Lost Planet 2 Campaign Hands On - The First 3 Episodes

50
Richard Walker

Once upon a time, E.D.N. III was a planet of pure virginal white snow until some colonising humans came along and terraformed it, sparking a war with the native creatures, the Akrid. Now, much of that snow and ice has melted, revealing lush jungle canopies where mercenaries have entrenched themselves in heavily guarded facilities dotted throughout the leafy fronds of fern and tree-lined valleys.

In Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, you were very much alone in the boring shoes of bland protagonist Wayne Holden – a Snow Pirate whose father was offed by the Green-Eye Akrid – but for Lost Planet 2, Capcom has built the entire game around co-op. Cast as part of a four-strong team of pirates (none of them say “arrr”, mind you), you can play single-player offline, split-screen or jump online and play through the campaign with three mates or three randoms, but you now play as Mr. Generic Clone soldier rather than a specific character.

Jumping straight into the campaign prologue, you're dropped into familiar territory, trudging through E.D.N. III's crunchy snow, fighting pulsating pods that spit spindly tripod cannon fodder, before taking on the bigger monsters hibernating beneath the ice. Playing offline with the AI, the game does a pretty good job of making you feel like you're playing online, with player names floating above the heads of your teammates who provide fairly robust support in a gunfight. That being said, they don't appear to help with specific objectives like activating Control Posts and so on (at least they didn't in our preview code), although they are quick to deploy any Data Posts in the vicinity, which create handy respawn points.

Comprised of individual bitesize missions around 5-10 minutes long, which themselves make up roughly half an hour long chapters, Lost Planet 2's objectives range from standard Data Post capture to large Akrid takedowns and then humongous, massive Akrid boss encounters that are heavily drawn-out battles of attrition. But Lost Planet knows how to do bosses, and the several in the first episode alone require successful teamwork and co-ordination to ensure you don't deplete your T-Energy (T-ENG) reserves and die a failure.

Thankfully T-ENG doesn't run down nearly as fast as it did in Extreme Condition, and if it does, your squad can pelt some of theirs at you to replenish your supply, something your AI buddies are very good at doing when things get hairy. You can return the favour by holding Y and tapping the left trigger, although the muddled controls had us chucking grenades by accident when attempting this.

T-ENG now has a variety of uses, including fuelling your health-regenerating Harmonizer – bizarrely initiated by holding START – as well as your roadie run sprint. It's still accumulated by gathering incandescent orangey Jaffa Cake centres, which spill from enemies and exploding barrels or storage tanks, but it's now less a persistent concern than it was in the first Lost Planet. LP2 shifts its focus closer to out-and-out action, making huge monsters and blasting huge monsters the central conceit, pushing the T-ENG conservation right into the background.

One episode alone is absolutely crammed with wall-to-wall set pieces, meaning that it's likely you'll only have the stamina to tackle one at a time before needing a break. The visuals are normally rather busy too, with vision-blurring explosions or a point of interest like a speeding train passing through an area in a screen-rattling motion blur that'll scorch your retinas. Brace yourself for some horribly bloodshot eyes. In just the first episode, we had to destroy a pair of towering drills by hacking several guarded Control Posts (like Data Posts), which then power-up energy rods that have to be pushed into the ground (done by wildly tapping B, again like Data and Control Posts) and protect them from tampering pirates intent on stopping you. This section plays out like a truncated game of Horde or Firefight, as you have to allow the drills to run at full power for 90 seconds to overload them and bring them crashing to the ground.

Lost Planet 2's missions vary between attacks on enemy facilities and encounters with different classes of Akrid. It's the G-Category Akrid that provide the greatest challenge though, towering intimidatingly above you and your team, able to regenerate limbs should you shoot them off. Glowing weak points still highlight where you need to aim, although you can still chip away at an Akrid's strong shell with normal gunfire, but it'll just take a lot longer.

