Yes, the gameplay can feel clunky and repetitive at times. The storyline appears somewhat messy, and the characters lack depth. However, despite these flaws, I consider this game to be a diamond in the rough. The gameplay itself is genuinely enjoyable, despite its occasional clunkiness. Fighting giant space insects and shooting their giant yellow zits is surprisingly satisfying. In summary, Lost Planet evokes that classic 2000 Capcom essence. It's definitely worth a try if you're in that kinda of vibe.

everytime I saw screenshots of this game for the past 8 years I thought of dead space because of the yellow infected monster parts. its iconic at this point. and I would write the same thing on dead space if I first played this one

has amazing prologue and prepares you for what can you expect with showing you every mechanic but after that pace drops to turtle speed in first 2 missions, picks it up again shortly. after getting used to slow walking, weapons, mech types, enemies, and story, if you liked what you got until that point, game sticks with you.

I was thinking about complaining with the lack of sprint option but after finishing the game, I think it reinforces the experience at some point and decreases at some. for example you are in a massive area and you get chased by a big worm monster in one of the missions, everytime it does the lunge attack if you get hit by that its over. makes the whole mission stress inducing and scary because your only mobility is jumping and strafing. you also have a hook ability but its useless because its open field in that mission and hook range is not great. sprinting would make the challenge disappear there. you are not always slow though. after getting your old, upgraded mech in middle part of the game, drifting while dodging that missions boss is great, more with knowing the story context.

this game is very straightforward it becomes relaxing. go into mission, shoot monsters and human enemies and finish it with a good boss, then just grab your snack or beverage and watch the cutscenes. because of the mission system you dont have to worry about your hp or ammo after a boss fight, every mission you start with your machine gun and get powerfull with collecting weapons from the floor or with finding mechs scattered nearby.

speaking of mechs, theres variety. you can have basic mech who can only move and shoot at the start of the game and late missions you get spider mech which can jump and hover in air with another mode that transforms it into a drill tank. theres also another one at the end which I'll not describe, play and see.

must play classic that I can recommend to anyone because its as I said straightforward and easy to get into.

I remember seeing Xbox 360 footage of this game back in 2006 and being amazed at how "next gen" it looked. It must have been the per-object motion blur and snow rendering that caught my attention. To be honest, it still looks good today.

As for the game itself, you'll be killing all kinds of weird creatures with glowing orange bits, human enemies, and mechs. Speaking of mechs, you can control them too, and there are several types at your disposal. Oddly enough, your human character feels more resilient than the mechs.

The levels are relatively large, and you can approach your objectives with some freedom of traversal. You also have a grappling hook at your disposal, though to be honest I found it a bit limiting. You can only grab onto surfaces and that's it. You can't use it to pull enemies or items towards you.

The game has this chill, easy going vibe throughout. It's super easy to just pick up and play. It's just challenging enough on normal difficulty without feeling unfair. That being said, expect to be juggled a lot by mechs and bosses if you find yourself on foot.

The final boss deserves special mention. Without getting into spoilers, it throws a bunch of new gameplay mechanics at you, and the whole fight feels cheap and unfair. It kind of soured the experience for me.

I'd still recommend it to anyone looking for a solid third-person shooter. The PC port is solid and works really well.

It had been well over a decade since I played this game. I had strong nostalgia for this one. I remember seeing the trailers on tv as a kid being so awestruck by the graphics and thinking it looked like the coolest game ever. I know I enjoyed it a ton when it came out and remember general plot points and gameplay but DAMN going back all this years later: this game kinda blows and it’s one of the most needlessly frustrating games I’ve ever played.

