Planet Xbox 360 Visits Lost Planet

Capcom threw a fullscale bash in the gritty part of San Francisco to celebrate the release of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition for the Xbox 360 and I braved the Northern California winter to get in on the action and snap a few photos.

The area Capcom chose for the shindig is popular with the wandering homeless and would be a good inspiration for a survival horror game.  The night was made all the more eerie when I turned the corner to the convention center and found a huge grumbling mass of people shivering in the cold waiting to get in.

The grim faced guards at the doors were there not to protect us from zombies, but to keep the very important people line separate from the crowd of eager gamers line.  An inkjet printed ticket in my pocket would have put me squarely at the back of a very long wait, had it not been for a good friend who was on the "other" list.

After the appropriate strings were pulled I was allowed into the event, but with no hand stamp and no backstage access.  There might have been all sorts of secret thrills behind the velvet rope, but I was happy to be on the ground floor, where the real fun was going on.

The sheer number of consoles at this thing was staggering.  There were easily over a hundred 360s and LCD screens spread across the room.  If you wanted to play Lost Planet last night, you were going to get your chance.  I rushed my convention buffet food, and sat down at a concrete chair to get my first non-demo look at Lost Planet.

The game looks great, and the character models are pretty impressive.  I was surprised to find the controls a bit swimmier than the demo, and with no audio cues - the music in the room was pumping intensely - I couldn't get a complete experience out of the game.  I felt lost, no pun intended, during the first mini-boss battle but I'll blame the setting before passing judgment.  Eric Bush will be delivering a full review some time next week to give you the real lowdown.

I was lucky enough to meet up with John Porcaro, Tony Hynes, and Chris Paladino, the Microsoft community team from gamerscoreblog.com and they were kind enough to record an interview with me about rumors, the community, and the aging gamer population.  Clips from that should be featured in the next podcast.

For now, enjoy my very grainy photos which include such launch party features as an ice sculpture, a guy playing Lost Planet while wearing a Resident Evil Raccoon City Police outfit, someone else wearing a quickly assembled Lost Planet costume and Microsoft's John Porcaro showing off one of the podcasts he enjoys listening to.