During the first three episodes of the massive campaign, we encounter several so called, G-Cat Akrid, the strangest of which crops up part way through the third episode during a mission to secure an enormous cannon (the same we have to use later to blow a gaping-mouthed Akrid to kingdom-come) mounted to the back of a hulking freight train. The stupid Akrid straddles the cannon, causing your enemies – the Carpetbaggers – to fire the cannon, blasting its head and left talon clean off. So, it must be dead, right? Wrong.

This is an unrecorded G-Cat Akrid from outer space (seriously), that can regenerate appendages at an alarming rate. It's back up on its legs in seconds, re-growing its head and arm as thrashing orange tendrils sprout from its neck stump and right claw. Thankfully there's a range of VS walkers to choose from, including one able to accommodate three of you, and with one as a pilot, one on a grenade launcher and one of you on a Gatling gun, you'd think it'd be simple to make mincemeat out of any Akrid, but no, it still takes a long, long time.

Of course, Lost Planet 2's objectives offer multiple challenges beyond slaying mega beasties, and as subsequent chapters show, there's room for stealthy infiltration missions, avoiding searchlights and looking out for snipers as well as marauding VS pilots. Weapons and projectile items are never in short supply, so you're always well-equipped to take on whatever the game throws at you. There certainly appears to be a structure at work in each of the game's episodes too, with the first few missions covering infiltration of an area, which then leads to a zone that needs protecting for a set amount of time before the level opens out into more epic monster poaching.

And it's that last bit that is what Lost Planet 2 is going to be all about – filling an Akrid's hide full of bullets before it finally gives in and leaves a sizeable crater in the ground. The stuff around the main creature feature however is nice and solid, bolstered greatly by the well-designed co-op aspect. This is what will serve as the crux of LP2: bringing the fresh co-op served with hot monster mash for the campaign component, and if you've three friends with a penchant for shooting towering toothsome monsters (let's face it, who hasn't?), Lost Planet 2 might be right up your street.

Lost Planet 2 is out on 11th May in North America and Europe.

