Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is the latest action shooter from CAPCOM, and there's a lot in common with Devil May Cry 4. For starters there's the infamous hard drive install: this one takes 13 minutes, and gives you nothing to look at while it's working. The great news is, unlike DMC4, there's virtually no loadings during the game. Hurrah for installs!

The story behind Lost Planet is not the best ever. In a distant future, mankind is trying to colonize other planets, but it's not working out as expected. On a frozen planet, an alien species of powerful giant bugs (the Akrid) is fighting back. The aliens have a great energy source inside them, and humans love energy sources. So we decide to build weapons that can kill the aliens, and harvest some thermal energy. You play Wayne, a soldier that watches his father die in a huge boss fight against the Green Eye, right a the start of the game. At the time all you can do is run, but revenge will be yours. Afterwards the plot makes little sense, and the long cut-scenes become a waste of time. Fortunaly you dont need a good storyline to enjoy a shooter.

Lost Planet's subtitle is Extreme Condition because of the really lousy weather. The icy landscape reminds me of a certain Star Wars episode, and all the alien shooting looks a lot like Starship Troopers. Then there's the giant worm that I remember clearly from Dune, and I'm sure I've seen those mechs somewhere before. Akrid come in all kinds and shapes, you have small Akrid, flying Akrid, and huge scary Akrid that will scare the crap out of you. But aliens are not your only enemies. There's snow pirates too! Yes, pirates, real people that were left behind years before and like to shoot at you. When you mix everything, you get some pretty intense battles.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
Dashing through the snow...

To fight these nasty aliens, humans developed Vital Suits. VTs are armored mechs capable of dealing a lot of damage. Some are big jumpers, some can transform into bikes, others can hover in the air. You will fight inside them, and against them all. The VTs have big weapons attached that you can remove and take with you, adding more ways to kill aliens.

Third-person is the default view, but you can change into first-person if you like. However it will keep coming back to third-person, so dont bother. When you're on foot, you'll have snow up to your knees, and running around becomes a problem. Actually Wayne is not very agile at all, and you always get the feeling that he could run faster and move better. The anchor is a great way to climb large platforms and rappel, but it's not always clear if it will work the way you expect it.

The control system takes a while to get used to, and some things just dont work right. Like when you need to shoot something above you and the game wont let you. You have to move back to get the shot, and it can make your life a living hell since there's so many flying creatures attacking from the skies. To make things easier you can keep aim assistance on, and chose from 3 controller patterns. Anyway you play, it takes time to master the controls. There's some button mashing to perform certain actions, like digging, ejecting or activating devices.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
The weak spot is obvious.

Thermal energy is vital, Without it you will freeze to death in a few minutes. The problem is you have to keep killing aliens to charge it. The energy will also protect you from enemy attacks, but each blow drains some energy. Even if you dont take any hits, your energy is always dropping, so if you want to live, you have to kill, kill, and kill some more! This whole thermal energy thing is a great idea, but it makes no sense that you still need it when you're indoors or even near a lava pit. This means the game is non-stop action, if you take some time off to look at the scenery, you lose energy and die.

You can only carry 2 different weapons, plus the grenades. There are so many cool weapons it's hard to chose what to leave behind. Bigger weapons look awesome but limit your movement. The energy gun has infinite amo, but uses your precious energy. It's easy to get carried away shooting stuff and forget about the energy drop until it's too late to recover. You can destroy parts of the scenery, including most of the objects that you can use for cover. Everything you blow up will release energy, just like in DMC4.

You have a lot of freedom in Lost Planet. The world is big enough to give you the illusion that you can go anywhere you like, and there's many ways you can tackle the enemies and go through each level. There are a lot of checkpoints, so you dont have to repeat too much gameplay. Every chapter throws a bunch of enemies at you, that you can kill or evade, leading to a boss battle that you have to fight. Simple and effective.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
Cut off it's legs, and watch them grow back!

With most aliens you have to destroy the source, or they will spawn forever. When you're facing humans the gameplay changes, and the enemy AI is a lot sharper. The real fun begins when both species get together and all hell breaks lose. You can almost stand still and watch them fight each other. The game is quite challenging, and the boss fights will keep you busy. Some creatures are larger-than-life and killing them is not always an option.

Lost Planet is a gorgeous game, with beautiful icy landscapes and exciting indoors scenarios. Explosions and smoke effects look amazing and really add to the gameplay. Rockets leave a cool trail, barrels explode killing loads of enemies, and everything looks great, with no frame rate issues. The graphics are so good and totally "next-gen", I cant understand why the game menus look and feel like it's the early 90s.

The sound effects are good and bad. Some weapons sound just like they should, mechs make cool noises and the voices are ok. But then you have a couple of weapons that sound like toys instead of heavy machine guns. The music is pretty good and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
Look at that amazing black smoke.

When you're done with the single-player game, you can go online and join 16 player battles. People from all over the world can play together. Since the game is not out in Europe yet, I found myself playing with a lot of japanese gamers. I was surprised by the lack of any lag even when my opponents were so far away. Online you have four modes: Elimination, Team Elimination, Post Grab and Fugitive. Nothing new here. Add 16 different stages and 6 item layouts and you have many hours of multi-player shooting to enjoy.

Lost Planet is a decent shooter with top graphics and a brainless story. If you like cool mechs, big guns, scary aliens and blowing up everything on screen, get this game.

Score: 83%