Lost Planet from Capcom is a series that has been either too hot or too cold for most players, but Lost Planet 3 is set to find a good middle ground, as a prequel no less. You play as a grizzled older protagonist named Jim Peyton, a NEVEC miner that would rather be at home than fighting the ruthless Akrid. While this sounds like Lost Planet 3 is inching ever closer to the glory of the generic FPS, Peyton actually separates the game from it. He complains about all the killing he has to do, gets believably scared of the alien monsters that burst out at him, and is just trying to support his family.
Akrid and E.D.N III may be back in new ways, but the old VS mechs of the previous games aren’t. Instead you pilot a single giant mining mech called a Rig. While this big lump of metal doesn’t have all the nifty guns of its smaller brethren it does come with a drill for one hand and a fist for the other, which made for an amazing robot vs. Akrid fight in the demo I got to play. The Rig is also what gives you a HUD which shows less information the farther you are from it, giving a real feeling of loneliness and even peril.
Multiplayer from Lost Planet 2 is back, but feels a bit more like Gears of War. The CTF mode shown was fairly cookie-cutter, which was off-putting because of how original the single player demo felt. At the very least it had Akrid seemed to spawn to harass players of both teams indiscriminately.
Lost Planet 3 felt a return to the frozen fear and more survival based gameplay of the first game. The bigger mech was a ton of fun to stomp around in, though I have the feeling time in the mech is going to be short and sweet in the retail release. Hopefully we don’t all freeze over waiting for it to come out!
Related:
Lost Planet 3 Hands-On First Impressions
https://coin-op.tv/lost-planet-3-hands-on-impressions
Lost Planet 3 E3 Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BkB0XKn0Go
Lost Planet 3 Multiplayer Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXhN4Bawwno