Chalk Lost Planet up as another title whose port process seems to be done about as carefully as if the developers had launched it from a catapult and hoped it landed near the mark. The underlying gameplay is actually quite good, but the combination of incredibly sluggish performance on ATI video cards and the obvious leftovers from the Xbox 360 version make the title feel more like it has been neglectfully dropped off into the PC market rather than properly ported.
In the game you play as Wayne, a man who used to be a snow pirate on the frozen world of E.D.N. III. At the beginning of the story Wayne and his father are attacked by the monstrous Green Eye, a member of the bug-like Akrid race that infests the planet. While Wayne survives his father is less lucky, and much of the plot line revolves around Wayne trying to track down Green Eye to exact his revenge. Along the way Wayne also helps out those that saved him from a frozen grave, dodges the ambiguous snow pirates, and battles through hordes and hordes of Akrid.
Keeping Wayne alive as he trudges through the frozen wastes is T-Eng (Thermal Energy) which he gathers from enemies he kills and other sources. Throughout the duration of a level the drain on Wayne's T-Eng is constant, and his T-Eng reserves are also tapped into to recover his health when he has been harmed. Thus, the game plays more like an arcade title with the T-Eng effectively serving as a level timer. Though this does force the player to progress through a level with a sense of purpose, it never feels as oppressive as one would think and you generally only run out of T-Eng due to mistakes in your gameplay rather than a lack of speed.
The Akrid race is one of the most interesting set of foes in recent memory. Individual Akrid can come as small as a compact car and only be considered a threat in swarms, but can also be as large as a building. With the exception of only the smallest of the Akrid each one is heavily armored for the most part and is impervious to weapons fire with the exception of a few parts on their bodies that glow with the T-Eng contained within. Most fights with the Akrid and especially their boss fights essentially boils down to locating the holes in their armor, watching how they move, and then striking them where and when you can.
While the Akrid stand out as a worthy foe, the enemy snow pirates that you face among the snow drifts are little more than humanoids that have about as much tactical intelligence as a bag of oranges rolling down a hill. Though some of them will run for cover, often times never popping back out to fight back, most of them will just stand their ground in the middle of the snow and let you systematically pick them off.
To help Wayne bring a little more punch to the party he can hop into a vital suit; large mechanical walkers of which there are a variety of types. Vital suits are incredibly fun as some of them can jump into and boost around in the air, while others can transform from a walker into a jet-powered cycle. Most vital suits can mount a weapon on either side of their frame such as chainguns, shotguns, lasers, and rocket launchers. It is hard not to giggle just a bit when you use dual-chainguns to mow down a flood of Akrid, and it is a blast when you and a snow pirate square off in a vital suit battle with rockets and bullets flying all over the place.
One thing that does detract from the experience is that every time you hop into a vital suit you are treated to a screen-full of what buttons on the Xbox 360 controller utilize what features on the vital suit, with nary a single PC-specific button to be found. While other parts in the game have dual-purpose prompts such as how one must mash either the 360 “B” button or the keyboard “E” button to deploy a navigation beacon, the inclusion of a screen with only 360 controls when the player doesn't have a 360 controller connected and expect them to glean what functions do what is laughable at best.
