I just found the characters plain
I disagree. The lead was a little run-of-the-mill, but I thought the pirates looked slick, and the insect creatures (what they' re called escapes me) were all diverse.
I can understand your gripes about controls. It was certainly an experiment, and if you can adapt to using the bumpers it' s far more fluid than people give it credit.
The biggest downside to it' s control scheme is the impeded y axis movement. Sadly, there' s no way around it, and you just need to adapt your movements to compensate, but as I stated earlier it' s a problem easlily fixable in the sequel.
What drew me most to Lost Planet was the pacing. It had plenty of fast paced action, and a decent amount of time spent roaming around the levels, and platforming. Not to mention, there' s pretty ' splosions and mechs... that' s usually enough to sell a decent game for me.