Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
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Publisher: Capcom® Genre(s): Action, Shooting Home Page: http://www.lostplanet-thegame.com/
On May 15th, at precisely 9:00pm EST, Capcom released the Lost Planet: Extreme Condition PC demo. With an anxiety-inducing countdown on the Lost Planet website, I watched as the timer rolled all zeros and clicked through to the download link. As the transfer started, I couldn't help but feel a little bit disingenuous. After all, if I really wanted to play Lost Planet, I could have picked up a copy for the Xbox 360 when it was released in January. And so for my confession: I downloaded Lost Planet not for the game proper, but because I want a look at what a DirectX 10-based game is capable of (and I'm sure that I'm not alone here). More specifically, Capcom released the demo in both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 flavors, so a relatively controlled comparison can be made between the old-hat DirectX 9 and next-gen DirectX 10. We'll take a quick first look at both versions of the game. Who knows - we may even let you know if Lost Planet is fun to play.
Like a lot of early adopters, I've been looking for a reason to justify the purchase of a high-end DirectX10-level graphics card. Aside from delivering blazingly fast (and CPU-limited) frame rates in DX9 titles, the board has been overkill (it is doing a fine job of heating my room, however). For the record, I tested both versions of the game on the same system: an Intel
It should be noted that the DX9 version of the demo (and thus, the game) requires a graphics card that supports Shader Model 3 as a minimum to run; check Lost Planet's entry in our database to check if you can run it - Ed In the bleak midwinterI downloaded the the demo through Valve's Steam service, because the standalone installer is incompatible with Windows XP Pro 64-bit. Once installed, I fired up the game and was greeted with a strange warning that Lost Planet is unfinished software and that Capcom isn't liable for any damages if the game malfunctions. Thankfully, not once did the demo set my computer on fire; however, it was a bit unstable, crashing to the desktop a few times and hard-locking my system once. It's painfully obvious that the game has been ported from a console, as the Xbox 360 controller buttons still appear in on-screen prompts and the menus are quirky to navigate (right-click to go back a screen, for instance). Key mappings aren't saved when one exits the game, which is annoying.
The game itself is standard-fare shooter material, played from a third-person view. It's fast-paced with an emphasis on firepower, particularly when riding in one of the "walker" vehicles. Indoor combat has lots of shooting and explosions and that's a good thing; outdoors in the snow, the enemies are massive and devastating. Weapons are competent but not amazing, although the grappling hook - straight out of the NES classic Bionic Commando – is great fun (and a good way to move from A to B in a hurry). And since the game's setting – the namesake "Lost Planet" - is freezing, you have to constantly tap various sources, such as holding tanks, for Thermal Energy. This constantly depletes from your suit, and when it's gone you begin to lose life. The demo was too short to get a good feel for this gameplay mechanics but I can see the constant collection routine becoming tedious.
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