Generic shooter, nothing like the others. Not bad either
The first thing i noticed was the lackluster graphics, the color palette is bland and most surfaces use extremely low resolution textures.The only impressive visuals are in the characters, they actually look almost real. Your main character that you play as looks almost exactly like Nicholas Cage. They also have some nice cut-scenes but that does not make a game good in my opinion. It's quite apparent that graphics were not a main priority of focus in this game, They are not bad but they definitely could have been better for a 2013 title. It does however run at a rock solid 60fps which compliments the good maneuverability of the character you are controlling.
The controls are very good and work out seamlessly in battle, you have a lot of control over your character. Movements like Strafe right, strafe left, jump and roll all blend together very nicely. It's a refresher having this much flexible control over my character because the game i had played just before this was dead space 3 whereas the character control in that game is a bit more cumbersome and limited.
The game is definitely not bad but its far from great and nothing even close to innovative. The game is about as generic as generic can get.. It's very typical, your character is the "perfect guy" who only cares most about his wife/kids, the planet you are on is very dangerous, there is a tech guy that shows you all sorts of suit upgrades, you collect ore energy to purchase item upgrades, you tap X repeatedly to get enemies off of you, you have to hack certain circuit panels by solving simple puizzles, and there here are many quicktime events you have to respond by pressing X or Y to.
The enemies are all extremely dull, the enemies don't look like they have a pixel of developer creativity used on them... For god sake there is only two types of enemies for the whole first half of the game. There is one i can only describe as a flower pedal with legs, And there is another which is a bull looking thing with multiple long tails with orange weak spots on the back. All enemies have weak orange spots that you have to shoot at. In fact, all the bosses have typical orange weak spots that you have to shoot at, but its extremely easy because the bosses randomly just stop for long pauses to allow you to shoot at them.. I was also extremely disappointed when they used the same exact boss at the end of THREE seperate levels. I was like, is this some sort of joke?
The game is also extremely easy on normal mode, i actually put my controller down during an end level boss fight to go help my brother with his new TV and by the time i got back 15 minutes later i was still alive in the arena with the boss. The boss does not attack you often enough so your players health actually regenerates faster than he can kill you.. Pretty sad if you ask me
Beside that the combat itself is also generic as well, you have a pistol with unlimited ammo, a shotgun, and an assault rifle. No care was put into the weapons as they are simple generic no-name weapons with absolutely zero effects or detailed textures used on them. The weapon upgrades are also extremely generic, you have one upgrade for each weapon, the pistol has a "heavy barrel" which increases damage, and the shotgun has a custom stock that reduces kick. There are no other cool weapon attachments or anything like that. Also your player has the worlds worst "grappling hook" i have ever seen in any video game. When you grapple on to a ledge or something there is absolutely no player animation for it, you get pulled toward the object in the typical upright standing position. It looks incredibly awkward and just plain ridiculous as it defies the laws of physics and gravity. The game is not terrible but it certainly needs a lot of work. You can tell this game was just made for the sake of simply putting another video game on the shelves, there is not a single shred of originality used in this game as every component was borrowed from ideas of other games. The game kind of plays out more like a (not as good) version of red faction guerilla. It is certainly not a game you would expect from the lost planet series..
its a typical third person shooter, nothing to remember back on later down the road.. But it's not bad either, maybe worth a rental and beat it in a few hours than return.. But definitely not worth the hefty $60 price tag.
UPDATE: Oh yeah and the music that plays while you are in the mech is the absolute worst i've heard in my entire life as it is enough to drive you insane. I highly recommend disabling the mech stereo. Its not even words, its just like the karaoke versions of popular country songs.