Lost Planet 2: Some Things Are Better Not Found
When the original Lost Planet released on the Xbox 360 as an exclusive, it stood out as a third-person shooter and was subsequently hailed as a relative success. Granted, this was during a period in the 360 lifespan when the console still wasn’t being bombarded on a weekly basis by waves of new titles, downloadable or otherwise. The storyline and mechanics of that first game are still capable of standing on their own, even amongst more modern competitors. The same however, may not hold true for its sequel.
Lost Planet 2 takes a significantly divergence from the original and, in many cases, sacrifices what made the predecessor great. Foremost, Capcom has opted to ditch a strong narrative across the entirety of the game for the sake of creating five separate chapters, which are then broken down into three episodes each. Giving the player fifteen levels may seem generous at first, but as the formula for the title begins to be distilled, it eventually feels disappointing.
While there is some redeeming quality in each of the chapters, the episodes as a whole lack diversity, which causes the overall experience to start faltering around the middle of the game. The first episode in a chapter will usually introduce the player to their team. The teammates, unless played by actual humans, can be conveniently replaced with AI that mimics stupid humans incredibly well. Moreover, the second episode will usually entail pressing deeper into whatever territory your particular faction is attempting to infiltrate. On the other hand, the third episode is usually where any real variety is offered in the form of the Akrid actually showing up. This is where a significant problem in the game stems from.
By centering a great deal of the game on fighting humans, a lot of the original spirit has been removed from the sequel. Fighting the Akrid was a huge hallmark in Lost Planet, making it all the more fun to mow down waves of smaller bugs or fleeing across the snowy wasteland in the hope of outrunning, let alone defeating a giant Akrid. You can count on fighting Akrid in the third act of any chapter in Lost Planet 2, but the overall presence feels missing. Instead, players are treated to level after level of fighting opposing humans. The problem being is that humans don’t seem to have anything large enough to qualify as a boss battle, so the Akrid conveniently fill the role.
More often than not the battles will leave players frustrated; causing them to wonder dissatisfied what exactly is being done wrong if they haven’t already thrown their controller across the room. Several encounters with Akrid, armed with ridiculous area of effect attacks and confined to severely limited game-spaces, will treat players to their respawn timer many more times than they’ll ever care to see. It seems that Capcom was under the impression that a multiplayer-centric experience should offer multiplayer-level difficulty. With some uncertainty, this could theoretically be appreciated by four-players progressing through the game. However, what Capcom failed to realize during the development process was that this utterly punishes anyone wishing to play the game alone.
This is where the double-edged sword in the design of Lost Planet 2 becomes apparent. The game is designed from the smallest detail to be played through as a multiplayer experience. While allowing for something resembling a single-player experience, this is merely a formality. The mission objectives, boss battles and even the vital suits, towering mechanical walkers, are designed with multiple competent players in mind for the experience. Should you try to play this game alone, not only will you be met with a struggle, but the game isn’t designed to comfort this choice in any single way whatsoever. The AI allies will often stand still while being shot or as a gigantic Akrid creature is bearing down on them as if possessing courage only a heavy dosage of adderall could deliver. Thus when faced with objectives that a team of four is supposedly set to accomplish, it makes the game all the more difficult for the one human player who made the mistake of jumping into Lost Planet 2.
Succinctly, the game is utterly gorgeous and more than willing to show off its appearance, but the beauty here is only skin deep. The controls are clunky and unsatisfying, leaving many players to wonder why exactly they can’t navigate a certain direction fast enough to reach an objective, avoid enemy fire or dodge many of the Akrid attacks that are impossibly difficult to avoid, anyway. The only time the controls are indisputably gratifying is upon activating a VS as the incommodious controls play to the movements of the mechanized vehicles. But otherwise, players will end up perturbed at controls that hinders them far more than anything else.
Playing Lost Planet was one of the more memorable experiences of the early days of the Xbox 360 console, but realistically it’d be difficult to say the same about the sequel. By totally diverging from what made the original great, Capcom attempted to capture both the multiplayer and single-player audiences. However, the clunky experience that has been delivered is incapable of standing out against either its predecessor or any of the current competition. Whatever experience Capcom was trying to profess to its user base by developing Lost Planet 2 in the manner that did alienated a significant amount of those who thoroughly enjoyed the single-player.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for a strictly shallow multiplayer experience, then Lost Planet 2 has your number. If you’re looking for an engrossing single player experience, it wouldn’t be a difficult stretch to say that Capcom checked that quality at the door when deciding what to carry over from the first title to its sequel. It’s disappointing to see Capcom lose focus of what made the original so exceptional and in pursuit of doing so running the risk of losing many fans of the franchise. If you wish to keep warm the memories of traversing E.D.N. III when it was nothing more than a doppelganger of Star Wars’ Hoth, then allow Lost Planet 2 to remain lost from your game collection.
