Prepare to go old-school with a new style. Lost Planet is Capcom's latest addition to the evolution of the platforming genre. The game places you in control of Wayne, a soldier who is discovered frozen and awakes with partial amnesia on an ice planet overrun with insectoid monsters, known as the Akrid. He owes his recovery to Yuri, a mysterious figure who explains the purpose of the thermal device on his arm. Yuri is partnered with a woman named, Luka and her younger brother, Rick. Wayne becomes the newest addition to their group and goes on to fight through the frozen tundra searching for answers, mainly to discover who he is and what happened to his father.
The story is not however where Lost Planet excels. Voice acting is fair. Most of what it lacks can be attributed to the stilted dialogue that the actors had to work with. It's not necessarily bad, but it is sometimes unnatural and that takes away from making the viewer a part of the story. Unlike many RPGs, where the story exists to enhance gameplay, this story simply exists to give us an excuse to blow things up. We never feel truly invested in the characters as the story does very little to flesh out their personalities or make us care. Does this adversely affect the game? Not at all.
A look back to the heyday of the genre will quickly show us that story is not their strong suit. Metroid, Super Mario Bros, Bionic Commando, Castlevania: the list of great 8-bit platformers is vast but few, if any, offer us any type of engaging exposition. What little of the story we remember was most likely gleaned from the instruction manual and the rest conjured up in our minds. However, game expectations have changed and in today's gaming world, it would be an injustice to remove the story components entirely.
Lost Planet isn't about it's story. Sure, it bonds it all together, but Lost Planet is about shooting cool guns and creating huge explosions. It does not disappoint.
The battle is heated from the start. Right at Stage 1 the Xbox 360 demonstrates its technical prowess by displaying hundreds of enemies on screen. Not only is there none of the slow down historically known to plague platformers, but even with the abundance of enemies on screen, the game still manages to look great. The explosions look and feel real. With surround sound on, you'll get the sense of being on a real battlefield. Destroying the Akrid fiends gives you a real sense of satisfaction; the bigger the better.
After braving through abandoned buildings, across snow covered mountains riddled with thousands of Akrid, you'll eventually be met by human opponents. The game gets harder at that point, as their AI is significantly smarter than the AI controlling the brute strength of the Akrid foot soldiers.
The story is not however where Lost Planet excels. Voice acting is fair. Most of what it lacks can be attributed to the stilted dialogue that the actors had to work with. It's not necessarily bad, but it is sometimes unnatural and that takes away from making the viewer a part of the story. Unlike many RPGs, where the story exists to enhance gameplay, this story simply exists to give us an excuse to blow things up. We never feel truly invested in the characters as the story does very little to flesh out their personalities or make us care. Does this adversely affect the game? Not at all.
A look back to the heyday of the genre will quickly show us that story is not their strong suit. Metroid, Super Mario Bros, Bionic Commando, Castlevania: the list of great 8-bit platformers is vast but few, if any, offer us any type of engaging exposition. What little of the story we remember was most likely gleaned from the instruction manual and the rest conjured up in our minds. However, game expectations have changed and in today's gaming world, it would be an injustice to remove the story components entirely.
Lost Planet isn't about it's story. Sure, it bonds it all together, but Lost Planet is about shooting cool guns and creating huge explosions. It does not disappoint.
The battle is heated from the start. Right at Stage 1 the Xbox 360 demonstrates its technical prowess by displaying hundreds of enemies on screen. Not only is there none of the slow down historically known to plague platformers, but even with the abundance of enemies on screen, the game still manages to look great. The explosions look and feel real. With surround sound on, you'll get the sense of being on a real battlefield. Destroying the Akrid fiends gives you a real sense of satisfaction; the bigger the better.
After braving through abandoned buildings, across snow covered mountains riddled with thousands of Akrid, you'll eventually be met by human opponents. The game gets harder at that point, as their AI is significantly smarter than the AI controlling the brute strength of the Akrid foot soldiers.
Playing through the first few stages, you'll be impressed with the games' look, its play control (run, aim, and shoot) and its various mechas and weaponry. Then you'll start to realize why this game is so old school. Is it innovative? Not particularly. It retains all the traditional elements: jumping, shooting, running. While the 360, with its stunning graphics and impressive processing power, constantly reminds you that Lost Planet is rightfully a part of the next generation of gaming, the bosses will bring you back to the good ol' days. They are frustratingly hard. Did I mention that they are also cheap?
You are going to die; over and over again. Playing through early levels might give you a false sense of comfort. They aren't too hard. But the bosses are just as tough as they used to be. This is your dad's platformer.
They are huge. They are menacing. And they are going to stomp you. Just like in days past, the bosses have a pattern that you need to exploit. Capcom has done a wonderful job of recreating the excitement and ultra-frustration in fighting a boss for the first time. The battles are large scale and often put you inside a mecha, that is until it blows up and you are left to run around with nothing but a snow suit and your human hide to protect you. This makes fighting the beasts or enemy mechas all the more intense. However, once outside of your protective war machine, most bosses will relentlessly trounce you. You won't be given a chance. If a boss can corner you, it will. You just got hit? Don't expect to get up anytime soon. You will be crushed, shot at, fried, disoriented, and most likely, very, very angry. Remember in your younger days when you used to hurl your controller at the wall? You are about to relive them. One caveat though: The 360 controllers are wireless, so they'll go a lot farther. You will fight some of these bosses over 20 times in a row. Be mentally prepared. has made old school new again.
And in that, we are given a new sense of satisfaction after besting a boss. Laying him down never felt so gratifying. Playing through the levels is fun. They don't start to get all that difficult until around level 6. But it's the 30 plus minutes that you put into beating a boss that makes this game good. You will want to keep playing. You know you can't go out like that, and the cheapness of each boss makes you keep going back for more punishment. There's a story in there somewhere, but you'll just want to get to the next boss so you can hear more explosions and launch huge cannons. The pain and the reward that follows victory become addicting. Lost Planet is sure to satisfy fans of the genre.
As a bonus, has included on online multi-player component. This is a great addition, especially when playing with friends in a team. It's perfectly set up for a game of virtual "manhunt." While Gears of War is set with more of a military theme, Lost Planet gives you more of an environment many of us associate with epic battles. If GoW's multi-player allows us to feel the fear of being hunted, Lost Planet lends us the excitement involved with blowing things up.
Lost Planet is a game no fan of the genre should be without. With it's simple to learn control scheme, it's a game that even a newcomer could feel comfortable playing. Couple that with gorgeous visuals, larger than life sounds that shake the living room, and an online multi-player and you've got a game that is sure to entertain for days.
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