Lost Planet

12.07.2007

Lost Planet’s rather simplistic plotline can be summed up in a few short words. Humanity discovers the planet E.D.N. III, they immigrate there, and begin colonization. They never figured the nasty aliens into their equation, though. The Akrid manage to chase the colonizers off of E.D.N. III, that is, until humans learn about the Akrid’s thermal energy. This energy makes it possible for the immigrants to survive the planet’s icy conditions. They decide to go into battle against the Akrid, and in one of these battles the protagonist’s father is mysteriously killed. After the accident, Wayne can only remember that an alien by the name of Green Eye was apparently the one responsible for his death. Young Wayne then vows to avenge his father.

In addition to the regular version distributed by Capcom (which you can buy at your local video game store), Lost Planet is also available through Valve’s distribution network STEAM. The upside to this is that you can download and install the game on any computer by using your STEAM account. The downside to this is that if you don’t have a STEAM account or don’t want one and/or you don’t have high speed Internet access, you won’t be able to access Lost Planet on your PC.

The online activation does not (as opposed to when Half-Life 2 came on to the market) pose a problem this time. A patch (which eats up 7.5 GB of your hard drive) is downloaded right after the installation. This took about an hour, and then the adventure on the frozen planet could begin.

As a PC player, you get used to the idea that you have to do without things like game saves and good menu navigation when porting games to PC. The liberties that Capcom has taken with Lost Planet however, go way beyond tolerable levels.

The system requirements on the box even recommend that the game be played with an XBOX 360 controller. A PC player does not buy a game in order to play it with a video game console, especially not when it’s a shooter game. The XBOX controller recommendation could have been over looked. It’s not that bad. What will really tick you off, is the fact that even after the controls have been adjusted to mouse and keyboard, the game still displays in a pause menu for example, when you want to get into a new VS (Vital Suit- mechs), how you can control it with the XBOX 360 controller. The PC controls are completely ignored. There is also no way to adjust the mouse sensitivity in the main menu. Somebody seriously messed up this conversion!

Lost Planet is a simple, straightforward third person shooter game. The A.I. opponent is just as brainless as it is in the XBOX 360 version, but it sticks out more in the PC version, thanks to mouse and the keyboard controls. There are no game saves, which is pretty typical when porting games to PC, but the automatic save points are fairly set.

Using the VS are fun and the conversion is good, because you can determine which side of the mechs you want to use for most of the weapons. The weapons in Lost Planet are, for the most part, well done. Wayne has everything from machine guns to rocket launchers, but he is only allowed to carry two weapons at a time. If Wayne encounters a high wall, he always has his grappling hook handy to help him claw his way over it.

Medipacks, or something similar, don’t exist. The body is recharged with thermal energy taken from defeated opponents. If Wayne’s healthpoints drop to zero, they are charged back up with the thermal energy he has collected. This energy is not only good for keeping your body stocked with health points, but it also makes sure that you don’t pathetically die of hypothermia. It simultaneously keeps your body warm. If the energy indicator drops to zero, your life points will also fall, and Wayne freezes to death. This practically never happens though, because there are countless numbers of opponents in the various levels who are willing to donate their thermal energy to Wayne’s cause.

Capcom also managed to goof up the multiplayer mode. It is difficult to find the correct games, because the game browser was adapted almost one to one from the XBOX 360. In addition, the servers usually have a really bad ping and there are generally very few players online.

What we did like about the multiplayer mode was that, similar to role-playing games, the points that are won during the matches get you levelup. This allows you see right away if an opponent on the server has already played a lot and won, or not.

Yes, the Graphics (created by DirectX 10) look dynamite, and we have never come across such wonderfully impressive explosions in any other computer game. The lighting effects are also excellent and they did great job bump mapping the snow. Capcom tends to get carried away with the cheap sensationalism, however. During the first few hours of play, everything looks fantastic, but after a while, it really starts to get on your nerves. The numerous explosions and the (beautiful) volumetric amounts of smoke hide the events on the battlefield, sometimes to the point of being disruptive. Enough so, that you might think twice about tossing another grenade or launching another rocket at your opponent’s VS.

The background music, on the other hand, gets two thumbs up. Wonderful orchestral sounds create a truly frigid, eerily beautiful atmosphere, and the action scenes have an almost Hans Zimmer feel to them. The weapon sounds are well chosen, and you can practically hear each individual screw grinding on the mechs, when one rises up, moaning, from the snow.