Lost Planet is an overly Japanese shooter, with very little things done correctly or better than other games on the market. The game takes place on some mysterious planet that is unusually cold and covered constantly in snow. Your objective is to assist colonists trying to establish there while fighting off lots of big monsters that are native to the planet. These monsters contain thermal energy, which is the only thing that keeps anything alive on this planet. Humans need to harvest the thermal energy from the monsters in order to survive - although that doesn't really explain what the point is of settling there in the first place.
You play as some mercenary who went there with his father. Your father dies, of course, and you're on some... mission to um, figure... stuff out? Who cares.
Gameplay: 4.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
As a shooter, this game is rather unremarkable. There is hardly any sort of fine-aiming system within the game that makes it strategic. You just point and shoot. Every gun feels about the same.
Every monster contains thermal energy and shooting that instead of the enemy itself deals more damage. And yes, every monster has this. So the fighting boils down to either shooting humans without any sort of strategy, or shooting monsters in the bright glowy spot.
Since the controls are terrible, the gameplay suffers quite a bit. There is no tactical way to fight most enemies, as you can simply strafe and fire and they will always miss you. Your only obstacle at that point is not running out of ammo and not backing yourself into a corner.
While you can use the typical guns in most shooters (shotgun, machine gun, grenades, etc), you can use clumsy mech to fight enemies. A lot of the multiplayer is based around controlling the most powerful mech, and since the game is so slow and awkward, multiplayer is really nothing memorable whatsoever.
This game just screams JAPANESE in every way possible, and I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. There are several points where you're supposed to fight giant monsters or giant mech with either your wimpy weapons and lots of running around, or your own mech (which is actually, usually a worse option) - standard Japanese stuff here, but there's no city to smash down. Just an empty wasteland.
And yet again, this game has boss fights that are boring, linear and completely irritating. This game suffers from the "you get stunned for 5 seconds every time you take damage" problem, basically meaning an enemy can get an endless combo of death on you while you stumble around like an idiot. That is simply unacceptable. We're in the year 2011 (granted this game was made about 4 years ago.. still). That gameplay mechanic sucked back in 1985, and it sucks even harder now. You'd think they would get on board and get rid of this crap. I don't care if it doesn't make sense to get hit by a rocket and not fall over, it's not fun when a boss can knock you down and drain all of your life in no time flat. Make a fun game. Not being able to play the game while you lose isn't fun.
Presentation: 4.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
This game looks okay during the game. I mean, 95% of the screen is snow, most of the time, and I guess it fits well with the theme. But the other modeling throughout the game, whether it's characters, monsters or just items around the map are pretty poor. This game's graphics looks like it couldn't tell whether it was made for the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 2. It's stuck somewhere in between that looks confused and outdated.
Another annoying thing about their presentation that really impacts gameplay is the amount of smoke or debris on the screen. When too much is going on, the framerate and processing time of the game plummet. Several enemies have the ability to throw smoke at you, and you'll take damage you couldn't possibly avoid because you can't see a single thing.
Going along with the obvious-Japanese theme, even the subtitles are in the standard font that Japanese-made Capcom games come with. Not that this is really relevant, but I swear I was playing Metal Gear Solid there for a minute, based on reading the subtitles alone.
Theatrics: 4.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
The story of the game is mediocre, at best. They tell the story of how humanity wants to colonize this wasteland of a planet (for no good reason) and how they were pushed away by the native creatures on the planet. They decided that they needed bigger guns and bigger mech in order to win, so this game takes place during the 2nd attempt at colonization.
Your character is as standard of a protagonist as it gets. He has no real personality other than he's a tough guy and can do anything.
The characters of the game also scream Japanese as much as possible. There's the guy that's the leader of the pack, usually with white hair and a draping coat. Hmmm... you mean this guy?
Any typical Japanese game also has a girl with unnecessary cleavage, and when it's -200 outside, it's perfect attire, right? This girl also always has either pink, blue or purple hair and doesn't add much to the story outside of gasps and a possible, tacked on romantic interest. Here she is...
(Sorry, no cleavage available... just take my word for it)
And to cap off the main characters, you have the typical character who has goofy hair or headwear that's the nerdy, smart guy of the group. Right on cue...
Yawn. Anyway, moving on.
Controls: 2.0
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
This game's controls are unspeakably awful.
