Customer Reviews

Lost Planet 2

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

When you see critic reviews all but outright lashing at the game to fan reviews saying it's a ton of fun and not worth the amount of negativity thrown at it, you can see that this is clearly a game that has a "try out and see" approach. Not to say Capcom has had completely flawless run-ins with the press lately. Devil May Cry 4 had a great first half only to be marred by the entire first half literally played backwards by a different character. Or the really stellar Resident Evil 5 that everyone complained was exactly like Resident Evil 4 when other games are just like prior entries too. So when one hears of oddball game mechanics and approaches to their games in the reviews, you might be a bit hesitant to give Lost Planet 2 a try but this is a game where the reviewers are right in saying this isn't completely flawless but the low scores and negativity thrown at it seems a bit overdone and the best way to gauge whether this game is for you is just play it and see what you think. Stunning graphics, some great score and some of the biggest bosses you'll ever come across also comes with some screwy controls, a near pointless plot and not to mention a game that seems programmed specifically for co-op and you got the makings of a great game that's only good and worth playing but man, if only somebody looked at the bigger picture and said "hey, wait a minute....what if we were to change...?"

Story: The story takes place on the planet E.D.N. III, a once-frozen planet completely covered in snow now largely changed in the 10 years since the adventures of Wayne and Co. in the first game. Instead of having one character go through the game chapter-hopping, they all involve different groups with different objectives that will come to a head near the end. What this means is that the story feels slightly inconsequential since you control nameless dudes who are trying to do something you're not quite sure yet against people you're not introduced to. However this also means some diversity in locations so you can hop from frozen tundras to thick jungles to deserts and back which makes up for the repetitive-but-pretty all snow environments of the first game.

Graphics: Complain all you want about the games of Capcom but you can't argue against their graphic-making abilities which are pretty stellar. From Resident Evil 5 to Street Fighter IV to this, this company knows how to make some really impressive looking games and this game is no different. From the locales you'll see to the absolutely enormous bosses, the MT Framework engine that powers the game is quite a powerful one indeed. However there is some slowdown when things go boom a bit too big and on the train level which I'll get into later, I literally ran into a glitch where the shells required to load into the gun's cannon were floating in mid-air. But from a look standpoint, Lost Planet 2 certainly has the chops but it's not quite 100% smooth but it looks damn fine trying to get there.

Sound/Music: When things aren't exploding so loudly that it completely drowns it out, the music in the game is appropriately epic, intense and nicely bombastic. Things get exciting really quickly and the music used reflects it and that main menu music which you'll be hearing a lot of, I'm sure, is catchy but not so it becomes grating after the 105th damn time. Sound effects are also nicely made from the screeches and roars of the Akrid to the gunfire of the different weaponry, this is a game for your surround sound system or some great headphones. The same can't be said for the voice acting which feels appropriately Capcom. Not as much emotion and dialogue choices read exactly as you'd expect them to: almost flat. Occasionally they'll do some good work in other games but it just feels really iffy here.

Gameplay: Unlike games like say Halo 3, Borderlands, or Gears of War which can be played single player but the main bulk of fun comes in co-op, Lost Planet 2 in a way feels like it was designed specifically to be played with more than one person. And when you see the near brain-dead AI of your squadmates, it's easy to see why you need extra players. They barely shoot and half the time they stand there while you're running around trying to do the bulk of the work which makes the campaign feel really average but then you have some buddies and everything makes sense. Tactics come into play, players can be relegated to a specific weapon usage or task and strategies can be made more efficiently. Take for example Chapter 3-3 (the chapter nearly every reviewer has complained about, dubbing it the "train level"). In this chapter, you start off on a train traveling parallel to an enemy train so you can have one guy with a sniper rifle shooting guys from afar, one with a rocket launcher blowing up the turrets and enemy air support while a 3rd can carry a shield to soak up some damage and keep your other guys safe. Then there's the boss fight in which a huge sense of roles and tasks have to be laid out to each member: you're on a cannon which needs to be fired at weak points of probably the biggest boss you've ever seen. Those shells need to be loaded into the chamber, energized for quicker reloading and potentially given some help with a console that allows for quicker gun rotation. This is not done automatically and whoever is shooting has to rely on the other 3 to supply the shells, load them, energize them and help the rotation speed of the barrel or you're dead. And what if you take damage? Then you need someone to go below decks and activate the coolant systems which act as damage repairmen and gun cooldown. Not to mention there's gun turrets somebody can climb into to shoot down giant meteors or help shooting at the weak points. Think the AI will do all that on its own? Think again.

