the plains.
If you really wanted to I'm sure you could play the game either way and confine yourself to either of those options throughout, yet certain parts are harder to overcome if you were to do this.
On foot you're slow moving and the game does a good job of matching your character's speed with the surface in which he's traversing. In other words: more snow = slower foot speed. Your character has access to a number of different weapons in the game, ranging from your standard machine gun to a grenade launcher, and a energy gun. Also it's somewhat cool (though unrealistic) that your character can pick up gattling guns and rocket launchers with the intended use to equip them to your mech, but instead turn around and use the weapon on your enemies. Weapons can be found all over the map during missions, some in plain sight and others actually buried under the snow that require you to dig to get them. You also have access to a grappling hook that really reminds me of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to use it throughout the game.
The mech has access to fewer kinds of weapons: gattling guns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers to name three but two of these weapons can be equipped to your mech at any given time. Yet, this also depends on the mech in which your driving. There are different kinds of mechs - some are your normal slow walkers that can carry two guns while others can change into super fast bikes and back into mechs but only carry one gun, and then you have your fighter mechs that can carry two weapons but also have jet packs and such for flying capabilities and increased agility. All of them are fun to be behind the controls of though - there's no doubt about that!
The enemies are varied and different kinds will be revealed as the game progresses. They also very much differ in size. The ones you'll encounter the most will be smaller but there are plenty of over sized behemoth creatures that you'll have to depend on your trigger finger and ability to run and gun to save your life.
Enemies you encounter will not always be these Akrid creatures though. The game also has you encountering and fighting other humans. Specifically other snow pirates like yourself and government-esque soldiers called Nevec who will also have mech warriors that'll test your fighting skills.
Total gameplay time for the story part of the game comes in at around 7 hours total - less if your a 3rd person shooter pro I would imagine. The campaign is 11 missions long and play out like your normal shooter would: you're told to get from point A to point B, fight your way through massive amounts of enemies, and then fight a ridiculously gigantic boss at the end to finish up the mission.
Boss fights are fun and are usually the more heated, exciting, and fast paced parts of the game. No boss is the same and a majority of the time you'll be thinking that you've bitten off more than you can chew. Yet, if you suck it up and get shooting you'll see that the big monsters are not that hard to defeat. In actuality there's really no trick to defeating bosses...simply dumping massive amounts of shells and rockets into any of them will end their lives in 5 minutes or so.
Gameplay = 8/10
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Audio
The sound and music for this game is not memorable at all. Yes, it picks up and becomes epic-sounding when you face certain massive amounts of enemies and such but like I said...it's not memorable. The sound effects aren't as great as they could be. Some weapons really get the idea across that they're powerful pieces of technology through great sound work but others totally fail to even excite or stick out.
The creatures don't even make that interesting of noises...they actually tend to keep quiet outside of some examples (boss fights especially) and thus they actually tend to sneak up on you from blind spots in the camera. Most of the noise you'll hear while fighting enemies is either the sounds of your gunfire or the sound of their bashing around the environment.
Audio = 2/5
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Replay Value
There's not too much replay value either. That is unless you're into multiplayer. Personally I have not checked out the multiplayer portion of the game simply b/c I do not have Xbox Live. I did however see that supposedly the online parts of Lost Planet are amazingly fun and addictive in every sense of the word.
Besides multiplayer though there doesn't seem to be any reason to ever play through the single player bit once you've finished it the first time. This is definitely a play and don't pick up for two months kind of game.
Replay Value = 3/5
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Story/Plot
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition sets you in the boots of a man named Wayne - a snow pirate on the planet E.D.N. III in the distant future. Humans have left Earth to colonize other words and E.D.N. III was once a colony but it was abandoned after the discovery of a hostile alien species known as the Akrid.
Now E.D.N. III is only inhabited by these Akrid creatures and those foolish enough to stay planetside who call themselves "snow pirates". Through the discovery of the thermal energy within the bodies of the Akrid, humans are able to use this energy to make living on E.D.N. III somewhat bearable, match that with the creation of Vital Suits (the mechs) and now the humans have the abilities to fight the Akrid on even ground.
After encountering a massive Akrid creature called the Green Eye, Wayne is found nearly frozen within his VS and is taken into care by a group of three characters: Rick (a tech-wiz), Rick's sister Luka, and the leader of the three Yuri. It can be assumed that these three are in fact other snow pirates but the fact that there's only three of them brings some questions up.
Not remembering anything but the fact that the Green Eye killed his father in the encounter, Wayne must try and remember his past while helping his rescuers in the present. From there on the story begins to include the pirate-hunting company Nevec, the hunt for the Green Eye, and introduces new characters and plot lines.
Overall the story seems to have some depth but it really requires that you either a) pay close attention to every little detail in the semi-lengthy cutscenes between each mission or b) fill in the plot holes by yourself. The story is one of the weakest aspects of the game. Some points don't make sense and other more important factors are either missing or are never explained in any sort of detail.
For those that like substance to their shooters this is not the game for you.
Story/Plot = 6/10
Conclusion:
Lost Planet is fun, there's no doubt about that. But for all it's fun and fast paced action there's just too much actual story substance missing or it's explained too poorly for me to truly enjoy from beginning to end. This is certainly a game in which you can turn off your mental abilities and just sit back and kill things.
I would however recommend renting (or purchasing for a low cost) this game if you've expressed some interest in it. If anything the game should be played just so that you can get an eye full of the beautiful yet dangerous snow covered world of E.D.N. III.
It should be noted that the game is also available on the PC - ye I hear that the control scheme is a little iffy and the game itself doesn't quite hold the same performance and visual excitement the Xbox 360 version does.
Final Score = 29/40 or 72%
Links:
The official Capcom Lost Planet: Extreme Condition website:
http://www.lostplanet-thegame.com/
Link to Gamespot's review of the game:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/acti...g=tabs;reviews
If you want to purchase the game:
http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=952108
Or check the Collector's Ed. out on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Planet-Co...3687768&sr=8-2
RAWR!
[Games] Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
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