For Lost Planet 2, extending the single-player experience into a four-player cooperative experience is a no-brainer. Even when you're playing the game solo, you'll be rolling with a squad of AI-controlled teammates, so structurally, making it co-op is just a matter of swapping out automatons with real people. Cleverly, the co-op mode is built to accommodate players of varying skill levels. Completing mission objectives and killing the giant-ass bugs that populate Lost Planet 2 earns the team points, while player deaths, and the subsequent respawning, depletes points. So even if one of your teammates makes a regular habit of being on the wrong end of an Akrid, you can keep on truckin' as long as you keep your points in the black. Additionally, the thermal energy that kept you alive on the chilly tundra of Lost Planet is still a commodity here, and you can tap into it to restore health.
It had honestly been a while since I had wrangled with Lost Planet's unique control scheme, so it took me a couple of minutes to get my jungle legs and adjust to the way the grappling hook and weapons handled. This is a sequel that is clearly interested in maintaining the rhythms of its predecessor, though I did leave with the impression that the controls maybe felt a little quicker and a little sharper. Initially, the cooperative nature of the action didn't jump out at me, but after spending some time hunting around the jungle for special beacon towers to activate and occasionally shotgunning some Buick-sized Akrids, we moved onto a boss fight against what was described as a Level G5 Akrid--basically, a really, really big, really, really nasty bug.
It was here that the lack of coordination amongst my team led to our downfall, though not before I managed to toss a couple of grenades and then shoot them in mid-air, creating massive, awesome-looking fireballs. This was easily my most satisfying moment with Lost Planet 2, and it reminded me of just how impressive the special effects from the first game were. An additional, non sequiturial layer was added to the experience by the fact that we were playing as some of the recently revealed celebrity guest stars in Lost Planet 2, including Resident Evil's Albert Wesker, and Marcus and Dom from Gears of War. It didn't really have any impact on the actual gameplay, and they're all roughneck enough that they didn't look completely out of place gunning down giant jungle bugs, but it's still a peculiar addition to the game.
Capcom's found an interesting direction for Lost Planet 2--between the integral co-op experience and the significant shift in venue, it's exciting to see the publisher taking some chances, though without sacrificing the core feel of the original. Look forward to more coverage of Lost Planet 2 on Giant Bomb as the game's May 18th release date approaches.
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