For those who have been following the progress of Lost Planet, you’d realise that it’s the latest project from Resident Evil and Onimusha contributor, Kenji Inafune. The single player will put you up against three problems: the game’s protagonist is stuck in an icy hellhole and he’s left to fight against a band of Space Pirates and an alien insectoid race known as the Eecrid. It seems that you’ll only be dealing with the cold in multiplayer, since the mode is somewhat of a standard canvas. However, there are still plenty of twists that’ll set this game apart.
As a whole, the multiplayer is shaping up solidly. The options within the game allow you to take part in standard deathmatches and capture modes that can be played either solo or in teams. For the plebs, only the Space Pirate Fortress is available as a multiplayer map and it’s pretty much ripped out of the single player game. Still, Lost Planet is trying to stray a bit away from your typical run-of-the-mill 3rd Person shooter and has a few little features that sets itself apart.
Don't leave your guard down for too long.
The game doesn’t rely on the conventional point scoring system. Instead of adding one point for a kill and subtracting a point for a suicide, the scoring is much more elaborate with a large amount of points for kills and a not-so-large amount of negative points for deaths. This could have led to negative scores but they seem to have been capped at 100 as the lowest score. Furthermore, since you’re playing in the nasty cold, each player is equipped with a “Vitality Suit”. These suits keep you alive but slowly deplete - kills will give your vitality suit an energy boost, to help you keep going.
As with any good multiplayer game, you have a mini-map to guide where you’re going. However, the map will initially read blank. That is because you will need to activate a bunch of beacons that are scattered around the levels. Activating and even “capturing” beacons for yourself will not only open up that map, and indicate where the other players and beacons are, but you’ll also be given a score boost as well. You need to be careful though, activating a beacon takes time and you leave yourself open for ambush.
While not much of a twist, the game offers a wide variety of big weapons and the option to ride in the game’s mech units, known as the VS. The exclusive level was known as “Dilapidation” and it was aptly named. It consisted of what looked like a ruined base and you had numerous entrances, exits and something of a courtyard in the middle. The longer you spent on the map, the easier it became to navigate, as you learnt the little intricacies.
One of the twists in the game includes the grapple. Whenever your cursor is coloured green that means you can grab onto a ledge - sometimes that ledge will be higher up or across a gap. The grapple can also be used when jumping off from higher ledges to hang off and fire at the peeps below (it’s flexible and good for multiplayer). Overall, the controls were similar to the single player but they were smooth and intuitive. We’ll take that any day.
We're really worried that this beauty will end up being useless
Overall, the multiplayer came across as a solid experience, despite a few major concerns. Firstly, while the point system is unique and does allow for some interesting final results, it seems to be a bit skewed in team matches. Basically, once a team had a lead, it was almost impossible to make any sort of a comeback. Furthermore, while the game has some lovely big weapons, most of them were actually usurped in usefulness by the mere default machine gun. At least the various grenades were different and had some interesting effects.
In something of a minor complaint, we felt that the characters moved a little too slowly. For the hectic action that ensued, it felt a little out of place that the characters weren’t very nimble. Something else that we’d like to see is if the multiplayer will incorporate any of the monster nasties that will be seen in the single player. Otherwise, the game may be unfairly dismissed as another multiplayer wannabe.
We're glad that the text issue is being resolved, because even on a HD screen, it's pretty darn small. Otherwise, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is shaping up rather sweetly. Even in May, the single player gave a polished and endearing impression. The multiplayer was not as endearing but it has some fresh ideas and most importantly, was enjoyable. We look forward to seeing how the game turns out.
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