Lost Planet Member Review for the Xbox360

I think this game had immense potential, so I really wanted to like this game a hell of a lot more than I actually did.

I loved the opening scene that has Wayne before he joins his little group of rebels.  It sets the game up really well, but when you actually start playing the real first chapter, it's boring as hell.  The story is as generic as they come (another amnesiac lead character? C'mon!), but what bugged me most was the lack of atmosphere.  The graphics are good, but there's practically no music in the levels, so basically it's just graphics and sound effects driving the ambience.  Playing the levels feels cold--and not in a good way.

Killing the basic enemies is just ridiculously boring; most of them go down in a few shots without putting up any kind of fight.  The only time that dispatching basic enemies is fun in Lost Planet is when you're driving a mech.  They're easy and fun to drive, and while making the killing of these brain-dead aliens even easier, it's at least kind of entertaining.

As I mentioned before, the graphics are amazing.  The environment is jaw-dropping to look at, and the explosions in particular are noteworthy.  Unfortunately, though, the weapons at your disposal aren't very detailed.

Speaking of guns, they couldn't be more boring to shoot.  You don't feel any recoil at all, and it's just a complete drag.  There's an extremely limited selection of weapons, and none of them are exciting to fire.

The one, and I mean one instance in which I found myself loving this game was when I was fighting one of the insane bosses.  Oh, my God.  They are massive, intense, and fun to fight.  I swear I didn't come away from a single one of those battles and not have sweaty palms.  Sometimes the intensity is ratcheted up in unfair ways though: Wayne moves around like he's got a hangover.  He walks slowly, and his other movements are ridiculously lethargic and groggy as well.  I found myself getting knocked down, attempting to get back up, and getting knocked right back down again because of his lethargy.  But all in all, the boss fights really don't suffer that much from this.

This game can, at times, be a complete bore, but others it can feel like Gears of War.  Judging by the boss fights, the developers definately could have made the rest of the game great, they just didn't.  Still, there's enough potential here for a sequel to be more than just a boring shooter with good boss fights.