It genuinely saddens me when a game presents itself to me with all the potential of a meal served in front of me on a platinum platter with a shimmering silver dome serving the dual purposes of preserving the steaming heat and concealing the delicious sight of the scrumptious food until moments before one proceeds to dig in, but fails to live up to that potential much like the silver dome being lifted to reveal a raccoon stuffed with spam.
The particular disappointment I refer to in this thread is Lost Planet by Capcom.
"'Humanity colonizing a distant life-sustaining planet with such an extremely cold climate that all water to be found is either snow or ice and to be caught in the elements without an exposure suit will almost instantly turn one into an impressive ice sculpture.' Well that's pretty cool." I thought "That could make for some pretty interesting game-play and storyline points.". My interest grew as I continued to learn that a major part of survival in the game is to collect pools of alien guts called T(hermal)-energy for an uncomfortably sized hip-flask to power the exposure suit that keeps your body in a semi liquid state, but it seems that Wayne (the PC) is the only person in the game who ever remembers this. This was the first part of the game that hinted at a disappointment as Wayne was almost the only character who was consistently outside without exposing large parts of his flesh to the 10 degrees Kelvin atmosphere.
That may sound like nit-picking, but it quickly snowballs into other parts of the game's cutscenes and plot in general that make no sense, which is almost everything that happens through the entire game. The opening scene explaining the colonization of E.D.N. 3 starts it all off coherently enough, but gains an increasing tenancy to willingly slide downhill before it soars off the edge of a cliff, free falling into a void of nonsense. For one absolutely true example: P.D.A.s appear to have an oddly large part in the campaign with providing game-play and plot information. In one cutscene, the main characters are inside their base type of structure discussing recent events. After a pause in the conversation, one of them looks over to a table that was there the entire time and exclaims as he find a P.D.A. that must have magically appeared there for them to give them the information that they needed. No explanation is ever given for either how it sprung into being or how none of them ever noticed it before. This is the point at which I felt both strangely amused and deeply insulted by the game. I think it was at this point in the game that the plot line and I had a mutual sentiment of low expectations for one another. I expected it to make as much sense as watching the end of The Matrix: Reloaded after having taken too much pain medication, and it expected me to have the mental capacity of a lemming.
The combat could have gone far with this interesting new game-play element of needing T-energy for survival on the planet. Perhaps stealth kills on human enemies in which you drain their hip flask into your own and watch them twist around in surprise and attempt to cry out as they become a mansicle. But the special arm-mounted, T-energy powered regenerator thing randomly and ambiguously thrown into the story (along with every other item and character) makes all non-vehicle combat nothing short of running and gunning, with the only threat being running out of T-energy, which is impossible on anything but the Hard difficulty. The combat, the player will find, is little more than a rip off of Halo, but unfortunately failing where Halo succeeded.
However, I will award Lost Planet some redeeming credit with the Mechs... I mean Vital Suits. The variety of V.S.s from the rusty old one you find in the beginning to the sleek, flying, dual sword wielding chunk of awesome that you use at the end, as well as the variety of mounted weapons for them that can be exchanged at any time (and also be carried on foot) makes for some pretty cool Vital Suit fights and Boss Battles, even if most of them are the kind of "here is my weakness, please destroy me because I obviously desperately want to die." boss fights that depress our gamer hearts. But the one thing that almost brings the game into my favor are the giant worms. There aren't many things more awesome than driving a snowmobile across a large snowy plane (with a surprising amount of scattered weaponry) to be attacked by a gigantic alien worm. I really would love that game if they just made it into "Giant Fireball Spewing Alien Worm Planet".
More redeeming credit points are earned by the fact that the game is really pretty for the time it was released. The snow effects, as well, are impressive, as they should be when you're playing on a planet entirely covered in snow. I especially appreciated how Wayne will walk differently on a solid floor than when in the deep snow.
