Everybody loves shooting huge monsters, right? With the exception of grannies, it's hard to think of anyone who doesn't. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, a port of a year-and-a-bit old Xbox 360/ PC game that mixes Eastern and Western approaches to action with varying degrees of success, features plenty of shooting some really huge monsters, which means that everyone, other than grannies, of course, should love it.

Like Capcom's recently released Devil May Cry 4, this PS3 version of Lost Planet requires installation to the HD on first boot up, which takes about thirty minutes. It's not a big deal if you just go and have a cup of tea or something, but seeing just how many people complained about it after DMC4 (people who obviously have very busy lives) this minor detail seemed important enough to mention here.

After the installation is complete you're presented with a choice of three difficulty levels. Don't forget though that this is a Capcom game, before getting all macho and choosing Hard mode - the game provides a hefty challenge on anything other than the Easy setting. Keiji Inafune, the creator of the Mega Man and Onimusha series is the guy responsible for Lost Planet and its story of a bunch of impractically dressed humans and their attempt to colonise an icy planet that goes by the very unmemorable name of E.D.N III. The planet is heavily populated by a giant insect race known as the Akrids. The humans are deterred from the idea of living on the planet due to this hostile presence, but change their minds when they discover that the Akrids' bodies contain T-Eng, a powerful thermal energy. You take control of a character called Wayne - an amnesiac whose father gets killed by an Akrid during the game's first mission - shortly before you stop caring about the game's soon-to-be unnecessarily convoluted plot. As you play through each level you need to collect the T-Eng from all the Akrids you kill, as you have an ever-depleting meter of thermal energy that means imminent death if it runs out. This system gives Lost Planet a constant sense of urgency, which will be a major deterrent for players that like to take their time and look around, although it must be said that it isn't too intrusive in Easy mode. Your health bar recharges itself, as long as you have a supply of T-Eng.

Lost Planet feels a lot like an Eighties arcade game transposed to a next-gen 3D realm. However much the mission briefs attempt to make things sound more complicated than they are, your goal for each of the game's eleven missions, each of which takes somewhere towards an hour to complete, is invariably to get from A to B whilst killing lots of Akrids, enemy Snow Pirates and mechs along the way. In true vintage style, each mission is punctuated by a massive boss at the end, surely the most impressive element in Lost Planet, often recalling the spectacle of some of Resident Evil 4's larger beasts (although the last boss is a real anti-climax). Staying true to its retro ethos, bosses are most often toppled by first finding and then picking away at their weak spots. It can be very satisfying on some of the Akrid bosses, shooting their weak spots, causing showers of gunk and T-Eng to rain down. The Akrids come in many shapes and sizes, from swarms of smaller, flying creatures to massive, hulking behemoths that emerge from beneath the tundra. Misanthropic types will be pleased to hear that there are plenty of humans to kill as well, in the form of the Snow Pirates.

As well as the various living creatures that are there for the killing, the game features a plethora of Japanese-style mech robots to shoot at too. What's better than that is that you often get to control these mechs yourself. Known as Vital Suits, these armoured walkers are very useful for traversing terrain quickly and blasting away tough foes, but the downside is that your thermal energy supply depletes more rapidly than when on foot. The upside of course is that you get to wreak havoc with vastly increased firepower! There is a reasonable selection of different Vital Suits available throughout the game - some are more agile, allowing you to boost to reach high up areas that are otherwise unobtainable, while others have heavier armour and better firepower but are slower as a result. Whichever VS you pick, each is designed with an impressive attention to detail. It's also possible to pick up any unused weaponry from trashed mechs, which include rocket launchers and high-powered machine guns; although you can carry these around even when on foot, you won't want to very often, as it slows down the already quite slow Wayne considerably. Your main weapon when on foot is the machine gun, although there are many other weapons to discover and use, including shotguns, sniper rifles, plasma rifles, grenades and mines. Taking the Halo approach, Wayne can carry a maximum of two weapons at a time.

The level design is very disappointing in places. When climbing outside in the snow, some of the routes you're actually meant to take feel like buggy areas you're not intended to be in. Wayne has a grappling hook that is used to lift him to otherwise unreachable areas, but he can't use it in midair unfortunately, which can feel quite restrictive - it just feels like something you should be able to do. Truth be told, Wayne is not a very agile character to control. The game can seem very sluggish at times, which is especially prominent when you're spending a minute simply holding up on the analogue stick to cross a vast area of nothing but snow to get where you need to be; sometimes it feels as if Wayne is running on a treadmill. There are other problems too, like how fiddly it can be to pick up weapons whilst in a Vital Suit - the same button used to collect weapons is also the button used to exit the suit, so it sometimes occurs that you unintentionally get out, which can be very annoying when you're in the midst of fighting some huge machine that can very easily run you over.

Graphically, there is little to complain about in Lost Planet. Okay, you could maybe go on a bit about the slightly shoddy frame rate, but if you ever stop long enough to take a look around, you'll see that some of the stages have mightily impressive backdrops. It's not all set amidst the barren, snowy wastelands either - you'll visit underground caverns and later levels take place in meticulously detailed industrial complexes that look surprisingly good in high definition, when you consider that 'industrial' usually means blandly uniform and uninspired when it comes to game design. The game also boasts some particularly snazzy explosion and smoke effects, making destroying mechs all the more satisfying. It's quite an atmospheric game, adeptly capturing that bleak, dystopian vibe that's so popular in games today. This is helped by the minimal use of music, which seems to be reserved mostly for cut scenes, leaving nothing but the haunting sound of the icy winds to accompany you as you play the game - well, that and lots of explosions and the sound of things dying. It's good when developers realise that less can sometimes be more. The voice acting in the cut scenes is rather cheesy though - less would've definitely been more in this department!

Lost Planet also features an online mode that is more than just an afterthought. The 360 version still has a healthy online community to this day, which says a lot about the enjoyment to be had from it. All the original maps are included, as well as all the maps that have been downloadable from Xbox Live. There are four modes (Fugitive - all against one, Elimination, Team Elimination, and Post Grab - a scramble to collect data posts), which can be played with up to sixteen people across sixteen different maps.

Although this version of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition features all the bonus content of the 360 and PC versions (including the ability to play as Mega Man or Frank West from Dead Rising), it's still a shame that Capcom have just ported the original across to PS3 without addressing any of the problems that existed in it. Most importantly, the sluggish movement of Wayne should really have been addressed, as the game would've been a lot more enjoyable and less frustrating if it didn't always feel like you were moving through treacle. There's no doubt that, even considering its budget price, Lost Planet is an average game, but one that often shows flashes of brilliance, making you realise the potential that's been ineffectively mined. Rent it by all means - it's a reasonable weekend of fun and probably worth playing through once solely for the bosses, but don't buy it without trying it first to see whether or not the online mode is for you.

Reviewed by Luke Shaw for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).