January 24, 2007 After you've heard about Lost Planet selling one million copies since its initial release less than a month ago (only a week if you're outside Japan), you're probably wondering if this figure is more to do with the lack of any Christmas blockbusters for the Xbox 360, or because it's a great game in its own right. Our Games Editor has the lowdown after spending a bit too much quality time with the game.

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The Story

In the future, humans decide it's a good idea to colonise a frozen planet infested with nasty, hostile insects ranging in size from big to absolutely massive. In the process, they determine the insects are storing thermal energy (T-ENG) in their bodies, and that this energy source is the key to their survival, and develop Vital Suits (VS) to aid their battle. Think MechWarrior/Virtual On...

There's no question it's a premise with potential, however the progression of the story throughout the game is decidedly B-grade, shoestringing the missions together in a manner that barely justifies the action. Your team (comprising of the is-he-evil-or-not scientist, token cute girl and sickeningly cliched hacker kid) decide to risk your life more than once for the sake of investigating a heat signature, at a stage in the game it's obvious that heat signature is a massive insect. It's pretty painful stuff, and does little for the experience aside from providing two key game mechanics, in that you constantly have to top up on T-ENG to stay alive, and provide fuel to the Vital Suits you'll also be needing to stay alive.

Presentation

The first thing that will sell you on Lost Planet is the amazing graphical detail. Crisp textures, incredibly detailed models, beautiful expansive environments, and realistic explosions and (somewhat overused) smoke effects put Lost Planet on par technically with Gears of War, albeit in a drastically different art style. This is a real testament to the power the 360 has under the bonnet, and Capcom doing a damn fine job harnessing it.

Unlike Capcom's Dead Rising, you'll be able to read in-game text on a Standard Definition TV without a microscope (we at gizmag don't look down on late-adopters of HD technology), but needless to say, everything steps up a notch in beauty when running through a computer monitor or HDTV.

Game Mechanics

This game is arcade shooting done 2007 style. You're constantly outnumbered, and underpowered, and the only way to survive is to kill everything that moves, and collect the T-ENG their dead bodies spew forth to stay alive. An unfortunate thorn in the side of this arcade feel is the relatively slow movement of your character. You will grow accustomed to it, but it detracts greatly from the feel of the game.

The grappling hook adds a lot more vertical freedom than we've come to expect from third person shooters. You can climb tall buildings with a couple of grapples, and even grapple onto the top of enemy Vital Suits. The only downside here is that it can be hard to determine which surfaces will allow your grappling hook to attach, which often gives the enemy enough time to blast you.

On the linear path through the game, you'll find six weapons, five types of grenades, and seven VS weapons that can easily be pulled from a VS and wielded by your super human character.

The Vital Suits are great, offering lots of variety to the action. You'll encounter several different models throughout the game, offering abilities like transforming from a snowmobile to a robot, and hover jumps. Jump in to an unfamiliar VS and you'll get a quick rundown on it's abilities, which is great apart from the fact you're expected to identify the specific VS and remember its intricacies by sight alone from that point forward.

Saving of your progress is done with an automatic checkpoint system, which worked fantastically in Gears of War, however leaves a little to be desired here. For one, they aren't that often which is a let down, especially earlier in the game when you are still fighting the learning curve, and have to hike 5 minutes or more through terrain you've already seen and battles you've already won to get back to wherever you died. This is compounded by the fact you get no indication you've actually reached a checkpoint - so at no stage can you really relax and soak in the game as much as you could.

Single Player

There's 11 missions in the single player campaign, which the average gamer will breeze through in under ten hours. Only pedantic or hardcore gamers will find much replay value after they've beaten the game - playing the game again on Hard, or the newly unlocked Extreme difficulty setting, or finding the "Target Marks" hidden throughout the levels.

It's the epic boss fights that really make the single player campaign worthwhile. The magnitude of some of the bugs you go up against has to be seen to be believed, very much of the David and Goliath vein, and consistently provide the most frantic experiences in the game.

With Gears of War offering co-operative play both split-screen and over Xbox Live, the lack of any such equivalent in Lost Planet seems like a glaring oversight. Having a buddy help you out with some of the more intense battles would've been incredibly useful, and of course more fun.

