That's imperative numero uno as you slowly "bleed" heat in this thematically bleak third-person shooter, which sees you returning to E.D.N. III, an ecologically hostile planet humans failed to colonize years earlier. Blame it on the Akrid, a hostile race of really big bugs that thrive in E.D.N. III's subzero climes by storing thermal energy (T-ENG) like radioactive camels. Oh, and instead of humps, think glowing butts, of which you'll have to shoot plenty to free up precious gobs of warmth.

You play as Wayne, inexplicably buried in ice and rescued by a band of snow pirates, an amnesiac who remembers only his name and that an Akrid called "Green Eye" killed his father. Your mission? Revenge, loud and noisy style. Along the way, you'll be aided by Vital Suits—bionic, convertible "mechs" that fall somewhere between FASA's MechWarrior and Hasbro's Transformers. Strap one on and it'll serve as heavy armor or quick transportation ("transforms" into a vehicle), or let you hover, super-jump or dash, depending on model. All the while a T-ENG counter's ticking, forcing you to replenish your ever-dwindling energy supply by blasting Akrid and rolling over their glowing leftovers.

You control Wayne using the thumbsticks to charge through linear levels and aim weapons like machine guns, rocket launchers and plasma sniper rifles or lob grenades (plasma, "sticky," etc.). You can also pull off evasive rolls and fire a grappling hook to access out-of-reach areas or stop yourself falling from precipitous heights. Take things online and you'll trade bullets in classic deathmatch modes (team elimination, elimination), a goal-driven variant called "post grab" (find and initialize data posts, which replenish your T-ENG) and "fugitive" (other players hunt the game session host as a timer runs down).

A blast, but with several vexing bits

If you watch TV, you've seen the ads for Lost Planet. It's the one they've been playing on every channel every other commercial break for the past few months. According to Forbes, Capcom dropped a cool $40 million crafting this one—$20 million to make it, and another astounding $20 million for "advertising and awareness."

Maybe that's why it looks so amazing. Even next to Gears of War, Lost Planet turns heads. Swirling snow scours glare-lit shelves of ice or streams through chains fences, over bridges and around spindly towers. Feathery "Trilids" swarm like serpentine bats through dusky caverns, and Dune-sized worm-creatures burst from the ground and wriggle with the kind of simultaneously stunning, horrifically realistic vitality you really weren't expecting out of this generation of video game hardware. And nearly everything's destructible, from concrete pylons and wrecked vehicles to ridiculously huge, lattice-like interiors—if you can shoot it, you can usually pulverize it.

So what happened to the gameplay? The interface works fine, the sound design's gorgeous, the acting—well, the acting's pretty bad, and the story's a bit silly. But OK, all the basics work well enough, save one: combat. In most action shooters you're just another average overpowered tank, charging willy-nilly through gunfire and healing quicker than Wolverine in a bacta tank. In Lost Planet, you're instead a tottery klutz, tripping, falling and frequently collapsing every time a largish opponent so much as sneezes. That makes for incredibly frustrating battles—especially against end-level creatures who'll roll you, stomp you and all-around rumble you onto the ground. And just when you're finally back to vertical—it takes several seconds and it's frustratingly automated—they'll do it again. Eventually you'll figure out the patterns, and all right, you can run past a ton of these encounters to tag the level exit, but then what's the point of exploring in the first place?

Pointlessness infects aiming as well. It works fine when you're firing head-on, but try aiming at three guys standing side by side and, in the game's dogged attempt to help you hit the nearest one, you'll often find your stream angling as crookedly as Jim Carrey's in Me, Myself and Irene. It's as if the parts in Lost Planet that should be tougher aren't, and the parts that ought to hinge more on smart tactics fall back to "beat the arbitrary, punitive mechanic." In other words, points for trying, Capcom, but you've moved the ball sideways instead of forward, and turned an otherwise beautiful game into a beautiful mess. Not a disaster, mind you, but certainly not what you'd expect from a game with this kind of production gravy.