Lost Planet seemed to have a lot of potential when I first started. To
begin, I got it in a five dollar deal on Steam, so it wasn't going to
be a big waste of money no matter how the game was. The entire game
taking place on a freezing, snow-covered planet was a unique and
non-terrible idea. The grappling hook is a neat little device for
getting around. The large insect-like Akrid make for a somewhat
interesting foe. The "Vital Suit" mechs are a cool way to mix up the
standard run and gun style of play. And every level ending with a
giant boss fight is classic video gaming. Unfortunately, a lot of
problems cause the game to run out of steam long before its story ends.
The basic idea with the health system is different from most other
shooters. You have a supply of thermal energy to keep you warm, and
you can pick up more from the corpses of enemies and destroyed
machinery. This energy can boost your health if you're injured, acting
as both a sort of armor and a regeneration system. However, this
energy also ticks down over time as it's expended just protecting you
from the harsh elements, and once it runs out you slowly begin to die.
It's not a terrible system, but it often seemed like I spent more time
looking for sources of energy than focusing on fighting the guys
shooting at me. Also, there are no situations where the surrounding
area is warm enough not to constantly drain you even though some look
like they really probably should, and if you ever have a case where it
actually makes sense to destroy the expensive equipment you're using to
take the energy from it, that's not exactly the best design.
The shooting feels insubstantial, with the standard weapons and even
most of the better ones lacking much of a punch. I often laugh when a
certain game review site constantly refers to the "crunch" and
"friction" of an experience when talking about a good game, but there
is truth behind it; the best games usually have something that makes
the core mechanic of play viscerally satisfying, whether it be through
sound design or whatever, and Lost Planet seems to lack that. The
standard weapon feels like a pop gun, and along with the lackluster
aiming in this shoddy PC port (they didn't even bother to change the
button icons from the 360 version in some cases), it makes just
fighting most enemies a bit of a chore rather than a thrill. It's
still kind of fun to blast a group of ravenous monsters, but the human
enemies are much less enjoyable to fight, and unfortunately the focus
is on them more and more as the game goes on. You can either stand
just out of their site range and pick them off with ease or just run
straight at them firing, it'll rarely feel exciting or challenging.
The boss fights are disappointing too. I said giant enemies are
classic gaming stuff, but the other side of that is the boring classic
gaming trope of destroying all of them by spotting the obvious glowing
weak points and targeting them until something happens to expose a
different weak point, and hammering it until they die. Why exactly
does shooting the yellow pods on the side of this giant monster expose
the secretly more important ones inside his head? I don't know, I'm
just supposed to do it. These fights are only slightly better than the
VS on VS fights, which basically consist of hammering them with
missiles a little faster than they hammer you with missiles. It's all
supported by a typical anime plot that has a couple briefly interesting
plot twists but mostly relies on boring characters with crappy voice
actors going around in circles before the confusing ending that thinks
it's smarter than it is. The game has an interesting look to it and is
actually pretty fun for a while, it's just that the cracks in the armor
started showing before it ended and it kept going after it should have.
