Lost Planet Impressions
The story of Lost Planet is basically cliche #16, cliche #21 and cliche #47. That is to say, you are a specially enhanced soldier (#16) fighting to gain revenge for your father’s death (#21) against an evil corporation (#47). In addition to this, you are betrayed by a confidant (#3), also are the only survivor of a fight (#9), and have an incomplete memory of your own past (#11), on a planet where factions battle to control a powerful new energy source (#14). I haven’t yet finished the game, but I’m willing to wager cash that the chick wearing Clint Eastwood’s wardrobe from “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) you battle will later turn out to be an ally. Which would be #25.
Ok, the numbers are made-up. The point is that either the writer of Lost Planet has never, ever seen any TV show or movie before and therefore thinks the script is brilliant, or that the script was written in about five minutes. Considering the plot holes, I’m liable to think the latter was more likely.
For instance, why is Wayne, the hero, so concerned about NEVEC killing all the snow pirates when he himself, not two missions before, had slaughtered dozens of snow pirates merely to steal their “trailer?” (A “trailer” is some kind of weird Japanese translation for “mobile command center,” but I’m only guessing since they talk about it having an engine of some sort but they never show an exterior shot of it.) And why is his name “Wayne”?
If Yuri has such a terrible reputation as an evil mad scientist, why doesn’t the brother-and-sister team that work with him (whose names I don’t remember and I don’t feel like looking up) know about it? Especially since he doesn’t even use a fake name!
How did they manage to build all these cities and, apparently, an automotive industry without ever realizing the planet was inhabited with giant heat-sucking bugs? Were the bugs hibernating for 50 years or something?
Oh, I also have a complaint that’s not story-related: The controls kind of suck. I don’t know why they couldn’t have used the standard-issue Halo controls that most console FPS games use, but it took me a long time to learn how to zoom the damned rifle (up arrow on D-pad). And they use very easy-to-press buttons for controls I almost never use. (Right shoulder and Left shoulder will quickly turn you 90 degrees. But the camera is fast enough that you never really need to use these, so I don’t get why they don’t use these buttons for reloading or something else used more often.)
Or maybe I’m just griping because I’ve reached the point in the game where you have to kill Green Eye, the giant bug boss who killed your daddy in the opening tutorial level. And you can’t get out of your mech because it’s too cold outside (apparently; even though you’re indoors.) And you have a time limit because there’s only enough energy to run your mech for a few minutes before it runs out of power and you die anyway.
So here’s what I like about the game. The ice-bound planet setting with frozen cities and vast snowy wastelands is great, and actually pretty vast– there are levels where a vehicle is required. The boss bugs are generally very well designed, cool-looking and (unlike bosses in a lot of other games) actually threatening. The wasp-guy killed me three times before I realized there was a third mech you could jump into after he destroyed your first two. The Batman-esque grappling hook you carry around is a lot of fun to use, and there’s a lot of destructibility in the environment.
In addition, the mechs are all really fun to pilot and well-designed, especially the one that can turn into a snowmobile. And the weapon system is great… there are hand-held weapons and mech-mounted weapons. You can carry the mech-mounted weapons, and even fire some of them, but you have to drop your other weapon first and you move real slow with them. The cool thing is that if you want your mech to have dual-chain guns, you can just pull a chain gun off another mech, drop it on the ground, then grab your mech, walk over it, and pick it up.
So all in all, Lost Planet is a pretty good game with a really lame story. Which is pretty much par for the course for most console FPS games. Hell, most FPS games period. But it still upsets me because, of all the low-hanging fruit, the story is the lowest hanging and it still hasn’t been plucked. Sad, really.
Oh, and make sure when you’re fighting bosses, to always hit the glowing yellow weak point (#38)!