Lost Planet 3Lost Planet 3 has been conquered, beaten, be-headed and shot in its orange gut parts. Then I ripped it's arms off. This third-person shooter prequel had a lot of promise in the two years time I've been watching it. As a fan I just saw scores of unused potential, but on the other hand still killed a bunch of giant bugs, always fun to do in free time. Lost Planet 1 and 2, which I have both played, set for a much higher standard the game gives. I was entranced during the beginning, but towards the end found myself unhappy with underutilized story and gameplay.
Spoilers
I mean there was a guy, an NPC in a hot tub powered by Akrid blood (T-Energy) talking about f'ing "pengins". Crazy Neil are fleeting time together was well spent. Your ramblings stand-up worthy.
So funny, great writing right off the bat with little bits to make you laugh. It started off with a new focused story, so unlike Japanese games where story makes little to no sense. Thanks to local developer Spark you have a real story. Sparks aren't fireworks however and the game twinkled in and out.
Gameplay
Weapons, Robots and Shooting Bugs In The Face, Is That A Face?A major change being not having to get energy to fight. For vets of the series like me that was a major change in the games mechanics and style. There was no sense of time mattering like earlier installments. Wait to long somewhere in the previous games and you're dead.
It did feel like a prequel with the tech and my rig feeling ancient compared to the earlier games in the series. My utility rig or giant robot that I walk around in, it gets tiresome slowly walking, was built story in mind, without weapons. This rig was designed to help me collect energy, like a walking construction and drilling platform so the powers and weapons of earlier titles are gone, which does hurt the sense of murder fun rage you get taking out a nest of Akrid. Who doesn't want a good ol' fashion energy weapon on their robot barbecuing insects or machine gun mowing down Dongos. Even Laroche brings that up. Laroche is annoying French man who gets in your way. Yes, the game hits the comedy sitcom stereotype of hating French people, it works.
When not having fights with the French you'll be fighting bugs. You have face huggers now, right out of Aliens, called something else. They can be shot when the hiss at you, giving you a perfect time to attack. Oh, wait I'm trying to forget Akrid deer, I hated this type of Akrid that majestically runs around bases and hides behind cover. Being swallowed in the last game and shooting my way out set for a hard standard to follow. Shooting giant bugs in the face still works.
Gameplay changes when your in tight spaces, giving the game some horror game elements. Nest scenes will have you thinking about the movie Aliens and other sci-fi that's been coming out for years based on it.
The guns I took down bugs with were not that different from the millions of other titles out there. I collected every weapon in the game unlocking all their upgrades and found it most effective to just use my rapid-fire gun that didn't take long to reload. There was a Halberd laser gun that you could charge up, but I barely used it. It was mostly me and my fire bullets that would slowly burn the bugs.
Though I had a giant robot, battles took some time to learn and were messy. Fighting with a giant robot in a video game should be instantly fun, not hard to figure out. It became a timing game and the promps to hit certain buttons to block and defend were way off. I learned to just pay attention on screen and react faster to fighting giant crab monsters and walking beehives.
Story
You're Not Indians, Akrids Is Energy, Not Food. Pick One
Living the game through Jim Peyton, my bearded friend and yours does connect you to game. Jim is a man who just wants to make money in space to give it to his wife and unborn child back on Earth. Earth is dealing with an energy crisis and bad economy at the time. The way Jim makes his money and though there was no explanation of how anyone learned to pilot the robots or deal with bugs is to go to another planet and mine goo energy from the planet. Perhaps, there's a bug fight college we...
Anyway, the story starts fine enough, big corporation (NEVEC) sends scientists and average Joe workers into space to solve the world's crisis. The only people who do go are crazy people or people who want to make some cash. There's mystery that maybe Nevec doesn't want us to learn about what is really going on.
Then there's the village of The Forgotten and the naive snow princess Mira. Now here's where the problems come with the writing
I had a chance to talk to many villagers with inconsistent ages of being trapped on an ice planet for 40 years all who spoke perfect English. None of them talked as crazy as Mira and her father Soishi who seemed to think they were Indians. One cut scene even has Jim talking to Soishi in front of a fire like a western where a chief meets with the Sheriff.It's poorly explained why Mira doesn't understand what Jim and others try to explain to her when everyone else in Forgotten Village talks as they're from Jim's base minus some knowledge of Earth like not knowing what a dog is. This life debt notion that Jim has to go through with Mira is very out of place in a culture that isn't that far removed from memories and technology of Earth. It's silly, but you could leave it up to the poor parenting skills of Soishi. At first I believed Jim might be having an affair with her, but that got put on hold or we missed that scene when Jim died which really kind of makes you feel sad after beating the game. Your accomplishment of beating the game is your character dying surrounded by loved ones.
There's a mere cutscene where the game tell me I team up and went on missions with Mira and her people, why not actually go on those missions?
For a simple people they sure had an enterprising food court. Much of the village I could visit was diners and a food court and nothing else. They're economy I guess was.... Akrid food based?
Later, the story is a hit or miss, but mostly draining as Nevec armed forces show up and are really easy to shoot.
A scientist I felt I barely new died and Jim got angry, a character that was born to die and she wasn't even that likable to start off with.
I don't even know if Neil lived or not. It turned out that Laroche was my best friend in the end, that sucks. It's like learning Sonic's best friend was Antoine in the end and not Tails, what the hell happened to Tails (see Archie Comics Sonic to get joke)
Visuals/Sound
Ice and Snow and Scary Music Here
This world is big and the base might be too big. How long should it take me to get to the labs in this place? Thank goodness for fast travel or I'd probably have stop playing. The world I traversed in my walkable big mama jama robot would take a while to get around. Stuff freezes over, annoying Akrid might attack you from a distance. Storms might come down and there's a lava field to visit. A cold fraught world to explore and visit around.
My only problem with the layout was of Jim's base and is how long it takes to get to the lab to talk to a creepy scientist so I can earn moded bullets. It shouldn't take that long, but when a door says processing to open that is when gameplay gets boring.
Creepy music, the creepy music you've heard in scary sci-fi movies plays when your in a creepy base getting attacked by little aliens. What I had trouble with was my rig is suppose to play music. Most of the time it didn't or didn't want to. Now I've read online you can add your own, but that prompt never came up while I was playing or maybe is just for the PC version, I played on the 360.
Voice acting was fine. They had some fun lines to get in.
Overall
The game let's you shoot giant bugs. Spark did make it seem as though this came earlier in the series. Just much of it seemed like more could be done or more missions and more gameplay could have been realized, maybe a stronger tie to the previous games. I'm judging the game by it's predecessors and I like those titles more it. Maybe it didn't need to be a prequel or development for battling with the robot and Akird should have been thought more over. It's a title that doesn't have the edge or is missing an element that make it stands out.
I mean energy posts are set up by holding down B now, not rapidly pressing a button while Akrid attack. That's how I played the game, with a rush.
Multiplayer was unplayable due to home internet problems during review.
Many modes to try if you get the chance.
This video game was provided by the publisher for the 360 for review.