There’s no real gameplay loop to be had here. You’re either in third person shooter combat or piloting various mechs that all control somewhat differently but have different movement abilities and durability.
The only unique mechanic is since you’re in the freezing cold you’ll need to constantly be picking up thermal energy from checkpoints, killed enemies or destructible objects in the environment. If you run out of energy you freeze to death and it’s game over. It’s an interesting enough idea but I found there’s always a surplus of it as long as you’re killing everything and not taking too much damage so it didn’t really impact the gameplay too much or make me feel rushed.
Enemies are either various sized alien Kaiju, humans with guns or other mechs. Fighting the monsters is ok as there’s some strategy to hit their weak points and avoid their massive ground shaking attacks but fighting human enemies is dull garbage and the mech fights are clunky and not fun either.
There’s not much strategy to this game except run in circles and keep shooting. You have a grappling hook but it’s very slow and not practical to use in combat usually and you’re very limited in the areas you can access with it. You can also jump but that’s not helpful for the most part. There’s a dodge roll but it’s very clunky and requires you to click the left stick in a direction as you press the A button and just never felt smooth or useful.
It’s insanely frustrating that almost every attack from every enemy hard knocks you down and you take forever to get back up. If you’re surrounded by enough enemies you’ll get looped endlessly as there’s no way to get up quickly or roll out of danger. You’re jump also can’t really avoid explosions from rocket launchers or monster projectiles.
The shooting itself uses a strong lock on system and feels ok but again any time you’re fighting anything but the Akrid the game blows.
The game is still very visually impressive and holds up well and the scope of some of the more open snow covered areas is impressive. The scale of some of the monsters is also impressive too and the ground shaking making you stumble is a nice touch but in a game that is already painfully slow it just ads even more frustration as Wayne stumbles around everywhere and slowly picks himself up off the ground. I guess it’s supposed to be immersive but it just results in the game being totally unfun to play. I wanted to finish it but I tapped out with a mission or 2 left. I should have just kept the fond memories from my childhood but now I have a bad taste in my mouth and don’t think I’ll revisit this one ever again.
4/10

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this game certainly wasn't INCREDIBLE per say, but it was fun enough to keep going. The plot was cheesy, which was kinda to be expected, but other than that like everything else was just kinda passable. I do like how the villain looks like some sort of DMC/MGR hybrid dude. This is one of those kinds of games you play to just sorta shut your brain off for a few hours and shoot some bugs n whatnot. There is indeed one problem in the area of hitstun, as you can very easily just get knocked around and wombo comboed by a lot of enemies/bosses just because by the time it takes for your slow ass to get back up from the floor, the enemy already has their next attack ready to hit you back on your butt again. Overall, a very eh experience. Was nice to finally get around to playing through, though. Always feels good to finally play though something that's been on your backlog for years, yanno?

I put it on easy to get rid of that ridiculous timer, and while it doesn't go away completely, it does help make it not that big of a deal. And I'm glad I did, because Lost Planet became one of the most fun mindless shooters I've ever played. The story does not matter, the characters do not matter, but the enemy fodder is fun to blast away, and the destructable environments and gigantic bosses are legitimately impressive. Part EDF, part Monster Hunter, part Mecha battle. There's something here for everybody. Just drop that difficulty down because that timer really SUCKS.

My Steam review from Dec 1, 2021

When I first played the demo of this game back in 2007, I thought this was the prettiest game I've ever played. The motion blur and animations together created this very cinematic effect. It looked like Starship Troopers in snow. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the original pitch for this game. I think to this day this is one of the most cinematic-looking games I've ever seen. While models and textures look a bit dated, the special effects are still gorgeous and give the game this very unique atmosphere. The setting is very cool too.

The biggest problem of this game, I think, is that once you go beyond the visuals, it plays like a very generic TPS. You just run from spot to spot taking out enemies, and there's nothing that would make the game stand out from the sea of other generic shooters. Yes, there's a mechanic where you gotta pick up the orange goo to not freeze, but it's basically a glorified timer. Yes, there are mechs, but they play like a clunkier version of your own character and get old pretty quickly.

All enemies could be divided into two groups: humans and bugs. The humans and the smaller bug enemies get killed by just shooting at them, whereas bigger bugs have highlighted areas that you have to shoot, like in old arcade games. The shooting is good in general. but these bigger bugs quickly become a chore to kill. The game likes to throw too many of them at you, and they're all bullet sponges. Most areas where you fight bugs are all pretty open, so there's no tactics involved whatsoever.

