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Lost Planet - Extreme Condition Review
Though it would be hard to judge by past reviews, I really do like simple games. The straightforward nature of Burnout Revenge is, in my mind, one of the best ways you can present a game. It's with a decided note of frustration, then, that I have to report my distaste for Capcom's latest offering - Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. Demos for this title have been downloaded endlessly since last year's E3, and in the format of a one-level demo there's a lot to like. How can you go wrong with the formula of a devastated Earth, giant bugs, and mechs? By fronting the game with an unlikable protagonist and following up with AI that alternates between mindless and cheap, Capcom fails to deliver on the promise of any of those concepts. Read on for my impressions of another simple game that I really wanted to like ... and don't.
The fact that I didn't care even a little bit about what happened to Wayne, the story's protagonist, made it especially hard to enjoy this game. Dead Rising's Frank was at least a likable guy. A soldier-guy with memory loss, Wayne hooks up with a band of opportunists fighting back against the bugs and ice pirates that stand in the way of their search for sellable goods. Wayne, like every other character in the game, suffers from terrible voice acting and a general airheadedness that makes it very hard to take anything he says seriously. When deep dark secrets about the world around them or the evil corporation start to be revealed, your reaction is one of boredom rather than intrigue.
Really, what you want to do, is get back to shooting Akrid. The beautifully designed bugs that inhabit the icey planet's subsurface are, for about half the game, a very satisfying foe to fight. The game offers you several different weapons with which to combat the bugs, and all of them 'feel' right and have a use for specific circumstances. The standard machine gun even feels suitably powerful, and it is in these ground battles against the swarms that Lost Planet feels at its most polished. Despite Wayne's plodding stride, the title manages to give an impression of agility with bumper-button quick turns and a grappling hook that can take you to higher ground and better firing lines. Akrid essentially line up for the slaughter, but they are so vicious (and numerous) in their simplicity that bug hunts make for enjoyably tense and action-packed battles.
The title also concretizes the icy nature of the planet by forcing you to 'deal' with the elements. You are essentially on a timer whenever you are out in the field, as a number representing the heat stored in your body armor steadily decreases over time. Slaying enemies or breaking open stores of a reddish gel replenish this substance, which also acts as an always-on shielding system. Like the energy shields common to many FPS titles nowadays, as long as you have heat energy available your actual health bar is very hard to damage. Another way of replenishing your energy is via the data posts scattered throughout levels. These act as save points, heat replenishers, and radar data points; activating one will net you information about the surrounding area in addition to the other benefits. Neither of these mechanics are unprecedented, but give the game an interesting tone that jacks up the tenseness of battle situations.
If fighting bugs, popping data points, and keeping warm were the whole game I wouldn't have a lot to complain about. The issue is that bug battles are but one portion of the game. The 'primary' villains of the game aren't the bugs at all, but other humans. The ice pirates, corporate soldiers, and mechs from both groups are going to be your primary opponents before too long, and they are much less enjoyable to engage in combat. Human soldiers are downright boring compared with the attractive Akrid, and what is an 'acceptable' level of AI from an insect makes a human look unfit for duty. Waves of cohorts can be slain before the eyes of an ice pirate, but his programming requires him to stand (unblinking and unfiring) as you advance on his position. Also: What does an ice pirate do, exactly? Penguin keel-hauling? Shiver me timbers.
Mech combat suffers from the same problem. While piloting the vehicles feels right, combat against human opponents is unfulfilling. Wading through baddies in a mech is great, again, when they're bugs. Against humans you'll mostly be walking down your cretinous fellow sapients, who are too slow-witted to get out of your way. A consistent worry when mech piloting is that you'll blunder into someone with a rocket launcher just itching to fire from point blank range.
