by  PangTong_Blademaster
from Oxford, , England | Jul 7, 2008 |
With alien related games slowly slipping away from popularity developers need to start looking into revamping the alien/ action genre that is mostly loved by gamers but we have seen failures before (yes Fire Warrior and Predator). Lost Planet ticks all the boxes for a superb alien shooter that has moderately plausible online enablement too. Lost Planet is made by Capcom, the guys who bought you Devil May Cry, Monster Hunter and the superb Resident Evil series. Looking at the huge success in all three of those series a new Capcom game really needs to pull out all the stops to keep up with other Capcom gems. Originally a 360 exclusive, Lost Planet found huge success on the 360 and even managed to squeeze an expansion out later on, same with the PC version and finally the Lost Planet series finally ports to PS3, hurrah!
Why is that a good reason? I hear you say, well read on and find out…
STORY
As gamers can assume by the title, concept art and box covers that this game is about a futuristic yet desolated planet. Truth is that it is set in the future in a time when humans are exploring outer space for new planets to inhabit, then they come across E.D.N III a snowbound planet on which the humans start to build up colonies at once. All is looking good until they are attacked. Swarms of alien hordes called Akrid who inhabit the planet start to terrorise the humans and force them to flee. But as the humans are evacuating they discover something after slaying one of the beasts: inside its dead husk is a huge power source known simply as Thermal Energy. The stuff is highly resourceful and easy to obtain, so suddenly the humans start to fight back in order to bag themselves some of this Thermal Energy.
You play as the colonist Wayne Holden, a young man in his twenties who is on the search for T- ENG (abbreviation of Thermal Energy). At the very beginning of the game you are situated in an abandoned underground city once inhabited by humans before the Akrid invasion. You begin to scout the arwa with your team including Gabe Holden who is Wayne father. Suddenly from out of nowhere comes one of the most powerful variations of Akrid, the Green Eye, a gigantic crab like beast. It spews out icy breath which freezes half of your team and then stomps them into the ground with its feet. It then advances again, delivering a fateful swoop that sees the end of Gabe Holden. Both confused and terrified, Wayne and the rest of the team hurry to an evacuation point but are ambushed again. Wayne is forced to mount a VS suit (mobile transport with fighting capabilities) but is cornered and knocked down by the Green eye. Next thing you know Wayne is a few feet under a bed of snow but fate hasn’t finished with him yet. He is discovered by a band of snow pirates but has no recollection of his past, he only remembers his father and the incident with Green Eye. The pirates are a group seeking to destroy Akrid hives around E.D.N III. Hoping this will lead him to Green Eye and unlock his forgotten past, Wayne joins them and your adventure begins…
GAMEPLAY
On first appearance gamers would probably be screaming that this game is a generic Third Person Shooter but they would be wrong in saying so. A third person shooter it may be but Capcom have included tiny little adjustments and system features that make it an unforgettable experience. First let’s have a look at the basic controller layout:
Cross: Jump
Circle: Action, Melee attack
Triangle: Switch Weapon
Square: Anchor
D - Pad Up or Down: Zoom in/ Zoom out
D - Pad Left or Right: Light on/ Light off
L1 or R1: Turn 90` left or 90` right
L2: Grenade
R2: Shoot
Left Stick: Move (Click: Crouch)
Right Stick: Aim (Click: Reload)
Select: PDA menu
Start: Pause menu
There are some button alignments in that list that you will most probably consider as conventional but it’s the controls that aren’t conventional that makes the game interesting. First off Lost Planet has broken the convention of PS3 games still using the R1 and L1 buttons to fire or use weapons, instead the triggers offer you a smoother touch. The first time I played it’s true that I had no idea to reload until it came to me by accident, I had to actually press on the R3 stick which may be a bit out of the norm but makes it run more smoothly. Another control feature I found useful was the 90` pivot left or right using the L1 and R1 buttons, it helps best when you have huge weapons like the Gatling Gun or when you mount a VS suit.
Each level requires you to basically advance through levels like in normal shooters and you will also be prompted to kills enemies in your path but little features included in the levels of Lost Planet make it seem different. You can choose two ways of taking on a level, the VS suit or on your feet. You have a little life bar on your HUD which may not look like much but that’s where the T-ENG comes in. The energy is collected after you kill each enemy, different enemy types will drop different amounts and bosses will drop plentiful. A number is displayed on your HUD as to how much T-ENG you have and it is rapidly depleting. When you take damage your life bar will fill back up, depleting some of your already dropping energy count. It may seem like an annoying feature but it urges gamers to actually kill enemies and adds realism to the sense of survival. Other ways of replenishing your energy is destroying explosives that give off heat or simply cranking up energy posts which restores a lot of health.
The last feature I would like to look into is the anchor. In many third person action titles I have been pestered by useless routes that takes you to a play you could get to already if you just jump that little higher. In Lost Planet, pressing square will shoot a grapple hook in the direction of your reticle, if it hits something solid you will tug yourself towards it. You first use the anchor right at the beginning of the very first level. It helps greatly and can even save your life when your surrounded by aliens.
Lost Planet is spread over 11 intense levels which may not sound like a lot but can easily keep gamers focused for hours on end. Each level takes a good half hour to complete and some can even take more than an hour. There are three difficulty settings to challenge players. Also markers are scattered across levels too, a little like bonus targets to shoot at that unlocked achievements on the Xbox 360 version of the game but don’t serve a purpose on the Playstation 3 system yet. If players get bored or have finished the story there is always the online to consider too…
Lost Planet is run on the Havok engine which also ran Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Characters are designed quite well in Lost Planet but there really isn’t enough variation even for a Japanese game. However that being said the levels in Lost Planet are designed to perfection. Each level offers you mindblowing visuals. You can stop and just stare out into the vast icy seas on EDN III, trust me it’s good stuff and the levels never seem to drag on; there is always something amazing to look at. The voice acting could have been a touch better, a few of the main characters have childish voices you could relate to kid’s cartoon voicing but the beastly sounds of the Akrid more than make up for this. The music isn’t too great either but as I have said in past reviews that if the music isn’t great in a game it really doesn’t matter. The environmental and weapon sounds are spotted to perfection: the guns sound great and the snow swishing through the air all adds to how great the game is.
ONLINE
Another thing I was pleased about is the online content, I predicted that a game such as Lost Planet would not have online game modes like other Capcom games but it does and it plays out quite well. There are only four game modes including: Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch, Fugitive and Posts. You can tell what most of those modes do but the best mode by far and most rewarding is Posts. In posts there are data posts stuck around the map in selected spots. The team possessing the most posts when the timer depletes, wins. Both teams have to locate the posts and stand next to them whiles pressing circle to crank them up which rewards the players who did so with points. However there are some flaws online, lag can be a serious problem for gamers as it completely wrecks the game and grenades are way too overpowered along with the VS suits. There is a levelling system for online players which pleased me. There is a level cap of 99 which is great but hard to get if you aren’t as committed as Japanese gamers. When online you can use three of the starting character models but more patterns and models become available as the player levels up.
SUMMARY
On the whole I found Lost Planet to be an excellent game and was surprised why they didn’t port it sooner to the PS3. It is also one of the cheapest games on the market, I managed to pick my copy up for £20.00 a few weeks after release from a game store. If you want a unique change in shooter Gameplay and want to sample yet another one of the 360’s ported treasures go ahead and buy a copy.
Gameplay: 4.5/ 5.0
Story: 3.8/ 5.0
Lifespan: 4.0/ 5.0
Design: 4.7/ 5.0
Graphics: 4.3/ 5.0
Sound: 4.0/ 5.0 |
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