"You didn't tell me this was 5-alarm chili!!"

I’m not sure why I didn’t see this coming. I remember Capcom stating way back that they intended to make a sequel to Lost Planet, but when it was announced that they were going to have a big reveal on the Xbox Live Marketplace, this never even crossed my mind. I had completely forgotten about Lost Planet altogether, which is a little strange considering I actually really enjoyed it. I was hoping they would announce the rumored new Strider game. Even so, I am not disappointed.

Watching trailers for the original Lost Planet was the one thing that made me want a 360. Luckily, my room-mate ended up getting one before the game released and I was able to play it on launch day. I’m not normally very into shooters, but Lost Planet had a lot of things that interested me. The enemies were mostly giant insect-like creatures instead of humanoid types, I like ice planets, it had an interesting heat-based life mechanic, it had grappling hooks, you could pilot mechs and, possibly most of all intriguing, you could rip weapons off of mechs and use them while walking around. And to top it all off, Keiji Inafune was behind it and frankly, I am a big fan of him.

My biggest complaint with the original would definitely be the controls. They often felt both slow and clunky. Sometimes it became difficult to keep attacking a moving target, not because of their advanced movements, but because the lack of yours. This is something that I really hope the sequel addresses. Fortunately, there were enough positive things about the game that I felt it was definitely worth finishing.

Lost Planet was very good at keeping things interesting by steadily introducing new enemy types. I’ve found games like Gears of War very boring in this regard. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Gears of War, but seriously, there were about 5 different kinds of enemies. Lost Planet, however, was constantly introducing new, fantastically giant and interesting creatures and mechs. Every time I thought I had seen every weapon, driven every mech, or blasted every enemy type, a brand new variety was waiting just around the corner. This really made things feel fresh.

Another high point in Lost Planet was the boss battles, and the trailer for the sequel looks like it will stay a high point. A scene is shown where people are using their grappling hooks to get on top of a giant behemoth to shoot some sort of energy spikes on its back. Sign me up! One of the reasons I have a hard time getting into the average third person or first person shooter is that so many of them seem to be devoid of proper boss battles. Halo 3 was a perfect example of this. They show you a part of Grave Mind as if to tease you with some fantastic final boss battle, but instead they end with a driving sequence. Honestly, who picks a tacked on driving sequence over an epic boss battle?

But enough reminiscing about the original Lost Planet. The trailer seems to boast some interesting changes. The first thing I noticed was that you were in a squad. At first I had mixed feelings about this. I’ve always enjoyed the all-powerful, one-man-army style of videogame hero, after all. But then I learned their intention for having you in a squad. Co-Op. I enjoy playing co-op games a lot. I think the addition of what I believe to be a 4-player co-op mode makes it worth the loss of the all-powerful hero. Part of the trailer even looks like it might be showing different character classes, though it might have just been a purely aesthetic customization of the squad members. Time will tell. Either way, there is a glimpse of a single mech piloted by 3 different people. Now THAT looks interesting.

Another interesting bit is that, since this takes place later, more areas are free from the ice. Now as I said, I really liked the ice planet setting, but I’m not opposed to adding a little more variety to the locales. Fortunately, the good ‘ol ice landscape hasn’t been completely removed, just more subdued in favor of jungles and other warmer environments. This kind of makes me wonder how the heat mechanic will come in to play, though.

Overall, I am excited to see Lost Planet is getting a sequel. The game had quirks, but it was still a solid and enjoyable experience. It may not have been what I was expecting from the announcement, but sometimes the things you don’t expect can be the best things of all.

The trailer can be seen on Xbox Live Marketplace or here right on your very own intertrons.

Tags: capcom, co-op, Lost Planet 2, third person shooter, Xbox 360

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.