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Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
PC (Steam)
Lost, Like My Interest
2.5/5 stars
“Lost Planet: Extreme Condition” (“Lost Planet”) is not generally the type of game that would or should interest me. I have barely acknowledged this series (which now boasts 3 games) since it came into existence in 2007, thinking it a typical, generic, and uninspired shooter, as are so many games that started life on an Xbox platform. However, I ended up with “Lost Planet” on my radar due entirely to “Xenoblade Chronicles X” stoking my desire to play an Action game with (customizable) mechs and on-foot combat. Searching around the Internet for a game that met some basic qualifications and similarities found me looking at a list of ‘games like “Armored Core,”' and “Lost Planet” topped the list. Upon heading over to Steam to add it to my wish list, I discovered that the game was on sale for less than $4, so I bought it and ended up learning, once again, that the Internet can be an untrustworthy source of information.
Presentation
For a 7th Gen game released in 2007, at the very beginning of the disaster known as ‘modern gaming,’ “Lost Planet” actually looks pretty good. Many fancy polygonal games tend to ‘age’ poorly (which actually means they look bad, but most people are easily distracted by shiny, new features that have never been done before), but “Lost Planet’s” characters and environments both look nice. Of course, the environments are rather boring series of stony caves and snowfields, which makes the game a ‘white and gray’ version of the detestable ‘brown and gray’ color pallet that most games fall into when desperately trying for realism. Character designs are a bit strange, with far too many ridiculous hairstyles (cornrows?!) to be taken seriously.
The soundtrack is fairly bland and unexciting. I can’t say I remember a single tune that plays in the background. However, I can clearly remember that there IS background music, as it and the large amounts of gunfire and explosions tend to drown-out mid-mission conversations. These conversations are fully voiced, and being a localized Capcom game, the dubbing crew didn’t exactly do a stellar job, but I’ve heard worse. I was impressed, however, that the lip-synch was redone for the English voices.
Story
“Lost Planet” tells the tale of humanity’s efforts to colonize a distant planet, E.D.N. III. This planet is frozen over, making it inhospitable to human life. Even worse, it’s inhabited by insectile indigenous life forms dubbed Akrid, which contain a special type of thermal energy within their bodies that keeps them from freezing and makes them very difficult to kill with conventional weapons.
The main narrative focuses around a young man named Wayne (modeled after Korean actor Byung Hun Lee) whose father is working closely with the Neo-Venus Construction (NEVEC) company on the colonization process. After a hairy encounter with an exceptionally large Akrid, Wayne’s father is killed and Wayne himself (surprise, surprise) gets separated from the group and loses his memory.
The rest of the plot involves revealing the background of the game world’s situation to the player and amnesiac Wayne simultaneously, after Wayne is found and adopted by a group of Snow Pirates – everyday people trying to survive in the frozen wasteland, having been abandoned by NEVEC. Unfortunately, nothing in the plot really flows smoothly, resulting in a herky-jerky narrative that is confusing and rather sloppy. None of the heroes or villains are particularly memorable, and the story’s key events don’t connect in any sensible way.
The entire game consists of 11 linear missions which range from 30 minutes to over an hour in length, creating a generally short game. Plot-dump cutscenes occur between each mission (and sometimes mid-mission), but the condensed length of the game makes the story feel rushed. The result of this one-two punch of rushed storytelling and sloppy narrative structure is a boring, incoherent mess that is utterly forgettable.
Gameplay
“Lost Planet” dates from a time before every game, let alone every Japanese game, was open world. It actually reminds me a bit of older arcade shooters with its mission-based structure and thermal energy-powered mission timer. Missions take the form of linear stages, where the player is tasked with moving from the beginning to the end while dealing with enemies along the way. Many of these enemies have stupidly fast respawn rates, so a player who dawdles for too long will find themselves refighting the same foes they just got done killing.
At its core, “Lost Planet” is a fairly run-of-the-mill third-person shooter. The player controls Wayne, who can carry two weapons at a time in his loadout, along with a single type of grenade. Wayne starts every mission with a machine gun and some plain grenades, but can find different types of weapons and more ammo for them depending on the stage. Many stages also contain vitas suits (VSes), which are a type of mech that Wayne can freely choose to pilot or ignore. VSes can also have their two-weapon loadout changed, but only by finding larger mech weapons within a given stage. Interestingly, Wayne can wield mech-sized weapons while on foot as well (which is a really cool bit of realistic design), though much more slowly and clunkily than when riding a VS.
Speaking of clunky, the overall sluggishness of the gameplay is its single worst feature. Wayne moves like he’s walking through hip-deep snow even when he’s not moving through hip-deep snow, and the targeting reticule is so sluggish and unresponsive that it makes aiming a pain, regardless of mouse/joystick use. Fortunately there is a fix for the slow aiming cursor, but it involved manually editing a .ini file. It’s super simple to apply, but this kind of oversight is unacceptable in a finished product.
The main novelty of “Lost Planet’s” gameplay is the fact that Wayne can collect and store thermal energy in order to heal himself. He starts out with 1000 units of the stuff, and this number ticks down constantly, acting as an old-school stage timer. Thermal energy also provides the game’s form of health regen, as Wayne’s health bar refills almost instantly whenever he takes damage and has enough thermal energy in reserve. If the thermal energy timer ever reaches zero, Wayne doesn’t die, but his health stops regenerating until he finds more thermal energy. Unfortunately, VSes don’t use thermal energy for health regen, but are treated more like expendable weapons within stages. If Wayne’s VS is reduced to zero health, he needs to bail out or die instantly, then seek out a new VS to replace the destroyed one.
I was really hoping “Lost Planet” would provide an open world experience and solid mech customization, but both aspects of the game disappoint. About the only other well-done aspect of “Lost Planet” is the ability to use a grappling hook to navigate environments. This grappling hook is quite versatile as it can attach to nearly any surface (unlike the boring hookshots/clawshots in 3D ‘Zelda’ games that only work on obvious targets). Using the grapple can lead to some interesting strategic moments against groups of enemies, but it doesn’t come into play often enough to be a memorable, exciting feature.
Overall
“Lost Planet: Extreme Condition” is a bland, linear, clunky, by-the-books TPS that only offers glimpses of potentially intriguing gameplay mechanics without really developing any of them. The mess of a narrative doesn’t help take up the slack left by the gameplay, resulting in a game that I can’t recommend to anyone. I can’t believe there are two sequels to this…
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 2/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Overall (not an average): 2.5/5
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