Lost Planet : Extreme Condition

Teens with Xbox 360s and a penchant for sci-fi action will be taken in by LOST PLANET: EXTREME CONDITION, an intense and immersive shooter.

The single-player campaign introduces us to Wayne, a futuristic soldier on a snow-covered planet, who just witnessed his father's death by giant bug-like alien creatures known as the Akrid. After being knocked unconscious in battle, Wayne awakens to find three rebellious Snow Pirates -- Luca, Yuri, and Rick -- who ask for assistance in annihilating the vicious Akrid once and for all. You're set into Wayne's boots, who is not only motivated by revenge, but he also possesses the rare skill to pilot Vital Suits (VS), walking "mech" robotic assault vehicles with incredible firepower.

One of your first missions is to destroy nearby Akrid pods that produce these gruesome aliens. While navigating steep and snowy mountains, and taking cover in huge warehouses and other indoor locations, you must look out for these crawling or flying creatures and blast them into bits using all kinds of high-tech weaponry. Once they've perished, you need to collect the thermal energy they leave behind, which is used as a life support system for Wayne (and a source of fuel for the VS).

Many of these clawed aliens resemble the buggy beasts from the campy Starship Troopers movie. The exhilarating climax of this first mission takes place in an alien hive at the end of a cave, with many hundreds of these critters approaching you from all directions and attempting to knock you off narrow bridges. Thankfully, players also have access to a kind of grappling hook, if needed.

Unlike a first-person shooter, such as Halo: Combat Evolved, Lost Planet is played from a third-person perspective, so you'll always see your character or VS mech on screen at all times.

Even more exciting than the solo campaign, which is peppered by many non-interactive cut-scene sequences to help push the story along, gamers will enjoy playing with up to 15 others in four online head-to-head modes via the Xbox Live service ($49.99 a year). Examples of these modes include Team Elimination, where teams battle it out to be the last ones standing, and Post Grab, where the winner is the first to find and initialize all of the Data Posts scattered around on a mission map.

The game does suffer from a few shortcomings, such as a relatively short single-player campaign (about seven hours or so), and with a story that can get a little convoluted around its midway point. Truthfully, you don't need to follow the weak plot (or believe in the paper-thin characters) in order to enjoy the gameplay.