Soyerz's Profile

Lost Planet is a game that I struggle to define what I really think of it. It truly is a great game that is unfortunately pulled back by some rather large problems. There is probably a large problem in Lost Planet that can pull back the experience for all of us. If you look past the problems which can easily hold back Lost Planet back from being a truly great experience, you really can take the small things in this game for granted.

Let me start on the story of this game. I will try to avoid too much detail as it really is not interesting. To sum it up, to are attempting to avenge your father who was killed by some snow pirates. You get all angry, take it out on a big bug and end up being left to die in snow for days. When you are rescued by a group of 3 snow pirates it is your characters duty to be a total jerk to the people who have just saved him. You then go on missions by yourself to avenge the people who killed your father.

If you disagree on my outline of the story because of how vague or how many points it misses then that will be due to the fact that I really did not care about this story. Many Japanese games give great, dramatic stories. Others give stories that are just plain horrible and cliche. Lost Planet follows by my second example. I can honestly say that I really did not care about this story so much to the extent that I simply skipped past the cut scenes at the halfway mark after giving up on trying to make any understanding of what was going on. This is one of the very few games where I have actually done this. Sadly enough, I felt no guilt in skipping past the cut scenes. They truly are bad.

The game play in this game is obviously would it needs to rely on. It has many ups and downs. First off I will explain what I really did not enjoy about Lost Planet. The controls in this game really are just terrible. Your character will take a long time to do a 180 degree turn which is a total annoyance if someone if is about to kill you from behind (just like Capcom's Resident Evil 5?). The bumpers are used for quick turning but it just does not feel right. It would have been a lot easier if the camera just turned a bit faster. To go hand-in-hand with the terrible controls, the characters animation(s) you control feels clunky and heavy. The cannot run in this game and the jumping physics are terrible.Though, the grappling hook easily makes up for this. With such terrible character animations it can really just pull back the game at times. When you get hit down by an enemies rocket launcher, grenade or whatever comes across your path, your character will fall to the ground on his back and will take at least 3-5 seconds to get up. While to some this may not sound like an annoyance, it truly is. The amount of pressure you face to get up can be intense. The main reason for this is my next problem with Lost Planet, thermal energy. The environments you play in with Lost Planet are extremely cold. To avoid dying, your character needs to collect large, orange blobs which will keep your character alive. Each enemy you kill will give you more thermal energy as it drops it. The bigger the enemy, the bigger the amount of energy. If the quantity of thermal energy drops below 0 then you have no more than 10 seconds to live. In this time it is suggested that you find some thermal energy, fast. Thermal energy is annoying and just adds to problems that Lost Planet already has. And to make it even worse, the higher the difficulty, the faster your energy will drop. I would not even bother.

As it looks so far, I have done so far is just complain about Lost Planet. For the next few paragraphs I will explain what I think Lost Planet excels in. First off, the mechs in this game can be fun. At times they can feel a bit heavy and tedious to handle, but the further you get into the game, the more easier they will get to control. They will also be upgraded to be able to do new features such as fly and have large swords on them. The final boss fight will truly show how much fun and challenging mechs can be.

The boss fights in this game feel great. They can be huge, challenging and tiring. But I am glad to say that most boss fights now days that are similar to this, it is executed perfectly to still feel like a lot of fun. The boss fights are generally the same for every encounter you will have; big bug appears, shoot its orange spot (thermal energy), collect the thermal energy as it falls to survive, rinse and repeat until it eventually dies. It may not sound like a lot of fun, but it truly is executed greatly and has lead to some of the greater boss fights I have experienced in this current generation of gaming.

The final part of what I truly enjoyed in Lost Planet is a tough one to think of. I am not saying that the two previous points are the only ones I can think of, but rather that Lost Planet has many small things to enjoy. The problem being is that some may enjoy these occurrences while others may hate them. An example of this is the general game play in Lost Planet which is shooting snow pirates. Some may enjoy shooting the smaller, more vulnerable enemies while others may grow tired of this and give up after getting feed up of fighting through enemies to see no light at the end of the tunnel (the end of the level). Another thing people may not enjoy is the long chapter. The chapters in Lost Planet could last for as long as an hour to and hour and a half. Some may find this to be more value to their money while others may just want to move onto the next stage. Both are completely understandable.

Visuals in Lost Planet are average. Back in early 2007 when it came it they may have had some people on the edge of the seats when they see the size and detail of some of the gigantic enemies that will be encountered. To no surprise, visuals date rather quickly. With games like Killzone 2 and Red Dead Redemption out there, Lost Planet's visuals look just like any other brick in the wall.

The sound is all right. The voice acting is boring and melodramatic so that is one area where the sound falls flat on its face. The soundtrack is OK. It will not blow you away but you will get the point. The music can tend to stop quite often when you are not engaging in combat. For that time being, you will just be hearing the sound of your footsteps and the cry of faint enemies. It is not bad, but it is just really not too exciting.

The last part to cover is the multiplayer which I for one can say I don't care about. While some may argue against me, I simply think the multiplayer in this game is pointless. Going online now, 3 years after Lost Planet came out is going to mean that only people who truly love this game and can really kick some in multiplayer will be the only ones left playing. What that leaves you with is a small community of players who will take you out in this game within seconds. Combine all of this with the abysmal controls I mentioned earlier and you have a rather tedious and daunting multiplayer. I will not go into much detail on this as I really do not have much to give. I just gave up as soon as I played an hours worth with a single kill. Not good.

I would say that you should pick up this game. It is pretty damn cheap now days so is probably not worth renting. It is a game that has some clear issues to it but really does have some great ideas to it that are executed greatly. It is just such a shame that it it held back by strange decisions on behalf of Capcom such as the controls and the thermal heating for life. It truly is a good game, but not a great game.