Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - Colonies Edition

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition took players to the frozen planet E.D.N. III, where giant mech suits called Vital Suits battle insectoid Akrid for the thermal energy needed to survive in extreme cold. Capcom built the game on the MT Framework engine and combined a third-person action shooter with the pressure of constantly replenishing heat, without which the character would die of cold, forcing players to keep pushing forward and switch between on-foot action and piloting giant mechs against equally giant enemies.

The game arrived on PlayStation 3 roughly a year after the original on Xbox 360, under the expanded title Colonies Edition, which hints that this wasn't a simple port. The PS3 version added new missions and characters tied to the story compared to the original game, along with an expanded multiplayer offering with additional maps and split-screen game modes not found on Xbox 360, giving players more ways to spend time outside the main campaign than the original Xbox 360 version offered. The graphics engine stayed the same, so the visual difference between the consoles wasn't dramatic, but in terms of content this was the richest version of the game Capcom offered at the time.

The release fit into the early phase of the PlayStation 3's life cycle, when publishers were still testing how to differentiate the console from the competition - for Lost Planet, that meant added extra content rather than a technical edge, since both systems handled the game at comparable graphical quality, and Capcom bet that players would appreciate more content rather than a technical advantage the console could hardly deliver anyway. For players picking up Lost Planet for the first time specifically on PS3, Colonies Edition thus represented a more complete experience than the original Xbox 360 version, even though it arrived a year late and without a simultaneous release on both consoles, which PlayStation-preferring players had to wait longer for than Xbox 360 owners.

Why play it: For players picking up Lost Planet for the first time on PS3, Colonies Edition offers a more complete experience thanks to the added extra content compared to the Xbox 360 version, albeit with a year's delay.