In Haunted Planet, a mad scientist has opened up a portal to (yes) a haunted planet, unleashing demons, zombies, werewolves, and other creatures of the night into our own world. Your objective is to make your way to the scientist so you can close the portal before 16 hours pass, after which time all hope is lost. This sounds like fun, but, in fact, this rail shooter's slow pacing will bore you in a fraction of that time.
Haunted Planet is a third-person, over-the-shoulder action game in which you must move through an environment and shoot enemies, though you'll have very little control over the situation since all your movement is "on rails." All progression is automatic, so you must merely navigate left and right to avoid obstacles that appear in your path, such as trees and gravestones. You have even less to control if you choose the easier difficulty levels, as each setting features varying levels of interactivity with the game's weaponry. On easy, both the targeting and shooting is automatic. On medium, you control only the shooting. And on hard, you're in charge of both. In this mode, the up and down buttons let you cycle through targets so you can opt for the enemy that provides the most threat, although it takes some time to acclimate yourself to using the controls for targeting that would typically be used for movement.
There are four different environments--the graves, crypt, marsh, and labs--all of which feature a multitude of enemies that have unique hit points and damage capabilities. Although you can shoot enemies down, depending on which type you encounter, it's sometimes prudent to merely avoid them. You can also shoot flying objects that appear, occasionally carrying power-ups. These power-ups range from health vials to shoes that increase your speed. However, it's not always wise to pick up every power-up. Take the speed boost, for instance. It increases your lateral speed, but it won't get you to the end of the level any faster; it basically just makes steering more difficult. Each of the four sections within the four levels lasts exactly one minute, so the objective is to stay alive (by not running into enemies or objects) for four minutes to progress to the next level.
The game looks good enough on the LG VX7000, although it's not always clear what path your character can fit through just by looking at the graphics. Since running into objects takes points away from your health, this can be frustrating at times. Meanwhile, the sound effects are merely average. They do help a little, but they aren't spectacular. The repetitive click of your axes being thrown and the not-quite-so-scary screams don't really enhance the atmosphere significantly, although having them is better than if there had been no sound at all.
Although the gameplay in Haunted Planet is unique, and it gets significantly more difficult on the later levels, it's just not that much fun. Typically, rail games are fast-paced so you don't feel like you're missing an opportunity to have more control over your character. Had Haunted Planet either been more frenetic or allowed you more control over your own movement, it would have been much more interesting. As it stands, it's only infrequently entertaining (on those later levels where the game speeds up a bit), and there's simply not much to it. This game might be worth a look if you're really into rail shooters. If not, keep moving.
