A fun, action packed romp through snow.
Lost Planet takes place on the planet E.D.N. III, a colony of humanity covered in snow and infested by alien creatures known as Akrid. The only reason humanity stays behind to fight is because of the Thermal Energy provided by - and only by - the Akrid. You yourself play as Wayne, a Snow Pirate who has lost all his memory except for one thing - that your father was killed by the Akrid known as Green Eye.
The storyline in Lost Planet isn't groundbreakingly original, and can be painfully cheesy in spots, but it provides a good atmosphere for the game as well as an excuse to run through snow in a giant robot. What else does a story need?
From a graphical point of view, Lost Planet is amazing - you leave footsteps in the snow, snow gathers on you as you walk or fall through it unfortunately, only as a texture), explosions are a sight to behold with giant plumes of smoke billowing out - Capcom threw just about every single graphical bell and whistle they could at this game, and it results in a stunning game - that also kills all but the beefiest rig. Even a 9800GTX struggles occasionally at higher detail levels and resolutions. If your computer can handle it though, it's worth it - Lost Planet blows you away.
The audio just misses being of the same quality. For the most part, voice acting is good, but occasionally a line seemed forced or unnatural. Music is also there but tends to get drowned out by the sound effects. The sound effects, though, are excellent - explosions, gunshots, the sound of wind and your feet crunching in the snow - most of it sounds just like you'd expect it to.
Gameplay, for the most part, is good - but in a few cases it tends to fall flat due to it's console origin. The instructions littered throughout the game are hampered by mostly only being for 360 controllers, making keyboard and mouse users like me a tad confused in spots. Once you've got the controls down pat, though, shooting giant insects and robots becomes relatively easy and massively enjoyable, especially with some of the more explosive weapons available.
As for the combat itself, the game is relatively easy for the most part, even the boss fights rarely making me need to repeat more than once or twice. Once you know which position on your enemy to shoot or which area makes good cover against that laser wielding VS (Vital Suits, the name of the giant robots), it becomes simple enough, although rarely losing that element of challenge which keeps it entertaining.
Overall, Lost Planet is a good game on just about any console. It loses something for it's control and installation issues, but is one of the few games in the last year or so which I have actually sat and played through in one sitting (yes, it is unfortunately that short too, having a campaign length of about 8 hours).
Well worth it - if you don't already have it on console.