The game shines when it throws you into these tight locations with lots of cover, various weapons and human enemies. With the ability to freely traverse these tight locations, it gives you a lot of space to maneuver and maximize your efficiency. You also have this anchor/hook that allows you to get to higher ground or sometimes jump over the wall and surprise your enemies. It sucks, however, that there are plenty of invisible walls, so the full potential of this mechanic is not realized.

There are plenty of gorgeous animations in this game. It's pleasant to observe them on enemies, but when your character is performing an animation, it pretty much incapacitates him. You can't break up your reloading animation to do a melee attack. If you get hit, you can't get up until the animation is finished. Things like that make the game feel very clunky and eventually leads to cheap deaths. The controls can sometimes also cause problems. Picking up weapons, attaching them to the mechs, removing them from the mechs and getting inside of the mech are all perfromed with the same button. And again you have to wait for every animation to get completed in the middle of a fight.

The shooting in general is good. The shotgun especially is very satisfying to use. But you only have two weapon slots, and many weapons are kinda useless. For example, the rocket launcher is way too underpowered and you only ever get like 3 ammo for it. So there's almost never a reason to pick it up. Considering how you usually have several dozens of shotgun rounds or hunderds of assault rifle rounds, which in total are more powerful than 3 rockets, not to mention you're more likely to miss the enemy with a rocket.

I think a lot of this game's problems could be fixed by making the protagonist more agile and levels a little more open. For example, give him a sprint button (there are like 4 completely useless buttons in the game) and a jetpack with limited fuel. In fact, why not use the orange goo for jetpack fuel, making the player choose when to use it wisely. Remove the limit on aiming (in the game you can only raise your crosshair by like 75 degrees high). Extend the length of an anchor and remove all those stupid invisible walls. You don't have to make levels bigger, just give the player the ability to climb onto all the surface and make those surfaces empty, so there's not much incentive for the player to go there, and yet they'd still provide good sniping spots, as well as make the world feel realer. Speaking of sniping sections, add the ability to prone.

I feel like this is a game with tons of unrealized potential. If the aforementioned features were added, it could be a 9/10 kind of game. If the story were made better, even a 10/10 kind of game. But as it is, it's more like a 6/10 kind of game.

Also, why are there rivers? At -80 degrees, shouldn't it all be ice? If you wanna add water, why not make it orange and explain it in the lore as it being populated b smaller insects? That would make for more visual variety.

I like mechs.

Really wanted to play this game back in the day so these are my very first impressions after beating it. It does get a bit repetitive once you get the hang of it through the missions but damn, it's still so much fun to hop on a suit and mow down bugs in the middle of a snow storm for a while.

The atmosphere, mech & enemy designs, environments and general art direction are top notch and hold up no problem to this day. The story gets really convoluted though, but it's no big deal and kind of hilarious.

Gameplay-wise it feels kind of different from other 3rd person actions games I've played, I wouldn't know how to describe it. Movement, animations, actions and combat just feel very satisfying and fluid to perform for me.

The game needed sprinting so badly though, even if it was so much fun swooping around with the grappling hook. Levels would take waaay too long to traverse, even with a VS.

Overall it's an amazing game in my view.
It's fun, looks cool, plays good, and is straight forward from start to finish. Bosses are a lot of fun to fight too (except the last one, it's bull)

What else can you ask for.

okay I gonna say this Lost Planet has unfair everywhere enemy throw missile in you make of you combo and loose half of your health and you can't do s for a half of century and your movement so slow you can say turtle faster than you but the game made of this movement what's mean if you have patience you get and Real Deal the point you understand how to play in the game become fun this is how I complete this game and I have no problem play it again old classic my only problem with this game online is f*** dead you can't play online and 2023 if someone have a mod for online lost planet 1 please tell me plus people playing it

This is probably the most fun I had with a mid game in while. It's rad but quite bad! So, I guess its Brad? Conceptually, the game is so intriguing. Exploring a snow barren planet, where at times it's so hard to see that the threat of whatever is out there is heightened is such an interesting concept. There are moments in the game, especially when entering Akrid nests, that blew me away with its atmosphere. The VSs albeit quite clunky and awkward to use are too cool. I just could not get over how this game could be with Capcom's years of experience with crafting games like MH World and its new Re Engine. Revamp the combat, improve the story, and make the boss battles the key focus, and this game could be a masterpiece.

