Club Admiralty Blog

A blog about life in general, in as many languages as I can manage. Ενα ιστολόγιο περι ζωής, πολυγλωσσο - σε όσες γλωσσες εχω μεράκι να γράψω.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition | Done

Saturday, Apr 9 2022, 05:00capcom, Entertainment, FPS, review, video games, VideoGames, XBOX

OK, here's a game I completed back in December 2021 but I didn't have a lot of mental energy to write about it. I was planning on working on the trilogy, but after I read some reviews of the sequels (and how the first one was the better of the trilogy), I decided to set aside the sequels, for now :-)

True to Kojima games, this was very Japanese in its art style, a type of game I haven't played in a while. The Japanese style of game design sure does love acronyms - just an observation (or maybe that's just Kojima). It feels like a typical shooter but you have two health gauges: One health gauge is your actual health, and the other is how much heat-emergy you have in your tank, which keeps you from freezing. There are a number of checkpoints in each stage where you can augment the size of your heat-tank, this way you can go longer distances without worrying about freezing to death.

In the game, you have two enemies, the giant snow bugs (which are sort of reminiscent of Starship Troopers, and various corporate goons. You learn about space/ice pirates, but you discover later on that you're branded as one of those...soooo... space pals for you, I guess? 😅

Plot synopsis from Wikipedia:

Gale Holden leads a group of snow pirates on a mission to infiltrate a domed city. During their mission, they are attacked by a giant Akrid known as Green Eye and are forced to retreat. Gale and his son Wayne attempt to fight it but are quickly defeated. Gale's VS explodes while defending Wayne who escapes outside but soon freezes inside his damaged VS, remaining frozen for thirty years. Wayne wakes up and finds himself in the care of Yuri Solotov and his crew of snow pirates; Luka and Rick. Apart from his name and the Green Eye, Wayne remembers nothing of his previous life.

Yuri is particularly interested in the thermal extension (or Harmonizer) attached to Wayne's arm, which has enabled Wayne to survive all this time. Yuri tells Wayne that NEVEC is working on a project designed to thaw out the planet to make it safe to live on. Wayne joins Yuri's band, and while on a mission to wipe out an Akrid hive, fights a woman named Basil. Basil tells him that Yuri has killed her husband and that she was looking for revenge. At the same time, Yuri mysteriously disappears, leaving Wayne to question his loyalty.

With the help of Rick and Luka, Wayne discovers the Green Eye's location and rediscovers Gale's VS which Rick discovers is one of the most technologically advanced models ever built. Wayne uses his father’s VS to finally destroy Green Eye but is soon attacked by NEVEC's field commander Bandero. After escaping the attack, Wayne slowly remembers that rather than Green Eye being responsible for killing Gale, it was actually a few NEVEC soldiers with Bandero watching. Wayne and Luka barely escape, only to find that their pirate fortress (trailer) has been sieged, and that Rick has been taken captive.

For the next year, Wayne and Luka initiate hit and run attacks against NEVEC, which has taken control over the human race. During one of their attacks, they discover Rick is still alive, and has been rescued by Basil. Basil and Wayne take a NEVEC trooper named Joe hostage. It is after taking Joe prisoner that Basil goes on to explain that the Harmonizer slows down the aging process and unlocks the powers to Gale's VS.

After they interrogate Joe, they find out more about NEVEC's Frontier Project. He tells them it is NEVEC's plan to make E.D.N. III a safe place to live for humans. After joining the snow pirates, Joe arranges for Wayne to meet with NEVEC leadership, inadvertently leading to an ambush where Bandero shoots Wayne in the leg. During the confrontation, Wayne and Joe learn that the project will use T-ENG to wipe out not only all Akrid but also kill all humans left on the surface while all of NEVEC watches safely from the sky. Horrified, the pirates go on a final mission to stop the project. Wayne confronts Bandero a final time, killing him and regaining his father's rebuilt VS. Wayne finds Yuri, gravely wounded from torture, and before he dies, Yuri gives Wayne an attachment to his Harmonizer that will allow him to unlock the true power of his VS.

While Wayne begins his attack on the Frontier Project's leader, Commander Isenberg, Basil sacrifices herself to buy him time and Joe sets off explosives to destroy the elevator from which NEVEC would hide. Wayne confronts Isenberg and after fighting in VSs, shoots him in the head with a single pistol bullet right before he passes out, losing his memory again. Wayne wakes up to find Luka and Rick starting to melt all of the ice and snow from the planet, and slowly colonization begins once more.

Overall, I enjoyed the frozen hellscape of this game. The dual health meter was novel and rather interesting. The mech units that you can use do make traversing large distances easier, and they are fun to pilot. There isn't a lot of variety in terms of ground weapons in this game, but that's fine for me, I don't do much weapon switching in these types of games, unless I am forced by the game design. The aliens were fine, but it is a bit disconcerting to be on an ice planet that humans are trying to colonize because we've f*cked up our own planet, only to try to destroy the indigenous life. Levels felt very much rinse-and-repeat (boss battles were fun though), and felts like they served as a buffer between cutscenes. This is the main reason I put the other two aside for now. I'd give it a 7/10. Fun game, but it got a little repetitive after a certain point.

Gamerpoints: 175/1000

Achievements: 11/35

Completion: 17%

Completion time: About 5 hours

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