Geekscape Games Reviews: Lost Planet 2
With all the nagging issues people had with the original Lost Planet, it was still an enjoyable game for most. Think Capcom listened to the cries of gamers worldwide and fixed the issues that they had with Lost Planet in Lost Planet 2? Not even close…
How's the view down there, boys?
Lost Planet 2 takes place 10 years after the events in Lost Planet. Could have fooled me. Nothing about this game feels like it should be a sequel to Lost Planet. Nothing is really mentioned or remotely tied in to the 1st game except it’s on the same Planet and there are Snow Pirates. Even the story is so disjointed that you have no idea what the hell you are doing from chapter to chapter.
Umm....what?
Capcom seemed to take a page out of Unreal Tournament’s book in making the campaign mode a multiplayer style map with players running around locking down points and completing some objective. Even worse, this game is NOT to be played single player at all. It’s evident that Capcom wanted you to experience Lost Planet 2 with all of your friends since you have to make a lobby in order to even experience the campaign. You do, however, have the luxury ability of setting up to 3 A.I. players to help you along your single player experience. The A.I. also gets fake Gamertags above their heads to fool you into thinking you are playing with friends. That’s kind of depressing.
Who needs friends when you have A.I.?
Unfortunately the A.I. are complete morons. They are worse than the 12 year old’s spouting racial slurs in Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live. Not once did the A.I. do anything at all to help me get through the levels. Most of the time, they were way behind me in the level and I was stuck fending off hordes of baddies while they had tea and crumpets. I was better off going at this campaign by my lonesome.
To make matters worse, none of the issues gamers cried out about were addressed in this so called sequel. Knock back and knock down recovery times are still atrocious. Try throwing a grenade at an enemy while he is shooting you and you end up stuck in an endless animation loop of trying to throw the grenade but never quite getting it. Also, the movement speed is slow enough to make it near impossible to avoid anything in the game. Oh, wait… I have a grappling hook? Maybe I can use that to move around faster and to avoid death. Nope. The thing is completely useless. Just Cause 2 got the whole grapple hook mechanic down, so why couldn’t Capcom just copy that?
This is why Cool Guys don't look at explosions
Multiplayer suffers from the same issues that plagued the single player campaign. It is fun to play for about 5 minutes, before the frustrations start to settle in. Not even using powered robotic suits makes playing through this online sludge fun.
The one redeeming quality of this game is how gorgeous things look. The MT Framework 2.0 works wonders on the game’s environment and details of the game’s massive bosses. If you and 3 other buddies are looking for a game to run around and engage in enormous boss battles, this game might be fun… just not at full price. For anyone else, Lost Planet 2 should stay lost on the store shelves forever.