But in 2006, we have a very ambitious "next-gen" title that is kinda unlike any other game I've played for better and for worse. Bland gunplay, slow and awkward movement, half-baked mechanics like the grapple hook, and uninteresting human enemy designs, terrible AI, and a whole slew of problems tied into a game with a lot of charm and atmosphere. I liked it a lot for some reason?

Brad/10

went into this expecting an onimusha to resident evil 4. it makes sense, right? let a less prestigious capcom team give their own spin on a tried-and-true gameplay style like onimusha had done for the original resident evil trilogy. this could have potentially been a winning proposition for the company: imagine a slower, more methodical killing simulator on a frigid planet hostile to mankind... aliens bursting from crevices in the walls swarming in on you to explode with a blast of the shotgun. sneaking into a underground military base to seize a mech and mow down legions of of opposing soldiers in an unadulterated bloodbath. carefully hiding in the tundra rationing your healing items, checking ammo, and seizing what little resources you can find within the flurries. the possibilities are really endless to simply reconfigure what previously worked for the company.

instead we got lost planet. from the moment you first drop into the snowbanks of EDN III, you'll find that the protagonist "wayne" aims in an odd fashion where the small movements of the right stick will solely move the reticle, with only larger movements causing the camera to follow. this hinders the player's ability to circle-strafe reliably, and without any other movement techniques and a horrifically slow walk-speed simply traversing becomes an utter chore. the designers rectified this by just making most enemies stand stock-still 80% of the time, which is about as interesting as it sounds. the enemies that don't, such as certain aliens (known as "akrid") who are able to roll within armor plating and can only be damaged by attacking their tail weak spots, become massive chores that are barely worth pursuing.

perhaps part of the rationale behind the poor on-foot movement was to highlight the armored vehicle sections that make active appearances in most levels. unfortunately, these mecha are equally as cumbersome to maneuver in. no matter what vehicle you land in, each movement has excessive start-up lag, especially when it comes to jumping, which often is the only evasive ability available. occasionally a given suit model will have a dodge, but these come with their own sluggish startups and endlags, and telling which mechas actually have them at a glance is difficult. not only is the visual differentiation between models indistinct, but their movesets lack parity in most cases for some odd reason. not all mechas can hover, or jump extra high, or drift or dash or what have you, and what buttons these abilities are assigned to are overly tailored to the individual vehicle to such an extent that pressing your auxillary buttons is an essential part of vehicle initialization just to get a clue on what your toolkit contains. even when you reach the final mission and gain access to a suit with some real flourish and supposed finesse in the air, it's still utterly bungled. copying the zone of the enders control scheme doesn't work with the jerky ascend/descend buttons that must be clicked once to begin moving vertically and once again to halt. it doesn't even have true lock-on! not to get ahead of myself but yes, somehow the climatic aerial mecha dogfight is one of the worst parts of the game.

when it comes to the level design the resident evil 4 comparisons start feeling even more distant. environmental variation is adequate here - as much as it can be for a game in this setting - but the scenario design around these areas feels nonexistent. each room functionally just opens up a differently-shaped arena for bog-standard combat encounters without ceasing. it's all get-from-A-to-B objectives in what tend to be large, empty rooms outside of enemies and weapon drops. even with the game's "signature" grapple mechanic, vertical traversal seems quaint at best, though it may be that this is partially due to the grapple also possessing interminable startup and fiddly aiming - not really a shocker considering how shoddy the rest of the handling implementation is. given its contraints and poor reach, most accessible grapple points that aren't for rudimentary platforming sections consist of simple catwalks to grab weapons from or areas you could otherwise reach on foot via ramps. with few novel ways to traverse each area and no fresh objectives to pursue, each level bleeds into each other in one long endless journey to amble towards the next cutscene.