Mech to mech combat can be fun, especially in non-boss fight situations. Particularly appealing was the feel of the mech-sized shotgun, which has a punch and sound effect similar to Batou's 'Big Gun' from "Ghost in the Shell". Boss battles were an entirely different scenario. These long-lived pilots employ cheap tactics to offset the inadequacies of their AI, and it's endlessly frustrating. One fight featured a mech that would attack by leaping onto you with uncanny, pinpoint accuracy. Another has you scrambling into a mech while already under attack at close range. The attacking mech has a laser weapon which knocks about a quarter of your health bar off at every strike; several fights against that target began with the beam hitting me twice before I was given control of my combat suit. Likewise while there is entertainment to be had in mowing down on-foot opponents from your mech, I am the protagonist. Allowing the NPCs to have that kind of fun makes me feel cheated. The enemy mechs can fire heat-seeking rockets into your body at close range, but why do they? How is that in any way fun for the player?
It's not, and that's the bottom line for the entire game. Just beneath the attractive graphics of the title (some of the best snow and explosions I've ever seen), just past the game's satisfying 'feel', the game breaks down into a mishmash of unrealized potential. What is the point of the mechs feeling right, the weapons being suitably weighty, or the bugs being beautiful if none of it is fun? Just as with Dead Rising, original thinking fails to meet up with engaging gameplay; the whole thing is a disappointingly missed opportunity. We talk a lot on the site about the lack of originality in games, but sometimes I understand why game companies keep going back to the till. If you have a proven working formulae, one that engages players and is actually entertaining, how is that a bad game? I'd much rather play a satisfying sequel than face the disappointment Lost Planet offers: originality without entertainment.
- Title: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
- Developer/Publisher: Capcom
- System: 360
- Genre: 3rd Person Action
- Score: 2/5 - This game has serious flaws, but may contain enough fun to be worth renting for a weekend.
The fact that I didn't care even a little bit about what happened to Wayne, the story's protagonist, made it especially hard to enjoy this game. Dead Rising's Frank was at least a likable guy. A soldier-guy with memory loss, Wayne hooks up with a band of opportunists fighting back against the bugs and ice pirates that stand in the way of their search for sellable goods. Wayne, like every other character in the game, suffers from terrible voice acting and a general airheadedness that makes it very hard to take anything he says seriously. When deep dark secrets about the world around them or the evil corporation start to be revealed, your reaction is one of boredom rather than intrigue.
Really, what you want to do, is get back to shooting Akrid. The beautifully designed bugs that inhabit the icey planet's subsurface are, for about half the game, a very satisfying foe to fight. The game offers you several different weapons with which to combat the bugs, and all of them 'feel' right and have a use for specific circumstances. The standard machine gun even feels suitably powerful, and it is in these ground battles against the swarms that Lost Planet feels at its most polished. Despite Wayne's plodding stride, the title manages to give an impression of agility with bumper-button quick turns and a grappling hook that can take you to higher ground and better firing lines. Akrid essentially line up for the slaughter, but they are so vicious (and numerous) in their simplicity that bug hunts make for enjoyably tense and action-packed battles.
The title also concretizes the icy nature of the planet by forcing you to 'deal' with the elements. You are essentially on a timer whenever you are out in the field, as a number representing the heat stored in your body armor steadily decreases over time. Slaying enemies or breaking open stores of a reddish gel replenish this substance, which also acts as an always-on shielding system. Like the energy shields common to many FPS titles nowadays, as long as you have heat energy available your actual health bar is very hard to damage. Another way of replenishing your energy is via the data posts scattered throughout levels. These act as save points, heat replenishers, and radar data points; activating one will net you information about the surrounding area in addition to the other benefits. Neither of these mechanics are unprecedented, but give the game an interesting tone that jacks up the tenseness of battle situations.
If fighting bugs, popping data points, and keeping warm were the whole game I wouldn't have a lot to complain about. The issue is that bug battles are but one portion of the game. The 'primary' villains of the game aren't the bugs at all, but other humans. The ice pirates, corporate soldiers, and mechs from both groups are going to be your primary opponents before too long, and they are much less enjoyable to engage in combat. Human soldiers are downright boring compared with the attractive Akrid, and what is an 'acceptable' level of AI from an insect makes a human look unfit for duty. Waves of cohorts can be slain before the eyes of an ice pirate, but his programming requires him to stand (unblinking and unfiring) as you advance on his position. Also: What does an ice pirate do, exactly? Penguin keel-hauling? Shiver me timbers.
