Story
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: humanity has abandoned Earth for reasons we needn’t to go into. They settle on E.D.N III, which, for all intents and purposes, is a frozen hellhole (but hey, maybe they decide to market it as a place for some nice vacation homes and ski resorts so all those insanely wealthy refugees have a place where they can take the kids for the weekend). Shortly after building up some massive cities, they realize that a species of insects straight out of every Godzilla movie (dubbed “the Akrid”) lives beneath the surface of the planet and don’t want to play nicely with their new neighbors. Now, instead of doing the sensible thing and trying to find a better planet to live on- say, one with a permanently tropical environment and a distinct lack of mosquitoes- the settlers decide to not only stay on this giant roach-infested snowball, but to actually go to war in order to keep it.

Are you with me so far? Good, because that’s about the only part of Lost Planet’s story that even makes a modicum of sense. The actual story itself follows Wayne, an amnesiac man fished up from beneath the ice by a band of snow pirates. All Wayne can really remember is that his dad was killed by a giant Akrid, but soon he’s caught up in a tale of brutal combat and corporate conspiracy that makes next to no sense. Capcom’s team obviously put together what they thought would be an epic story involving one man’s quest to avenge his father and his journey to build a new family out of his rescuers, but it feels like a lot of the plot was lost in translation.

Lost Planet’s story is, at best, muddled; thereby proving that a game doesn’t always need a great story to be a lot of fun.

Graphics
While Lost planet’s visuals aren’t quite in the same league as Gears of War, it’s still no slouch in the art department. All the characters do indeed look great, even though most of them fall into a few generic types (though, admittedly, having most of the people dressed in uniform thermal suits makes an awful lot of sense considering the environments you’re fighting them in); the insects themselves fall into a few different categories but are suitably impressive due to their nightmarish looks and immense size. While the enemies may look somewhat identical, they actually move in a myriad of ways and have enough attacks/weapons to stay fresh and keep you from getting bored throughout Wayne's adventure.

Lost Planet’s main “wow” factor, in terms of art, is its environmental presentation. The indoor levels never really feel recycled, but the outdoor snowy wastelands are what really will take some peoples’ breath away: E.D.N III’s constant snowfall is often varied, with flurries occasionally obscuring one’s visibility to only a few feet in front of them. The other great thing about these outdoor areas is the way in which its environments show off the planet's ruined colonies. The devastation players behold seems realistic since it’s hard to believe any remnants of civilization could actually last on a world so hostile. There are a number of smaller visual details which I liked, too, like how snow will quickly build up on characters once they step outside but will similarly melt away once they’re sheltered from the elements.

Gameplay
This is where people will either love or hate Lost Planet. It took me a little while to get a feel for the controls, mainly during the more frantic moments of combat because movement feels rather clumsy and awkward until one masters the art of quick turns. This can be especially frustrating during some of the more heated battles with the faster Akrid, since they can move a lot faster than Wayne and their attacks are sometimes difficult to avoid. Once a player gets accustomed to the controls, they shouldn’t have much trouble with the more intense action sequences, but it all depends on whether or not they actually will have the patience to familiarize themselves with the gameplay. The other thing which might irritate some gamers is the fact that Wayne can only carry around two different types of guns at a time, which will force players to judiciously choose which weapons they should take and what they should drop in the snow. Thankfully, each level is peppered with a number of guns and grenades available for convenient pickup, so running out of ammunition is never really a problem.

Certain areas in the game will also allow Wayne to climb into “vital suits”, which are kind of a mix between Ellen Ripley’s exo-skeleton and miniature battle mechs. These probably provide the fastest-paced battles, simply because the mechs can dash and fly around a lot faster than the mere mortals surrounding them.

Fortunately, Wayne can take a lot of damage thanks to his “harmonizer”, which processes the thermal energy dropped by dead enemies (and a lot of the destructible items all over the place) into health. This energy, AKA “T-Eng” functions a lot like the Master Chief’s shields in Halo: given a few seconds after a nasty hit, Wayne’s ready to rumble again. However, the harmonizer has an energy count that’s constantly depleting itself at a steady rate (if the T-Eng counter runs out, Wayne’s health will begin to dwindle), which is most likely something implemented in order to make the game a little less easy and instill a sense of urgency when it comes to actually beating the rather linear levels. It’s an interesting feature that doesn’t feel like it’s quite what it could have been, but it’s not detrimental to the gameplay, either.

Summation
Overall, Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions is one of those games which happens to be a lot of fun, but never quite achieves greatness through no specific fault of its own. Even when you finish the somewhat short single-player campaign, the intense action of the game’s multiplayer levels will have a lot of people playing online for quite some time. However, if you’re not someone who enjoys playing with others via Xbox Live, you might want to make this a weekend rental and finish the game over a couple of sittings.