another lesson lost from resident evil 4: making every bullet matter lends significant weight to each firearm. lost planet ignores this in favor of centering the machine gun, a spray-and-pray implement so common in the seventh console generation. cannon fodder soldiers will easily withstand a full clip before bloodlessly falling down, and many of the more powerful enemies are even worse. sure, more powerful weapons do exist, such as the rocket launcher or the rifle, but the former only serves any purpose when fighting on foot against mechas (and still will take several hits to neutralize), and the latter reaches the point of requiring two headshots in the late game to kill infantry. most of the actual firepower comes from the mechas and their artillery-level weaponry, and in many cases the best answer are dual-wielding gatling guns in a braindead high DPS onslaught. this will shred the fiery weak point of any akrid assailant and even deal with opposing mechs (especially if you throw in a shotgun), and while not particularly enthralling it at least yields some sense of actual destruction to the affair. these strategies work against most bosses as well when there aren't opportunities to simply hammer the glowing weak points with launchable grenades or more rockets... there's very little to say about the boss designs in general for this reason.

then again, perhaps a better point of comparison is gunvalkyrie, sega's xbox-exclusive alien extermination title. much of their DNA is mutual: both games emphasize fighting for survival in both organic and synthetic alien environments, both feature a traversal quirk, both are unorthodox third-person shooters, etc.. in this light lost planet seems a little more forgivable, if only just by being safer. gunvalkyrie offers an unparalleled sense of speed, but lost planet's environments are better-tuned for the traversal characteristics of their protagonist. what lost planet lacks in unique mission objectives it makes up for in consistency and lack of standout frustrating sections over its runtime. lost planet also properly integrates its story throughout the game.... actually considering the low quality of the narrative and its awkward relation to many of the missions in the first half of the game maybe it's not actually better in that regard. if anything it certainly feels like slightly more than a tech demo; obviously much of the game is built around demonstrating effects like natural snowfall and billowing smoke from missile strikes, but there is at least a game that attempts to build upon itself through its missions in comparison to gunvalkyrie's disjointed manner.

I could delve further into individual issues the game has (thermal energy is a standout ??? mechanic), but I think it's clear from the issues I've brought up to this point that the disease at the heart of this game is the utterly lethargic character design, from the individual animation timings all the way down to the damage values and ammo count for each gun. wayne's state transitions are completely rotten and the whole rest of the game's structure exists to attempt to patch over the fact that he lacks any energy or snappy response to any input from the player. from that perspective, it honestly makes me hate the rest of the game somewhat less; for what it does it at least accomodates the inscribed playstyle and doesn't attempt to circumvent it. however, just having that dismal core design became more and more apparent the longer I spent within this mess.

Lost Planet was the first game I played on our 360 when we got it in anticipation of Halo 3. I remember being absolutely blown away by this game at the time - the environments were huge, the enemies were huge, there were explosions and snow everywhere, there were robots! Basically everything it took for a 10 year old version of me to be sufficiently impressed by the prospect of next gen gaming.

It surprised me then when I was recently struck with the realization that I had never actually played Lost Planet. I had simply watched my older brother play it in awe while he withheld the controller from me, making the allure of next gen gaming even more powerful. Now that I've actually gone back and played this game for myself, I realize that the impressive tech on display is pretty much all the game has going for it.

From a pure game-feel perspective this is the worst 3rd person shooter I've played in a long time. You move like you're trudging through deep snow even when you're not. There's a grappling hook that offers the illusion of mobility, but the range on it is super small and it often takes me 2 or 3 tries to get onto a platform I'm aiming at because the physics are wonky. The guns are all generic sci-fi shooter fare with no impact, and that's made even worse due to the fact the aim assist is extremely aggressive so you rarely hit where you're actually aiming, and sometimes the guns just stop shooting for seemingly no reason. Most of these things also apply to the mechs, but there's also some jank around swapping weapons while in a mech that makes them frustrating in a different way.

I really just can't believe how bad this game feels, especially since Capcom released Resident Evil 4 like 2 years earlier, which was arguably the best 3rd person shooter ever made at this time. Yeah, I understand there's different dev teams on both games, and the transition to 7th gen was rough for a lot of the industry, but the juxtaposition of these 2 games just makes me dislike this even more. I think Lost Planet was one of the early indicators of how poorly 7th gen was going to go for not only Capcom, but the industry at large.