The Steam Holiday sale is often a time of buyer’s remorse for someone like me. Since I tend to buy games right after they come out (usually for review on here) by the time a Steam sale rocks around my library is usually already filled with the titles that are now available at under half the price. Still it gives me the opportunity to pick up games that were on my radar but just didn’t quite make the cut at their regular prices and Lost Planet 3 was one of them. I’ve always been tangentially aware of the series, ever since back when one of my house mates showed it to me, but hadn’t given it a go until now.
Lost Planet 3 is a prequel to the previous instalments and you play as Jim Peyton, a rig pilot for hire who specializes in manning giant robots that function in the most hostile environments. Jim has had a rough time finding work so when a contract comes through to travel to a distant planet he has little choice but to accept. Upon arrival however things aren’t exactly as they were first sold to you as many of the long time residents at this colony will tell you. Still Jim tries to keep his head down and just focus on the work, ensuring his family’s survival, until he stumbles upon something which changes his world forever.
The visuals of Lost Planet 3 have their moments, like the screenshot just below, but it’s obvious that the PC version of this game is a port of the Xbox360 one. I think this is party due to the use of the Unreal 3 engine which, like Flash Player, has a tendency to make everything done it have a very similar feel about it. That means the graphics feel pretty dated even when you’ve got everything cranked up to maximum. The flip side of this is that it runs quite smoothly regardless of how much action is on the screen, something which you will be thankful for in some of the more action packed scenes.
The game play of Lost Planet 3 is divided pretty equally between 2 different modes. The first is you standard 3rd person cover based shooter where you’ll run and gun your way through massive troves of insect like aliens all the while making sure you have a place to hide once you’ve taken too much damage. The second is when your in your rig which functions as both your transportation as well as an alternate style of combat. Both of these have their own upgrade systems with your character having several of them, enabling you to upgrade him significantly should you want to put in the effort.
Lost Planet 3 incorporates some RPG aspects as well allowing you to follow the core story mission whenever you want to but also providing you with a bevy of side missions to keep you occupied. For the most part they’re simply there to unlock more upgrades or give you more TE to spend at the default upgrade stores but there are a couple that seem to have no real purpose behind them. The DNA scanning mission for instance doesn’t seem to have any appreciable benefit for you at all. I must have scanned nearly all of the enemies I encountered, some multiple times just to be sure, but still upon returning to the quest giver I found no reward at all. I don’t know if there was a threshold or something else I was missing but the mission said nothing more than “Scan enemies with this special ammo”.
The combat on foot is relatively engaging, mostly towards the beginning where you have to make every shot count lest you be over-run by even just a few Akrid. This starts to peter out gradually as you progress through the game as the absolute power of the enemies doesn’t seem to change that much whilst yours scales ever upwards. It’s even more apparent with the threat of running out of ammunition is taken away from you (your rig has an ammo locker in its feet providing unlimited ammo) allowing you to simply spray and pray your way through those sections. There are some parts where this is used to great effect, during the drilling missions is a good example of this, but it can make it feel like being in your rig is somewhat redundant at points when it’d likely be much easier to just get out and shoot.
Your rig is a cool idea however it’s more of a transportation device and puzzle mechanic more than anything else. Sure you’ll get into combat with it but for the most part it’s dumbed down so much that it barely rates above a quick time event at most points. This is never more clear than when you’re locked inside the cabin when fighting an enemy that you’d previously fought on foot, forcing you to use your rig rather than the already proven method that you’d used previously. I can understand that this was done in part to make the rig upgrades actually worth getting but you could honestly skip all the ones that aren’t given to you as part of the story and still not have an issue.
Indeed apart from a few weapon upgrades the multiple upgrade systems that your character has access to are almost completely redundant. I was playing the game on the hardest difficulty and found that the combination of the prototype pulse rifle alongside the explosive bow was pretty much all I needed for any situation. It doesn’t help that there’s large chunks of the game where you’ll be rolling in TE but not have a place to spend it because you’re locked in that part of the game until you complete it. If you’re someone that likes to find all these collectibles then you might find some value in the multiple upgrade systems Lost Planet 3 has but since you don’t need them there’s little compelling you to seek them out.
Lost Planet 3’s story is told in flashbacks by an old Jim who’s regaling his grand daughter with the story of how he came to be on EDN III before he dies due to a cave in. This has the effect of removing all tension from any part of the game where you think you might be in danger as you know he makes it out in the end. Whilst the whole corporate conspiracy plot was a little obvious it would have probably been quite serviceable should it of not been told in retrospect as some of the more tense moments wouldn’t have had such a predictable outcome.
Lost Planet 3 is a game that had great aspirations but fell short of accomplishing them. I feel this is mostly due to the cramming in of too many other things that detracted from the main story line, leaving most of the features feeling decidedly middle of the road rather than being the polished gems they could be. Lost Planet 3 has its moments but they’re unfortunately lost in the mediocrity of the rest of the game. Fans of the series might get more out of this title than most as it does delve into the past that precedes the previous 2 instalments but for anyone else it’s simply another middle of the road game, one best grabbed at Steam sale time.
Rating: 6.5/10
Lost Planet 3 is available on PC, Xbox360 and PlayStation3 right now for $49.99, $68 and $68 respectively. Game was played on the PC with around 10 hours of total play time.
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