Comments
50
  • i cannot wait
  • Cant wait this looks so amazing
  • Sounds good, looking forward to this
  • sorry about the double post, hit submit on accident O_o but, ya, i have been a fan of LP since the first one, and i think / hop this will be amazing, my only worry is the fact that it is becoming over-hyped, and that there are gears characters in the game.. this will attract gears fans, who are notorious d-bags, among others. which is what i loved about LP:C; the small community. everyone knew, and respected everyone else. and now i get to play with gears fan boys? awesome...
  • This will be amazing, why does my live run out before then. I need money quickly or an early birthday present from my parents ;)
  • i so badly want this... bring on may 11th... i cant wait to be bringing down bosses the size of jupiter.
  • Sounds way improved than the first Lost Planet, but there's still one thing that doesn't convice me, and that is that there's not a "Main Caharacter".
  • I wasnt a massive fan of the first one, the campaign was enjoyable enough but the multiplayer let it down massively. With other games coming out soon which will be much better i'll wait till this is borrowable from friends (sayin that kinda defeats this post whichs talks about an amazing coop experiance if thay can pull it off) happy days
  • One word for this game: PENIS
  • The gears of war skins ruined this game gow sux
  • @4 true dat
  • This is unrelated but Infinity Ward is making MW3 there's an article on it at IGN now it won't suk
  • Sweet ^_^
  • Cream in my pants is all I need to say. One of the best games ever and you can truly play this game constantly and never get bored.
  • this is gonna be just like the 1st
  • the first one wasn't very exciting, cant imagine this one being any better
  • i hate this game.
  • @17 You play hockey games on a console, don't say THIS game isn't exciting. @18 That's because it's not anime, go comment on Final Fantasy XXXXIII
  • @10 how could the gears of war skins ruin the WHOLE game dip shit, they are only for the multiplayer.
  • I hope this allows you to play split-screen on one tv and play online with up to other people. (something borderlands should have put in) Also I hope crackdown does that. And #21, I read somewhere that you can use Marcus and Dom through the campaign. #10 I don't see how this would ruin anything as this article states that you "now play as Mr. Generic Clone soldier rather than a specific character" I'd much rather play as a CoG or Wesker than "generic dude"
  • looks awesome
  • May* (*month) has too many damn good games!!!
  • Wasn't much of a fan of the first games campaign, the MP was pretty awesome once you got over the learning curve though.
  • I never got to finish the 1st Lost planet (my disc got lost on the way home from working in Korea) I've got a new copy but discovered too late that it's the colonies edition and will et me like 10gs for finishing the whole campaign. I'm going to need to get over that however ad get up to speed for the the 2nd as it's looking awesome and I always welcome a nice bit of campaign co-op.
  • Meh..
  • #24 The only one is Lost Planet 2, please tell me the others. Maybe one of them is for me too. #27 Just gtfo. Why do you need just to post "meh"? I will 100% get this game. Can't wait. Multiplayer and Campaign are both fucking awesome!
  • @20 =) @18 go back to your 1200 map pack on cod you fucking douche @ 28 i agree with you completely i cant wait for this game =)
  • #4 ... i dont believe for a fuckin second that you hit submit accidently... i cant believe someone didn't call bullshit on you already it's like you tried to convince yourself you were not going for a first post...lol i hope you play with all kinda gears of war douches, you deserve it
  • MAY HAS TOO MANY GOOD GAMES *shakes fist angrily*
  • @28, -Red Dead Redemption -Alan Wake -Skate 3 -Blur -Prince of Persia:The Forgotten Sands Meh.. Lost Planet sucks btw (My opinion) ~MONK3Y
  • @32 Prince of persia cant be out that fast and blur ,skate 3 ent out till may so research before you say stuff plus lost planet does not suck at all ,you just need to get off the main stream band wagon =)
  • this should be good got the first 1 complrtrd tht :) and now i can play as gow char or wesker good times (y)
  • #32, I know Blur and Skate 3 have multiplayer, but both games are in genres that have been done to death. LP2 is the next definitive co-op game coming to 360, like it or not, and naturally it's going to attract attention. But if you think you're going to have enough alone time this summer to sit through 3 singleplayer games, you need to get out more. ~Mother (I can use tildes too!) ...jackass.
  • @32 Owned =P
  • @33 & @36 All the game he listed are coming out on May. If you actually read the comment before you will understand. 28 asked what other games are coming on may, so he replied and you told him to do research?
  • @ Acid Mother and KAMIKAZE, I never said i'd like Blur or Skate 3. And YES they come out in May. Retards.. ~MONK3Y
  • @3 ur gamer tag sucks
  • Start button as a control - interesting... Still I bet it will be a fun game^^
  • @9 - i agree!
  • Damn the community here gets worse everyday.
  • #42 That may only seem so, just because like 10 douches are posting all the time. I bet here are hundrets of cool and decent people who don't post, or at least no shit. You only notice the assholes.
  • Sorry #20 no Final Fantasy 43 yet. Good try though.
  • @20 please go back to school and learn your roman numerals right.
  • @45 I wasn't being serious, calm down. As for going back to school, I think you should graduate first before posting with THAT grammar. GG, I'M OUTTA DIS THREAD HOMIES. PEACE.
  • Hopefully it's better than the demo, which sucked bagels.
  • Interesting how people cut each other down over an opinion and what games they like to play. I think I even saw someone on here say a person's gamertag sucks. What the hell, making fun of a gametag? What's next people tellin' their mommies on people that swear in their posts? How old is everyone on here? 12? Haha holy shit people have issues! Eventually I'll be able to read comments within a topic without seeing something about, Gears, CoD, or Halo when they aren't even the current topic. Anyway I played the first Lost Planet and liked it but when I heard Lost Planet 2 was not going to continue the storyline I was disappointed cause that's the point of sequels. Then I played the demo and lost all interest completely, cause it was horrible. I'll try the new demo they are supposedly releasin
  • MAY is the Month of great things, too bad Red Dead is coming out as well or i would have bought this. Red Dead is the only game i ever needed.
  • what? no word on Dom and Marcus from gears? everyone knows they're in there why dont they fill in some blanks if at all possible. At least mention them
  • LP1 SUX and so will LP2
  • COOL
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