When I started playing Lost Planet 3, I felt it immediately. Intrinsically, I knew it was made by a different team than the first two games. Lost Planet 3 has a distinctly western feel to it, and its trappings should be comfortable to anyone that has played a third-person shooter made in the last few years. Left trigger to aim, right trigger to shoot - dodge, take cover, reload, repeat. Familiar, perhaps, but by no means is that a bad thing.

Lost Planet has, in fact, changed hands, moving from Capcom itself to California developer Spark Unlimited. It's too early to tell if the change will give the franchise the shot in the arm it needs after Lost Planet 2, but what I experienced seems like a step in the right direction.