his is a great addition to the PlayStation 3 library, but it certainly isn’t anything more than what the 360 version offered early last year. That’s not a bad thing. Lost Planet is a positive explosion of action and epic-scale conflicts. A year later, the visuals look phenomenal, and the unique premise is still unlike anything else out there. Admittedly, the moment-to-moment gameplay of Lost Planet can be a little slow and unexciting, but the big encounters make it all worthwhile.

The game casts you as Wayne, a fittingly bad hero name for an equally bad game title. Who thought “Extreme Condition” made this game sound better? Anyway, Wayne wanders through a sub-arctic wasteland of ice and snow most of the time, killing off some amazing monsters along with some slightly less-amazing snow pirates and their ilk. Beyond some fun and well-balanced guns, Wayne also has a handy grapple to reach high ledges. The show stealers, however, are the Vital Suits – mechs of various types scattered liberally throughout the game world. These powerful attack vehicles are your only good shot at taking down the enormous boss monsters the game throws at you. While finding their weak spots doesn’t exactly stretch the brain (hint: look for orange), the fights are still plenty challenging and tense, since each monster wields a titanic level of destructive power. Sadly, the story doesn’t keep pace with the frenetic action and cool premise; I never felt drawn in to the drama.

The extensive multiplayer options let you play in the snow along with up to 15 other friends, and this version includes not only the original complement of multiplayer stages, but all the ones you can download off of Xbox Live as well. There are also some new unlockable characters. Beyond that, my eye doesn’t notice any profound advancements since the original 360 release. If you’re into insane boss fights and haven’t already hit this up on another system, Lost Planet deserves to be found.