Now if you read my reviews on a regular basis you know how I feel about game demos. Lost Planet is yet another example of how important it is to release a demo if you have a quality product. The multiplayer demo for Lost Planet sucked me in and convinced me that Lost Planet was a game worth buying.
When I was younger and games started to get stories instead of just walking through multiple levels for no real rhyme or reason I started to differentiate between games that had a single player and games that had a campaign. I am very reserved when I say that Lost Planet has a campaign. Although it fits my criteria for a campaign (having a story) it is so awful, convoluted and confusing that it almost doesn't qualify as a story. It's more like Lost Planet has a single player mode with some random cut scenes. Basically you play as Wayne who is in search of the monster who killed his father. Somehow along the way he meets up with some freedom fighters and decides to help them take down an "evil" corporation. I don't like to ruin stories for people but I don't even think I could if I tried.
Lost Planet has one of the best multiplayers that no one ever tried. I feel confident in saying that because rooms tended to be pretty sparse from the time I bought the game until the time I traded it in. Capcom did an exceptional job creating a multiplayer that combined ridiculously powerful weapons, giant VS's (Viral Suits) and intricate levels and never made the player feel like they were out matched. By limiting the amount of time a player can use a VS or one of the super weapons (through the thermal energy system) one team can very rarely completely dominate another. Speaking of weapons; Lost Planet has some of the most creative weapons I have ever seen in any game. Although the multiplayer is Lost Planet's bread and butter there are some features in the single player game that are very enjoyable. With fantastic looking monsters and plenty of weapons to get the job done, Lost Planet has some of the best boss fights you will find in any game. Finally the graphics in Lost Planet are one of the games strongest points. With great monsters, a variety of level designs and spectacular explosions Lost Planet is one of the best looking games on the 360.
Unfortunately all the ingenuity, graphics and cool looking aliens and monsters can't make up for severe flaws. Lost Planet might as well have been called Lag Planet for the horrific amounts of lag you experience in about 75% of the matches online. There is nothing more annoying than running in circles and emptying 4 clips into someone only to watch them not die. Equally as frustrating was watching a grenade stick to someone’s head and then detonate only to see them chugging along when the smoke clears. I am not exaggerating when I say about 60% of the rooms in Lost Planet were virtually unplayable. What is so frustrating about this is that the host of the rooms were not given the ability to boot players with bad connections. Before every round you could typically see who was going to cause a lag issue, but unfortunately no one could do anything about it. The lag was so bad that eventually I could not play the game any more and was forced to trade it in. As I said the boss fights are great but everything in between is just plain boring. Even with creative level design the single player mode is so...vanilla. Capcom should have spent less time making the game look pretty and spent more time working on the actual game play. I mean after all this is a game, not a movie.
Lost Planet, although great in theory suffers from fundamental flaws that will ruin the game experience for most people. If Capcom can work on fixing the game play elements and the multiplayer issues then Lost Planet has the core mechanics to be a truly great franchise.