Mech combat suffers from the same problem. While piloting the vehicles feels right, combat against human opponents is unfulfilling. Wading through baddies in a mech is great, again, when they're bugs. Against humans you'll mostly be walking down your cretinous fellow sapients, who are too slow-witted to get out of your way. A consistent worry when mech piloting is that you'll blunder into someone with a rocket launcher just itching to fire from point blank range.
Mech to mech combat can be fun, especially in non-boss fight situations. Particularly appealing was the feel of the mech-sized shotgun, which has a punch and sound effect similar to Batou's 'Big Gun' from "Ghost in the Shell". Boss battles were an entirely different scenario. These long-lived pilots employ cheap tactics to offset the inadequacies of their AI, and it's endlessly frustrating. One fight featured a mech that would attack by leaping onto you with uncanny, pinpoint accuracy. Another has you scrambling into a mech while already under attack at close range. The attacking mech has a laser weapon which knocks about a quarter of your health bar off at every strike; several fights against that target began with the beam hitting me twice before I was given control of my combat suit. Likewise while there is entertainment to be had in mowing down on-foot opponents from your mech, I am the protagonist. Allowing the NPCs to have that kind of fun makes me feel cheated. The enemy mechs can fire heat-seeking rockets into your body at close range, but why do they? How is that in any way fun for the player?
It's not, and that's the bottom line for the entire game. Just beneath the attractive graphics of the title (some of the best snow and explosions I've ever seen), just past the game's satisfying 'feel', the game breaks down into a mishmash of unrealized potential. What is the point of the mechs feeling right, the weapons being suitably weighty, or the bugs being beautiful if none of it is fun? Just as with Dead Rising, original thinking fails to meet up with engaging gameplay; the whole thing is a disappointingly missed opportunity. We talk a lot on the site about the lack of originality in games, but sometimes I understand why game companies keep going back to the till. If you have a proven working formulae, one that engages players and is actually entertaining, how is that a bad game? I'd much rather play a satisfying sequel than face the disappointment Lost Planet offers: originality without entertainment.
I remember reading that the game's "immersion" factor suffered due to there being levels where you're walking by fire and lava and all sorts of things that basically give off more than enough heat for the whole "cold meter" or whatever to seem ridiculous. Lava is really hot, and you'd actually need a cooling suit for those scenarios I suppose. Anyway, being big on "immersion" myself, I decided that was enough to keep me away considering the number of other great games out there at the moment.
Has anyone who played the game gotten an impression of the music? Good music can do a lot for a game which tries to create some sort of mood.
I like basketball!!1!
It really reminds me of a Sci-Fi version of Gunsmoke. Pretty linear, can be difficult at times and pretty much all you do is just wade through baddies to get to an end boss. Easy to play and just plain fun.
Swi
Maybe I missed something to turn on, but with a nice surround sound system, the contrast between the level of audio immersiveness between this game (not much) and gears of war (incredible) is worth noting...
That being said, I haven't really gotten into the game yet, what with Burning Crusade coming out...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Other posters have commented on how it doesn't make sense to simultaneously call the game too easy and too hard, but that's the same reaction I had. The on-foot AI frequently blows itself up trying to shoot you from behind cover (protip to AI: you have to aim outside of the cover) and seem to be largely irrelevant. Then you start fighting mechs and bosses, whose tactics consist of knocking you down, then hitting you again in the overly long timeframe between when you become eligible to be hit again and when you get control of your avatar. Being juggled wasn't any fun in Mortal Kombat, and it's still no fun in Lost Planet. Since boss tactics are often random, you end up dying and reloading numerous times until you don't get juggled.
It's also telling that your best tactic in a first-person action game is to run past the enemies until you hit a stage transition. Collecting heat and weapons is useless, as when you transition, you will more often than not be reset to 1000 heat and a machine gun.
The multiplayer is much improved over the single-player experience, but the single-player experience is downright awful.