Lost Planet – The Whole Game
Lost Planet, Keiji Inafune’s attempt to make Halo for Japan, is one of this console generation’s most underappreciated games. The shooting is tight, the levels are impeccably designed, the automated-grappling-hook platforming is neat, and the Starship Troopers-bug baddies are some of the cooler looking HD threats out there. Sure, it has some clunky parts, but the good far outweighs the bad. What’s more, the entire game is all about snow and ice. The initial stages, wandering the frozen wastes of E.D.N. III, are still jaw dropping. It isn’t even the swirling snow or the ice-bound cities; it’s the sound, the crunch, of stomping through snow drifts. My teeth grit just thinking about it. The snowy setting is also behind Lost Planet’s health system. Your health is constantly draining because of the cold, so you’re forced to constantly collect the body heat of felled foes. That is cooler than crawling inside a Taun-Taun. – JC
Actraiser – Northwall
Let other developers go the way of stock level design. Quintet was always too good for that, giving their levels in Actraiser a pre-human quality that went far beyond the usual D&D boilerplate. That sense of a vast natural world haunted by gods and demons was perfectly captured in the two Acts that take place in the frozen land of Northwall. In the first, you enter a pristine wasteland to clear it for your subjects. Despite the substantial amount of combat that takes place therein, the austerity of the snowy background and the chilly beauty of Yuzo Koshiro's score gives the whole scene a sense of peace.
Things are different in Act 2, which finds you scaling a collosal frozen tree to rid your now-colonized land of monsters. This climactic moment finds all the forces of the arctic landscape rallied against you, with Koshiro's appropriately frantic music spurring you ever upward to destiny. – Peter Smith
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow – The Lost Village
Castlevania is a series about place, but its range is often limited by the requirements of its title. Each game has its unique spaces, but they’re inevitably tied to Dracula’s castle and the Transylvanian countryside surrounding it, which is why franchise entries that mix things up are the most memorable. Of all the ‘Vanias to release after Symphony of the Night’s complete genre realignment, the Soma Cruz adventures are the most distinct, their near-future setting lending much needed modernity to the usual gothic ramparts and libraries. And given Soma’s snowy appearance, it’s not surprising that his second outing, Dawn of Sorrow, is home to one of gaming’s best ice levels. The first screen of The Lost Village plain makes you want to put on a coat. Snow falls lazily on a rickety wooden fence, dense forest obscures an enormous moon, and the only sound is wind. The real star is the central room, a multi-screen series of German-styled village buildings stacked on one another, frozen and abandoned. Unforgettable moment: landing a jump on a broken-down VW bus and seeing the snow slump off onto the ground. – JC
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