Review #642: Lost Planet - Extreme Condition

 Starship Troopers on ice.

 A few, many few, years ago I fell in love with Capcom's Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii. I had arrived at the HD-generation of consoles a bit late, so Lost Planet was quite behind me, however, I caught an Interview or promotion of sorts in which a Capcom representative, Seth Killian maybe?, promoted Lost Planet 2 as the 'Monster Hunter' of shooters, with slower, more deliberate movements as well as invincibility during rolls. It sounded right up my alley, and Lost Planet 2 delivered exactly what I wanted. But for whatever reason, probably because I heard it was quite different, I never cared about the first game. Well, things have changed, so it was high time I gave Capcom's first HD third-person shooter a try. It's pretty good.

 The story is set in the futuristic planet of E.D.N III, a planet that's completely covered in ice and snow, inhabited by monstruous creatures call the Akrids. Humans are attempting to colonize this world, you taking the role of Wayne, the lone survivor of a team of colonizers who get ambushed and crushed by the Green-eyed Akrid. Discovered by a group of Snow Pirates, and with no recollection of what happened to him before he froze, he'll do battle against Akrids and no-good humans in an effort to make discover his past and make E.D.N III great again. Or, y'know, habitable. The story is generic action-game nonsense, for good or bad. In a lot of ways, it feels like a PS2 game, and I that's a good thing, it's fun, it's dumb, it gets the job done.

 Lost Planet is, in a lot of ways, a fairly rudimentary third-person shooter. There's no cover-mechanic, rolling is incredibly counter intuitive(L3+Jump at the same time), no sprinting and Wayne himself is about as agile as a sack of rocks. He is so mobility-impaired that R1 and L1 are used to turn in 90 degree angles. It's clunky, it really is, but it sorta works. Movement is fairly slow-paced, but it feels kinda good having such weight behind your movement. Plus, you get a hookshot that can be used to scale buildings or barriers, as well as hooking onto larger monsters for more direct confrontations. Not that it's in your best interest, since Akrids have glowing orange body parts on which they receive extra damage. That said, even the hookshot is kinda clunky, with a relatively short range and the fact that you can't use it while jumping, so no crazy acrobatics here. Armaments are fairly basic too, an assault rifle, a shotgun, a rocket-launcher as well as a couple of Thermal energy-based weapons, Wayne only being able to carry two at a time. There are also two-handed versions of this weapons, which make Wayne fairly slow... but that's alright, since they are meant to be outfitted on a VS.

 VSs are giant robots Wayne and his human enemies can pilot. Once again, clunky is the word of choice when it comes to describing how they operate, that said, they are way faster than Wayne could ever hope to be, so they are pretty much always advantageous to ride. Plus, the extra fire power. There's a decent variety of VS, and there's always at least one per mission, they do break, so be careful. Regardless, the VSs are fun to ride, unless I had to, I'd always look for one, and it does add a bit of flavor to the game.

 There's one final mechanic I've neglected to mention since I've no particularly strong feelings about it: Thermal Energy. Being set in a frozen planet, you have to maintain your heat, which you do by amassing Thermal Energy, either by defeating Akrids(They drop more if you hit their shiny parts) or by activating T-Spots spread throughout each mission. T-Energy is spent by just breathing, and it's also your source of healing when you take damage, but certain actions, such as using Energy weapons, riding VSs or using their abilities(Jumping or boosting) consumes larger quantities of the energy source. If you run out of T-Energy you'll slowly start losing health until you die. I only died a couple of times because I ran out of T-Energy, but most of the time it's not really a problem. And while it sounds annoying, harvesting T-Energy wasn't too bad.

 The game itself is rather short, about 6 hours or so on the normal difficulty setting. There are no unlockables, although there are a few coins you can find for bragging rights only. While basic, the weighty feel the game has feels rather neat to play, and the VSs are a fun addition. That said, a few missions feel a bit half-baked, with huge open areas of which you only need to explore little of it, since your goals are always pretty clearly defined. At most you'll try to find Thermal Points, since activating them lets you see enemies on your radar as well as pointing you towards your objective. And, as large as some areas can appear, there's absolutely no reason to explore them since there are no real rewards for doing so. Once upon a time it also had an online multiplayer mode. Not anymore.

 I quite liked Lost Planet - Extreme Condition, but there's very little mass appeal in here. It has a few fun ideas, yes, but nothing you haven't seen before or done better elsewhere. It is a fun time, it really is, despite how simple the gameplay is, it carves its own identity by making everything feel heavy, yet the audiovisual feedback, the sounds of your steps, the sounds of your bullets digging into an Akrid's weakpoints makes it very gratifying. Y'know, it's quirky, it's janky and it fits right into my niche.
7.5 out of 10