steve kwan user experience designer

Review: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

(August 26th, 2007 - 3:45PM)

(4 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: So pretty that it's difficult to notice its shortcomings.

Things I liked about Lost Planet: Extreme Condition:

• The graphics.

  This game is beautiful. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. The effects, such as snow, explosions, and lighting, are unbelievable. There have been times while playing this game where I thought it looked real.

  The graphics are so good that they might distract you from many of the numerous flaws in Lost Planet.

• The boss fights.

  One thing Capcom's always done well in their games is boss fights. (Megaman, anyone?) The boss fights in Lost Planet are epic. Some of the massive insects you fight at the end of levels are so intimidating that you'll surely be on the edge of your seat.

  The bosses are also quite challenging, which is nice for a change. If you get attacked by a 100 foot tall spider, shouldn't that spider be tough? Too many games have massive bosses that turns out to be too easy. Not this game.

• The combat.

  The gunfights are a lot of fun, mainly because they just look so good.

Things I disliked about Lost Planet: Extreme Condition:

• The plot.

  I always watch in-game cutscenes, but Lost Planet is the first game I've encountered where I'd really recommend you don't. As is typical of Capcom games, the cutscenes and plot are laughably bad. Since the cutscenes actually have nearly nothing to do with the missions themselves, you really should skip past them to maximize enjoyment of the game.

• The gameplay mechanics.

  I had a hard time with the first few levels of Lost Planet, and it turns out my difficulties were mainly because I didn't know some of the tricks that make the game easier.

  For example, there are massive cylindrical containers all over the game, which yield large amounts of thermal energy when you blow them up. I didn't know this. I thought those containers were just part of the background. So I spent much of the early stages short on thermal energy, an important resource in the game, because I didn't know about the containers. As far as I can remember, the game never told me about them.

  Also, there are beacons throughout each level that save your progress and give you more thermal energy. The game does a poor job of notifying you about them, so I just ignored them for about half of the game.

  Lost Planet could have done a much better job of explaining gameplay to the user.

• The controls.

  Capcom's PC portings are always half-assed. Although Lost Planet isn't nearly as bad as Resident Evil 4 (or from what I hear, Devil May Cry 3), all of the in-game references to controls refer to the Xbox 360 controller. At many points in the game, a diagram of the 360 controller will pop up telling you what options you have available. This doesn't help much if you're using a PC, and you have to figure out which buttons map to which controls. It's especially painful because the controls in Lost Planet can be quite complicated.

• The system requirements.

  Any game with graphics like this is sure to be a system hog. I've got a GeForce 8800GTX, and with all the settings cranked Lost Planet barely squeaks by at 30FPS. But even with the settings turned down, this is a beautiful game.