In order to tolerate playing it at all, you'll need to go into the options and change the aiming mode to fixed, otherwise the right stick will simply change your reticule's position on the screen while LB and RB look left and right. It's ridiculous.
Secondly, the mech is so slow and awkward, I feel like I can't do anything other than walk and shoot. So, I die because if I try to use evasion, I waste time that I could otherwise be using to fire at the enemy.
Even doing basic things like reloading were done wrong. When you have a 1-shot weapon, like a rocket launcher, the game doesn't automatically reload it after you empty the clip. So you will fire, expect it to reload.. wait forever, try to fire again and then it will start reloading. What's the point of that? Why would I ever want an unloaded rocket launcher?
And again, the stun effect in this game is pointless. You get knocked over by almost anything, and several enemies have the ability to make you stumble around at any given time. So, half the time when you're fighting you feel like you can't fight because your controls don't respond. Even when in mech, when the enemies use a maneuver that would make you stumble, your mech just stands there and you can't figure out what is going on. Complete and utter failure.
Replay Value: 2.5
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I honestly couldn't tolerate this game beyond the third level, when they start introducing back-to-back boss fights - none of which you can win unless you spend forever finding every little way to abuse the game's AI. I was getting knocked over constantly, had no strategy that would work because of my character's constant stumbling and overall douchebaggery, and decided this game had no point and wasn't designed with modern standards.
I played some of the multiplayer, but it was just as unremarkable as any point of the campaign. Any other FPS multiplayer is more enjoyable.
In total, I got about 4 hours of gameplay out of it before I wanted to throw the game away. It being a rental, I decided to stop and send it back rather than throw it in the garbage.
Fun: 4.0
What were the most and least fun parts of the game? Overall, how much fun is the game?
I guess the game was fun for a little while. Shooting giant enemies and being an extra in a Godzilla movie for a few minutes was a little entertaining. Some of their grappling parts are okay. Using some of the mech can be kind of enjoyable.
What's even more sad is that this game's highest rating in any category was a 4. I'm not even sure why I played it as long as I did. It's a cliche, boring, frustrating garbled mess. Bleh!
My Overall Rating: 3.0
Complexity Level: Makes no sense. Unless you knew to change your controls to fixed aiming, you'd play about 3 minutes of this and never touch it again. Beginners will get confused, and vets will find dozens of ways to say how much this game sucks and find something better.
You play as some mercenary who went there with his father. Your father dies, of course, and you're on some... mission to um, figure... stuff out? Who cares.
Gameplay: 4.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
As a shooter, this game is rather unremarkable. There is hardly any sort of fine-aiming system within the game that makes it strategic. You just point and shoot. Every gun feels about the same.
Every monster contains thermal energy and shooting that instead of the enemy itself deals more damage. And yes, every monster has this. So the fighting boils down to either shooting humans without any sort of strategy, or shooting monsters in the bright glowy spot.
Since the controls are terrible, the gameplay suffers quite a bit. There is no tactical way to fight most enemies, as you can simply strafe and fire and they will always miss you. Your only obstacle at that point is not running out of ammo and not backing yourself into a corner.
While you can use the typical guns in most shooters (shotgun, machine gun, grenades, etc), you can use clumsy mech to fight enemies. A lot of the multiplayer is based around controlling the most powerful mech, and since the game is so slow and awkward, multiplayer is really nothing memorable whatsoever.
This game just screams JAPANESE in every way possible, and I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. There are several points where you're supposed to fight giant monsters or giant mech with either your wimpy weapons and lots of running around, or your own mech (which is actually, usually a worse option) - standard Japanese stuff here, but there's no city to smash down. Just an empty wasteland.
And yet again, this game has boss fights that are boring, linear and completely irritating. This game suffers from the "you get stunned for 5 seconds every time you take damage" problem, basically meaning an enemy can get an endless combo of death on you while you stumble around like an idiot. That is simply unacceptable. We're in the year 2011 (granted this game was made about 4 years ago.. still). That gameplay mechanic sucked back in 1985, and it sucks even harder now. You'd think they would get on board and get rid of this crap. I don't care if it doesn't make sense to get hit by a rocket and not fall over, it's not fun when a boss can knock you down and drain all of your life in no time flat. Make a fun game. Not being able to play the game while you lose isn't fun.