The highlight of the game is the final VS battle. After not seeing any increase in the power of your character, or the Vital Suits at your disposal for the first 10 missions, a convinient plot device comes to the rescue and provides you with a massive upgrade which proves invaluable in taking on the final bosses VS. At risk of giving too much away, the battle takes place entirely in the air, and you have a giant laser sword. Not since finding the small chainsaws in Dead Rising has there been such a "F*** yeah!" moment in gaming.

Multiplayer

When Multiplayer modes are done right, they can add a substantial amount of lastability to a game - often several times that of the single player missions. The Lost Planet Multiplayer experience is fantastic, albeit held back by a couple of significant flaws.

Eight maps are available (nine for those who got their hands on the Collectors Edition) and the game supports up to 16 players per match - a welcome touch for those who've become accustommed to less.

There's four very different game modes:

Elimination, which is essentially your standard deathmatch. Players compete for points and the match ends at the specified time limit, or once any players points reach zero.

Team Elimination, obviously similar to Elimination, sees players split into 2-4 teams, with points calculated on a team basis.

Post Grab, which again sees players split into 2-4 teams, and fighting for control of any number of Data Posts on the map. The game ends when time runs out or when one team gains simultaneous control over all data posts within the stage.

Fugitive, the least liked game mode of everyone I spoke to online, sees the host of the match playing the fugitive, and a selected number of hunters that have to seek him out. To win, the fugitive must reach a specified number of points, or avoid death until the time limit is over. Obviously, on the bigger maps, this becomes hide-and-seek, and incredibly boring.

The best experience I've had so far is Team Elimination with three teams of four people each on one of the smaller maps like Training Facility or Pirate Fortress - with Shotgun selected as the starting weapon. If you're struggling to find enjoyment with the Multiplayer aspect, give this configuration a try.

Some of the levels are too big and would have been more appropriate with 32 players, and it's incredibly frustrating when you spend more than half a 15 minute match running from a spawn point toward the battle. Some of the other maps are too small for 16 players, and you're lucky to survive for twenty seconds after you spawn - provided there isn't already four enemies camping at your teams spawn point. Hopefully at some stage, Capcom release the ninth map for download via Xbox Live Marketplace.

Once your character is downed, you're invincible until you get back up. This is pretty much essential to your survival during the more intense battles you'll encounter during the single player missions, however it detracts from the pace in online matches. You might have to down someone three times before they're dead, and each time you'll be waiting a couple of seconds for them to get up - pretty boring stuff, that becomes incredibly frustrating when it gives his team mates enough time to come and blast you from behind.

No one seems to talk at all, which is odd, as at least 75% of the players you see have headsets, and a great shame because whenever you luck out and end up on a team that communicates, it's a lot more fun, and always gives you the edge over your opponents.

As you might expect with one million copies out there, some with 24 hour trial subscriptions included for those who need their first bite for free, there's plenty of people playing the game online - at times all 16 positions in a match will fill up before you've had a chance to blink. Numbers tend to drop dramatically after a month or so, so get online while the competition is plentiful.

With a game that was so likely to sell world wide, we're still coming to terms with why on earth Capcom left out the ability to view the ping from a server. You can see who is hosting a game before joining it, which helps in finding your hosting friends, but when you have no friends online, more often than not you'll end up playing on a host over the other side of the world. Given how poorly the game plays when you're lagging, this is an incredibly frustrating oversight.

The lack of a Team Matchmaking system in yet another Multiplayer Xbox title really illustrates the fact that Microsoft need to develop a Matchmaking system as part of the Xbox Live API, as it's clear that developers just don't have the time to do so themselves. We understand this will interfere with the TrueSkill rankings, but there is nothing stopping a seperate ranking system (TeamSkill perhaps?) from launching alongside. There is a reason people still play Halo 2!

Conclusion

There's no doubt in my mind that Lost Planet had all the elements of a fantastic game. Perhaps stemming from an overly ambitious design, with so many elements being incorporated in a not-quite-right manner, it all comes down to Lost Potential. Thankfully with a million copies sold, I'm certain that we will be seeing a sequel with the issues I've discussed ironed out at some stage in the next year.

Despite all the negativity, there's still at least thirty hours of fun in this title, and I urge you to rent Lost Planet for a couple of days even if the two demos on Xbox Live Marketplace didn't really do it for you.

Score: 78/100