Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
Do you like Mech games? You know, the ones where you jump into a big ass, slow, bulky war machine and hover around for a few seconds and fire off an assortment of weapons at other big ass, slow, bulky war machines that hover around for a few seconds while firing off an assortment of weapons at other big ass slow and bulky war machines? Do you also like extreme conditions? Well boy oh boy do we have the right game for you! Imagine a world where Mechs duke it out in what can only be described as extreme conditions. I introduce to you Capcom's Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. By extreme conditions they mean snowy.
I must say I've never really been a big fan of the Mech genre of video games. I guess I just never had the patience. The hits are generally big when it comes to shooting missiles but the action was sluggish and not very responsive. Granted this would be the appropriate feel if you were in a giant mechanical killing machine, I was just never a fan of this style. This title however changed my perceptions of what a Mech game was about. This game falls into an action/adventure, Mech hybrid category and for the most part, works very well. This is a straight up action game were there is very little down time. Enemies range from alien type creatures to space marines with a wide variety of weapons at their disposal. When you get hurt, you lose what's called T-ENG (Thermal Energy). Since you are living in such an EXTREME CONDITION your T-ENG meter is constantly being depleted along with when you are taking damage. Like a plumber to a coin, you must collect tasty T-ENG from defeated enemies in order to survive such EXTREME CONDITIONS.
When you play the game you're either on foot or rippin' shit up in some crazy Mech or VS (Vital Suit) for the purpose of this story. You have two guns to choose from and must drop on if you want to switch things up. You have a nice assortment of weapons to choose from along with a couple of different grenade weapons. The game really picks up when you hop into a VS. You can equip shot guns, gatling guns, missiles and a bunch of other bad ass weaponry.
The environments are very well done. Gorgeous scenery is in abundance but is for the most part snow covered. You leave impressions in the snow with your foot prints along with debris and ash from explosions which is a very nice touch. The enemy animations are great and the alien creatures can be absolutely huge and are awesome to look at.
I honestly cannot tell you whether or not the story in this game is awesome or if it sucks. The reasoning behind this is that I do not understand much of it. I don't know if it's poor writing or just an element that was lost in translation, but it is rather hard to follow. It seems to simply jump from one major plot line to the next without warning. There’s something going on about an uninhabitable planet with a bunch of energy. People laugh, they cry then fight for their rights etc etc. You know what, Wikipedia is good for this kind of thing. The story is honestly beyond me or else I'd try to pull off an explanation on my own. It is laid out for you during some beautiful cut scenes but everything is just a little too scattered for my liking. Keep in mind, Wikipedia is a factual driven sight and is spoiler heavy. Click here if you would like to know more about how the story progresses. God knows I certainly would.
This is an above average game that is pretty fun to play. The boss battles are epic and can be very challenging at times. I didn't quite like the pressure involved in obtaining T-ENG all the time. I found myself hiking long distances to grab some T-ENG only to watch is slowly disappear by the time I get there. At times you're left with little T-ENG remaining after you reach a certain check point and you're essentially stuck with what you have. It's an interesting idea and really creates a sense of how EXTREME the CONDITIONS actually are but I could live without it. It's just a real pain and it's one more thing to have worry about. I'd rather just blast everything around me without having to worry about replenishing anything other than ammo. When all is said and done, Lost Planet a solid, fun game that unfortunately has a few issues that take away from that experience. If you're a Mech fan this is a definite purchase; if not, try it out as a rental or wait until a price drop or a used copy is available.