Presentation: 4.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
This game looks okay during the game. I mean, 95% of the screen is snow, most of the time, and I guess it fits well with the theme. But the other modeling throughout the game, whether it's characters, monsters or just items around the map are pretty poor. This game's graphics looks like it couldn't tell whether it was made for the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 2. It's stuck somewhere in between that looks confused and outdated.
Another annoying thing about their presentation that really impacts gameplay is the amount of smoke or debris on the screen. When too much is going on, the framerate and processing time of the game plummet. Several enemies have the ability to throw smoke at you, and you'll take damage you couldn't possibly avoid because you can't see a single thing.
Going along with the obvious-Japanese theme, even the subtitles are in the standard font that Japanese-made Capcom games come with. Not that this is really relevant, but I swear I was playing Metal Gear Solid there for a minute, based on reading the subtitles alone.
Theatrics: 4.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
The story of the game is mediocre, at best. They tell the story of how humanity wants to colonize this wasteland of a planet (for no good reason) and how they were pushed away by the native creatures on the planet. They decided that they needed bigger guns and bigger mech in order to win, so this game takes place during the 2nd attempt at colonization.
Your character is as standard of a protagonist as it gets. He has no real personality other than he's a tough guy and can do anything.
The characters of the game also scream Japanese as much as possible. There's the guy that's the leader of the pack, usually with white hair and a draping coat. Hmmm... you mean this guy?
Any typical Japanese game also has a girl with unnecessary cleavage, and when it's -200 outside, it's perfect attire, right? This girl also always has either pink, blue or purple hair and doesn't add much to the story outside of gasps and a possible, tacked on romantic interest. Here she is...
(Sorry, no cleavage available... just take my word for it)
And to cap off the main characters, you have the typical character who has goofy hair or headwear that's the nerdy, smart guy of the group. Right on cue...
Yawn. Anyway, moving on.
Controls: 2.0
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
This game's controls are unspeakably awful.
In order to tolerate playing it at all, you'll need to go into the options and change the aiming mode to fixed, otherwise the right stick will simply change your reticule's position on the screen while LB and RB look left and right. It's ridiculous.
Secondly, the mech is so slow and awkward, I feel like I can't do anything other than walk and shoot. So, I die because if I try to use evasion, I waste time that I could otherwise be using to fire at the enemy.
Even doing basic things like reloading were done wrong. When you have a 1-shot weapon, like a rocket launcher, the game doesn't automatically reload it after you empty the clip. So you will fire, expect it to reload.. wait forever, try to fire again and then it will start reloading. What's the point of that? Why would I ever want an unloaded rocket launcher?
And again, the stun effect in this game is pointless. You get knocked over by almost anything, and several enemies have the ability to make you stumble around at any given time. So, half the time when you're fighting you feel like you can't fight because your controls don't respond. Even when in mech, when the enemies use a maneuver that would make you stumble, your mech just stands there and you can't figure out what is going on. Complete and utter failure.
Replay Value: 2.5
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I honestly couldn't tolerate this game beyond the third level, when they start introducing back-to-back boss fights - none of which you can win unless you spend forever finding every little way to abuse the game's AI. I was getting knocked over constantly, had no strategy that would work because of my character's constant stumbling and overall douchebaggery, and decided this game had no point and wasn't designed with modern standards.
I played some of the multiplayer, but it was just as unremarkable as any point of the campaign. Any other FPS multiplayer is more enjoyable.
In total, I got about 4 hours of gameplay out of it before I wanted to throw the game away. It being a rental, I decided to stop and send it back rather than throw it in the garbage.
Fun: 4.0
What were the most and least fun parts of the game? Overall, how much fun is the game?
I guess the game was fun for a little while. Shooting giant enemies and being an extra in a Godzilla movie for a few minutes was a little entertaining. Some of their grappling parts are okay. Using some of the mech can be kind of enjoyable.
What's even more sad is that this game's highest rating in any category was a 4. I'm not even sure why I played it as long as I did. It's a cliche, boring, frustrating garbled mess. Bleh!
My Overall Rating: 3.0
Complexity Level: Makes no sense. Unless you knew to change your controls to fixed aiming, you'd play about 3 minutes of this and never touch it again. Beginners will get confused, and vets will find dozens of ways to say how much this game sucks and find something better.
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