Capcom Is one of the best developers when it comes to action and even popularized certain genres, with Devil May Cry Inventing the modern day hack n slash and Resident Evil reinventing the third person shooter. While those 2 games have been still doing well, there are a handful of games by the Japanese developer that never got as much attention but still developed a following with Chaos Legion,Shadow of Rome, and the subject of this review, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. Lost Planet was originally an Xbox 360 exclusive, but then later got ported to PS3 and PC.
The game takes place several decades in the future, where Earth's conditions have been too dangerous because of the pollution,wars, and most of all global warming. A Corporation Called Nevec(Short for Neo-Venus Construction) plans to colonize the human race to an ice planet known as EDN III. Humans use a source of energy called T-ENG which is used for various technologies like vital suits(basically mechs). There also exists an alien race known as the Akrid which have had the war between the humans for long periods of time. You play as Wayne Holden a soldier who lost his father to a giant bug Akrid named Green Eye, but later it turns out that the Akrid isn't the real enemy, rather Nevec who is planning take control all over EDN III. The actual lore and background of Lost Planet is quite interesting and fairly original for a sci-fi game, now the actual story is fairly compelling in the sense that it keeps showing something fresh and new that you will encounter. Characters are generally given a decent amount of depth, but most of them are generally not all that memorable, except for Wayne.
The gameplay of Lost Planet is a pretty basic third person shooter, almost in the sense that you are back in the days of the early to mid 2000s where third person shooters were all about running and gunning, and honestly that's genuinely a good thing since at the time the biggest third person shooters were usually cover based ones, but I digress.
One of Lost Planet's most unique features and this may turn off the player or not is losing T-ENG, which is very essential to collect because not only does it keep you warm it also regenerates your health it's a nice system that adds some challenge to lost planet's gameplay but as mentioned it could turn the player off or not. Another aspect that makes Lost Planet unique is the inclusion of Vital-Suits where they act as both vehicles and weapons. Several vital suits can range from ones that have a high jump,hovering for small amount of time,changing into a snow mobile,and the best of the bunch PTX which has loads of options for mobility and a chainsaw arm.
The Gunplay has nice punch to make the fights with enemies entertaining. Now there are only 6 infantry weapons, which is an Assualt rifle(The weapon you will use the most and is decent),Shotgun(Generally pretty solid but there it's hardly as common as the assault rifle),Sniper rifle(Very satisfying to use when pulling off a headshot but you get to use it much less than the shotgun sadly),An energy gun(which is a charge based weapon, however it can hom into enemies and also consumes T=ENG),Rocket Launcher(Very effective and it's one of the best weapons in the game), and a plasma gun(A laser sniper which is the best weapon in the game easily). You can also use vital suit weapons in battle, though when you use them they make you sitting duck. The VS weapons are a minigun,shotgun,rifle,laser rifle,homing laser,vulcan cannon(basically a laser chain gun that is only permanent to the vital suit, so you can't use it without the VS),grenade launcher,Cannon(againt permanent to the vital suit),em laser( a much more effective version of the laser rifle),homing laser, and Missle launcher. Of course being a shooter you have to at least have grenades which include the regular,Disc(the most effective one),Sticky(the 2nd most effective),Plasma(useful for taking down enemies in vital suits), and dummy(which you can guess what the already does).
What might also turn people off by Lost Planet (other than Losing T-ENG) is the movement it has a slow movement that does require patience to get use sort of like dead rising or dark souls, but your enemies follow the slow movement pattern as well so it's all equally balanced. Another thing that needs to point out is that your enemies know you back quite a bit, however this can be easily resolved by dodging, now how do you dodge well you need to crouch. while still in the crouch position, hit jump then you'll do it, it's one of the most useful moves in the game, and for some reason the game never really tells you it.
The enemies you will be facing is mostly the akrid which range from dragons,moths,scorpions, and even wasps. Unlike most enemies in shooters, you have to kill them by hitting their very obvious weakpoint, which makes fighting each enemy vastly more different than the previous encounter. You will also face vital suits where are more dangerous than the akrid since they have guns, and also Nevec soldiers and snow pirates which aren't that hard to defeat, since they just stand there.
The game has about 11 levels in total, but they all feel refreshing and are a blast to play in particulary the boss battles. The game is roughly between 8-10 hours long, which is a good length. On top of the really solid Campaign is a multiplayer mode, which I've played a few matches of. It's not bad, but the game really shines on the Campaign.
There are some issues in the gameplay, mainly getting knocked back can get a bit annoying and it can get kind of dragged on in parts, but aside from those 2 issues there are more good than bad when it comes to lost planet's core gameplay.
Lost planet,mentioned before is on PC,Xbox 360,and ps3. The xbox is a pretty good version, the ps3 (at least from what I heard) has some graphical errors and doesn't run that well, and the pc version is the best despite having Games For Windows Live. There is also Colonies edition which just adds multiplayer maps and weapons(which they inplement in the campaign for some reason) like flamethrowers and a revolver, and 2 new modes like time attack and boss rush mode(which is pretty cool if you're into that thing).
Visually the game still holds up quite well, especially the weather effects which look pretty good to this day. I also did like the Look of the akrid and the vital suits and they fit well in the planet of EDN III. The animations are super smooth too, as well as the framerate.
Sound is also pretty solid with great sound effects from the akrid and weapons. The voice acting is average, nothing terrible just not that memorable. The music is very well done and fits the mood and feel of the game, especially when fighting against enemies in the game.
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a game that quickly became forgetten, which is a shame, because the game itself while sometimes annoying and tiresome is still a really fun and enjoyable Third person shooter with mechs and bugs. It's also really cheap too, I wholeheartedly Reccomend lost planet for anyone who wants some different from the Third person shooter genre.