Published: Apr. 4, 2007 9:19 AM
Up until recently, new Intellectual Property in video games has become a bit of a dying breed. In an industry that is becoming dependant on the continued success of yearly sequels (I’m looking in your direction EA) it is refreshing to see that the next generation of games have included a whole swag of new characters, stories and ideas rather then just the same games with an extra number added to the end. Capcom have lead the way in this regard in the past few years, refusing to rely solely on their established franchises and continuing to create new, and often stunning games. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition continues this trend for the company, and is available exclusively on the Xbox 360.
Lost Planet is not your typical third-person shooter. You see, it’s cold. Really cold. In fact, it is so cold that merely stepping outside without adequate protection sees you being frozen into a human-sized icy pole within seconds. It’s a very interesting setting for a game and allows for some unique gameplay mechanics that help set this apart from other shooters. You see, as you lead your character Wayne (not a very hero-esque name I know) around this frozen wasteland, you need to do everything in your power to stay warm and alive. So whilst you still have plenty of bad guys to worry about and objectives to complete, your number one enemy is always the bitter, bitter cold.
So, how exactly does the cold affect the way the game plays? Wayne is equipped with an environmental suit that keeps him warm, but only for a limited amount of time. Once it runs out of thermal energy, you pretty much only have seconds to live. As such, you have a big gauge on screen that measures the amount of thermal energy you have. Seeing that meter count down to zero is certainly a compelling reason to keep moving. Your environmental suit also has the ability to heal you when you take damage in battle, trading thermal energy for health. Take too much damage and it will bleed your thermal energy to alarming low levels in moments. Needless to say, thermal energy is certainly a valuable commodity in Lost Planet.
There really is only two ways to replenish your thermal energy. There are waypoints spread throughout each level that act as checkpoints for when you die and also top-up your thermal energy reserves. Finding each of these is pretty much vital to your success. The second way of staying warm comes from killing. That’s right, the main bad guys in Lost Planet, the Akrid - a race hell bent on destroying you and everything you hold dear are also the only way of staying alive in that frozen desert. The Akrid are a strange, insect-like race that is as varied in appearance as it is scary. You’ll encounter small, moth like Akrid that usually swarm together through to massive Snow-Worms (think Dune 2 but in snow) and the all-powerful Green Eye, plus every imaginable size in between. Each type of Akrid will release a certain amount of thermal energy that you can harvest upon their death. There in lies the beauty of Lost Planet: the tension that is created by your conflicting interests. Sometimes the last thing you want to do when you’re low on ammo or in a bad situation is take on a hoard of Akrid, but you are continually driven on by the need for precious thermal energy to stay alive. It is one of the driving forces of this game that really helps to keep things moving along. To sum it up by paraphrasing the Shawshank Redemption, in Lost Planet you can either get busy killing or get busy dying.
Thermal Energy aside, there is much more to the gameplay in Lost Planet then just being driven on by the need to stay warm. Another fairly unique feature of Lost Planet is the addition of the grapple. As the name suggests, the grapple allows you to pull yourself up to otherwise unreachable ledges and over otherwise impassable obstacles. The grapple also acts as a safety measure as you will automatically grapple on to a ledge that you have just fallen off to save you from falling to your death. Trust me, this little beauty has saved my life more times then I can count. Grappling quickly becomes second nature as you find yourself jumping around each level, searching for additional weapons, secrets and another excellent addition to the game, Vital Suits.
Vital Suits are the final defining feature of Lost Planet. They are essentially mechs that you can pilot to either deal out some serious fire power, or allow you to move across the rugged terrain that little but easier. The weapons on most VS’s are interchangeable, so if you have the time you can swap that laser on one side for an additional machine gun if you prefer. Certain VS’s allow you to hover for short periods, drill through certain materials and one even transforms into a snow-speeder type vehicle for some quick travel. The Vital Suits are, ironically, extremely vital in some of the larger boss battles as well. Without the additional firepower offered by a VS, it would be next to impossible to defeat some of the harder bosses without running out of thermal energy. Having said that, you can also pick up one of the massive weapons from a VS and tote it around yourself in a pinch, making yourself an easy target in the process due to reduced movement.
The pacing in Lost Planet is executed masterfully. While the story doesn’t make a lot of sense and really does become confusing as you get deeper into the game, the action itself ramps up at a steady pace and can really become hectic before you realise what has happened. The early levels rarely challenge except for the incredible boss battles. As long as you can keep your thermal energy topped up, you should be able to get through them without too many issues. As you get further into the game, the action becomes more intense until you find yourself in some fairly large-scale battles between several different factions. It appears that the Akrid aren’t the only thing you have to worry about in this game… Having said that, I rarely found the difficulty to be much of an issue. Checkpoints are generous and plentiful. Some might complain that Lost Planet is in fact too easy, but only masochistic people who relish frustratingly hard games would think this. (hey, we all know at least one gamer like this)
