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# Do players secretly like feeling weak? Lost Planet 3 tries to get its groove back through disempowerment.
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/lost-planet-3-makes-you-feel-weak-then-strong-good-groove-build-sequel-around/
- Published: 2012-05-23T18:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T15:07:20.000Z
- Description: video If one game’s sequel rut is another’s sequel groove, Lost Planet 3 offers evidence that Capcom is trying to get back in rhythm with the derailed bug shooter. In a wave of new demos of the game in the run-up to E3, the publisher is trying to throw out the parts that didn’t work in the first two
- Author: Michael Thomsen
- Tags: News, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

[video](http://youtu.be/-HYlxB1JRbk?ref=killscreen.com)

If one game’s sequel rut is another’s sequel groove, *Lost Planet 3* offers evidence that Capcom is trying to get back in rhythm with the derailed bug shooter. In a wave of new demos of the game in the run-up to E3, the publisher is trying to throw out the parts that didn’t work in the first two games and rebuild the entire concept around a groovy variation between empowerment and disempowerment.

Most strikingly the demo footage reveals a sequence with the be-furred space hero trotting along a frozen plain with no weapon while being attacked by a space slug with claws in its mouth. In the first game these dopey little creatures were the weakest in the game but a player’s relationship with an enemy can be completely changed by a simple change in design, in this case taking away the character’s gun.

The short sequences are reminiscent of the [brain slug parts of Playdead’s *Limbo*](http://youtu.be/6%5F3rva4g1nM?ref=killscreen.com), where players suddenly lost the ability to jump while a glowing beastie burrowed into their head. The much-loathed *Duke Nukem Forever* had a similarly interesting reversal of mechanics with a mid-game sequence where [Duke was shrunken down and had to fight a standard alien hog ](http://youtu.be/gYFijGkmHHs?ref=killscreen.com)who, at that size, became a screen-filling endboss.

Scenes like this are important because they add a semi-predictable sense of variation to a game’s patterns. As with music composition, it’s not just a matter of finding the right melody, but presenting it in a way that makes it perceptible above the din of backing instruments and harmonic clutter. *Lost Planet 3* follows up these scenes of dramatic disempowerment with scenes where the hero tromps around in a giant mech suit and discharges whatever tension and unease the gun-less parts of the game will have built up.

Whether that’s a groove worth building a whole game around is unclear, but it’s definitely a rhythmic refinement that benefits from having a few earlier tries to reference.

\[via [IGN](http://ps3.ign.com/articles/122/1222645p1.html?ref=killscreen.com)\]