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Don’t want to read our hands-on preview of Lost Planet? Head over to the VideoGamer.com video player for a video preview of Lost Planet on PS3, including three minutes of direct feed footage.
After what seems like a mammoth wait for PlayStation 3 gamers, Lost Planet will finally be released on Sony’s console in February. The game enjoyed monumental success on the Xbox 360, so is Capcom putting together a port that Sony’s platform deserves?
The game takes place on an earth-like world covered in ice and snow, inhabited by humans and an alien species known as the Akrid. Unluckily for the humans on the planet, Akrid are more or less a species of bugs of all shapes and sizes, but they do harvest and store precious thermal energy. This glowing orange liquid is at the heart of the game’s story, being the vital resource the main characters are after and what keeps Wayne, the game’s pivotal character, alive.
For a large portion of the game, particularly early on, Wayne moves around on foot, and the Akrid are by far the biggest threat to his life. These bugs range in size from dog-sized walking and flying nasties that constantly spawn from gruesome looking nests, to amazingly large beetle and crab-like monsters that wouldn’t be out of place in the Starship Troopers movies.
Walking around is only one of the ways to get about in Lost Planet though, with Vital Suits providing a more lethal way to tackle the pesky Akrid. Wayne can hop in and out of these mechs whenever he wants, but like pretty much everything else in the game they’ll only run while you have thermal energy to power them.
As in the Xbox 360 game boss battles crop up frequently and are real highlights of the game. The majority of levels feature a boss at the end and although we’re yet to see all of the PlayStation 3 game, all so far have appeared as they did in the 360 original. We’re also going to have to spend more time with the game to see if the often infuriating difficulty of the original has been balanced out at all for this PlayStation 3 release.
Capcom has told us that work is still being carried out on the game, primarily with the visuals. While the build we played is far from ugly, it certainly lacks the polish of the Xbox 360 version. Hopefully Capcom’s ongoing work on the frame rate and anti-aliasing will give the final game a smoother appearance so PlayStation 3 gamers can experience the same high quality visuals that wowed 360 owners early in 2007.
Something very much intact is the rather cheesy acting and voice work. Throughout the game you’re treated to lengthy in-engine cutscenes with the main characters and at times it’s hard not to raise a smile at what’s being said. It’s not quite to the extreme level seen in the Devil May Cry series, but still incredibly Eastern in its design.
The PS3 game also requires a 15-minute install before you begin playing. While this didn’t make for hugely improved load times over the Xbox 360 original, the PS3 game certainly has the edge in this area.
With a full compliment of online game modes, including all the content found in the Xbox 360 game as well as its downloadable expansions, Lost Planet for PlayStation 3 is shaping up like a title all action game fans should be interested in. Hopefully Capcom will have sorted out the numerous graphical issues in time for the game’s late February release date.
Want more on Lost Planet? Head over to the VideoGamer.com video player for a video preview of Lost Planet on PS3, including three minutes of direct feed footage.