In conclusion, Lost Planet is that raccoon stuffed with spam. And that raccoon was somehow spawned of a heinous experiment of mixing Halo with Mechwarrior inside of an industrial sized freezer made in Japan with badly translated Engrish warning labels. You may like it more than I did, or you may not, but either way I would count it as a definite renting possibility in the future if you're into shooters.
The particular disappointment I refer to in this thread is Lost Planet by Capcom.
"'Humanity colonizing a distant life-sustaining planet with such an extremely cold climate that all water to be found is either snow or ice and to be caught in the elements without an exposure suit will almost instantly turn one into an impressive ice sculpture.' Well that's pretty cool." I thought "That could make for some pretty interesting game-play and storyline points.". My interest grew as I continued to learn that a major part of survival in the game is to collect pools of alien guts called T(hermal)-energy for an uncomfortably sized hip-flask to power the exposure suit that keeps your body in a semi liquid state, but it seems that Wayne (the PC) is the only person in the game who ever remembers this. This was the first part of the game that hinted at a disappointment as Wayne was almost the only character who was consistently outside without exposing large parts of his flesh to the 10 degrees Kelvin atmosphere.
That may sound like nit-picking, but it quickly snowballs into other parts of the game's cutscenes and plot in general that make no sense, which is almost everything that happens through the entire game. The opening scene explaining the colonization of E.D.N. 3 starts it all off coherently enough, but gains an increasing tenancy to willingly slide downhill before it soars off the edge of a cliff, free falling into a void of nonsense. For one absolutely true example: P.D.A.s appear to have an oddly large part in the campaign with providing game-play and plot information. In one cutscene, the main characters are inside their base type of structure discussing recent events. After a pause in the conversation, one of them looks over to a table that was there the entire time and exclaims as he find a P.D.A. that must have magically appeared there for them to give them the information that they needed. No explanation is ever given for either how it sprung into being or how none of them ever noticed it before. This is the point at which I felt both strangely amused and deeply insulted by the game. I think it was at this point in the game that the plot line and I had a mutual sentiment of low expectations for one another. I expected it to make as much sense as watching the end of The Matrix: Reloaded after having taken too much pain medication, and it expected me to have the mental capacity of a lemming.
The combat could have gone far with this interesting new game-play element of needing T-energy for survival on the planet. Perhaps stealth kills on human enemies in which you drain their hip flask into your own and watch them twist around in surprise and attempt to cry out as they become a mansicle. But the special arm-mounted, T-energy powered regenerator thing randomly and ambiguously thrown into the story (along with every other item and character) makes all non-vehicle combat nothing short of running and gunning, with the only threat being running out of T-energy, which is impossible on anything but the Hard difficulty. The combat, the player will find, is little more than a rip off of Halo, but unfortunately failing where Halo succeeded.
However, I will award Lost Planet some redeeming credit with the Mechs... I mean Vital Suits. The variety of V.S.s from the rusty old one you find in the beginning to the sleek, flying, dual sword wielding chunk of awesome that you use at the end, as well as the variety of mounted weapons for them that can be exchanged at any time (and also be carried on foot) makes for some pretty cool Vital Suit fights and Boss Battles, even if most of them are the kind of "here is my weakness, please destroy me because I obviously desperately want to die." boss fights that depress our gamer hearts. But the one thing that almost brings the game into my favor are the giant worms. There aren't many things more awesome than driving a snowmobile across a large snowy plane (with a surprising amount of scattered weaponry) to be attacked by a gigantic alien worm. I really would love that game if they just made it into "Giant Fireball Spewing Alien Worm Planet".
More redeeming credit points are earned by the fact that the game is really pretty for the time it was released. The snow effects, as well, are impressive, as they should be when you're playing on a planet entirely covered in snow. I especially appreciated how Wayne will walk differently on a solid floor than when in the deep snow.
In conclusion, Lost Planet is that raccoon stuffed with spam. And that raccoon was somehow spawned of a heinous experiment of mixing Halo with Mechwarrior inside of an industrial sized freezer made in Japan with badly translated Engrish warning labels. You may like it more than I did, or you may not, but either way I would count it as a definite renting possibility in the future if you're into shooters.
