Lost Planet’s single player campaign consists of 11 rather short missions. Now games for the past year have been touted as short since they offer around 14-18hrs of gameplay. When I play these games I normally spend just over a week playing it and pacing myself. However with lost planet I had already reached at Mission 10 after just 3 days of play on hard difficulty and that’s 2hrs of play per day. I’m now taking a breather to write this review instead.
The levels feel extremely small, and whilst in game you’ll rarely even notice it until you find yourself towards the latter levels and you realise that you’ve no idea where the Lost Planet plot is even heading. This isn’t helped by the most basic AI I’ve ever seen. The snow pirates you do encounter in the early levels display no formation or tactics at all as they take incoming fire. They’re like static plastic ducks at a shooting range in a fun fair. Sometimes they do move around, but for the most part they’ll rarely venture away from their pre-placed spots. The Akrid are no better, although they are alien insects so they can be forgiven for that.
From what I can ascertain from reading the Lost Planet forums on Xbox.com, most gamers are finishing this game in under 8hrs, now that says a lot. Sure some are literally rushing through the single player campaign, but then again I’ve taken my time and I’ve just finished the entire thing myself, in 4 days. I should state that it will take a great deal longer to finish the game, if you took your time to collect the hidden target medals that are scattered throughout each level. There’s about 6-7 of them per level, and if you manage to collect them all, you apparently get a bonus as well as achievement points for doing so. Some of these can be well hidden too.
Lost Planet is played from a third person perspective, and thanks to the controls you’ll slip into the game extremely quickly. Both shoulder buttons implement rapid 90 degree turns to help when you quickly need to take out enemies behind you. This is needed because Wayne is a bit slow, he walks slowly but cannot run, and the aiming reticule isn’t the quickest of elements either. The reticule isn’t fixed to the centre of the screen although you can enable this if you wish. Instead, upon aiming, your reticule will move accordingly, and then the screen shifts in the desired direction. It works well though and I’ve not had to disable it just yet.
The game does enable auto-aim though, so it’s recommended you switch this off right away as it hugely spoils the experience, and given that it’s quite short it’s best to do this ASAP. There are alternate control setups available if the default one doesn’t suit you though.
Mechs er VS’s!
Mechs? Did I say mechs?! Lost Planet has those, and quite a few in which you can hop into. Mechs are basically the Vital Suits (VS’s) mentioned at the start of this review. These were designed to give humans a platform safe for battling the Akrid. Luckily there’s a varied selection of VS’s, and the best feature is that their weapons payload is fully customisable! Walk over a weapon pickup on the ground and press B, and your VS drops down and latches onto that weapon. Each VS can hold two independent weapons on either side, and they’re activated by the left & right triggers.
There’s the Gatling gun, great for chewing up most enemies, but not so good against armoured opponents, Rocket launchers are here, as well as Lasers and homing lasers. EMP cannons are also features as well as a huge Shotgun and many others. Suffice to say, the selection of VS weapons is quite varied, and Wayne can pick up the weapons himself although they severely hamper his movement so using them in crowded places isn’t recommended.
However I just wished the VS’s themselves were more durable, on some levels where you face big enemies, you get hit multiple times so quick that sparks emanate from your suit before you’ve got a chance to think about how you’re going to defeat it. On some other levels however where you aren’t fighting the Akrid, there’s enough vacant VS’s dotted about the place for you to explore without worrying about dying.
Each suit has various abilities too; some can jump up to great heights, as well as hovering in mid air, while others can glide along the ground, useful for quick getaways. On the whole, the VS’s are a nice addition to Lost Planet. They’re fun to use but don’t add much to the overall game sadly.