But this co-op has some side effects. The game operates on a lobby system where you can find a game for a specific episode within a specific chapter and hope one of them says "standing by" because that means they're in the menus and haven't started yet. If their status is "playing" however, you have to wait till they're done before you can come in as there's no join in progress or drop in/drop out co-op in the game. Also co-op can have slight frustrations involving the Battle Gauge. When you activate data posts or accomplish objectives, you add some points to a battle gauge but points get deducted if someone dies. So nearly every death can be treated as a surefire way to get people to yell at you since you're the one who keeps dying and getting your whole team closer to a mission failure. As far as the competitive multiplayer is concerned, it's fun but some issues from campaign carry over. Getting shot puts you in a stun animation, leaving you unable to fire back, heal or do much of anything except rolling or hopefully throwing a grenade which kills the other player first. Unlike games like Call of Duty or Halo where one-on-ones were won by skill and accuracy and which gun you brought, this game feels more like ambush tactics: surprise attack someone and shoot them first before they can do anything. Also nearly every mode has what you'll be doing a lot of in the campaign which is dealing with data posts. In both campaign and multiplayer, these data posts act like spawn points but unlike other games where standing in the area started the capturing, you have to mash B against the data post which leaves you completely vulnerable to weaponry and grenades. This can of course allow players to wait till you try to activate it then kill you while you're completely defenseless. But the modes and gameplay are rarely seen in multiplayer now which makes it quite unique to other games where it's mainly FPS and somewhat familiar.

Another gripe is how you unlock things. In a lot of multiplayer games, unlocks came through level progression: more you played, better toys you got to tinker with. In Lost Planet 2 on the other hand, some of that is unlocks while others have to be literally won from a slot machine. The more you collect those "?" boxes in campaign, the more points you add to your total which act as your "quarters" for the slot machine where you can win new weaponry, abilities that can alter how your character can behave in combat but mainly you'll be seeing emotes and "noms de guerre", in other words, nicknames. Emotes are done by pressing the Start button and either any D-pad direction or the shoulder buttons and they're strictly poses whereas noms de guerres are kind of like your callsigns but when you're being bested by players that have better weaponry or better abilities than you in multiplayer, it can be frustrating when all you keep unlocking are names.

That being said, the gunfights and Akrid encounters can be incredibly intense, the multiplayer from the first game had a very strong community and that'll no doubt be translated here and the game's achievements and trophies feel designed to do one thing: make you play the game over and over. Level up the different factions to level 99, kill an insane amount of enemies, collect everything from the slot machine and play the chapters a whole bunch. This is one of the longest 1000/Platinums you'll find. The game is certainly not without its faults but avoiding the game altogether isn't really the way to go about it. Unless you're a diehard fan of the first or loved the demos in which case you most likely already played it or about to, give the game a try since everyone will react differently. Some of you will love it so much you won't mind playing the game for the next year or more while some others will think it's just way too flawed and backwards and not worth your trouble. I like it and I'd recommend but keep in mind this is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of game so I'm in the former camp so just have to see which camp you fall into.

I'm a big fan of the first game, it was one of my favorite games then and it still grips me for a long while even today. I liked the fact that it was a new franchise, and wasn't something rehashed from a bunch of already done games. That game was incredible.

But this isn't the same Lost Planet I knew...I was actually very amazed at the changes!

First off, if you hated being tumbled around in the first game, well...it's not any better this time around. But there ARE new twists that help to balance out the gameplay.

*actual "gameovers" aren't as easy now, as data posts now act as "respawn" points, bringing a sort of online shooter feel to the game.

*actual "deaths" are now an issue, as your T ENG does not automatically replenish your life gauge when you're injured. so you'll need to be quite defensive during your playthrough.

*the addition of the battle gauge limits how many times you can "respawn" in the game...and it's shared by all co-op participants. activating data posts adds 500 to your BG pool, while respawning costs 500.

*the addition of shields greatly help to elevate the possibilities during fire fights; more defensive approaches can be plotted and more rewarding co-op gameplay can be had. also the new "battle armor" helps to even the odds in bigger battles, while standing in for your life until depletion.

*a new ability to shoot T ENG to your team mates has been added. basically just hold Y and push LT and you'll switch to your T ENG pool. if an ally is low just aim at them and pull LT, you'll send bursts of T ENG their way. great for avoiding costly respawns.

There are so many other co-op enhancements in the game that I find it odd that GameTrailers would call its multiplayer "out-dated". But whatever, my opinion is that my money was well spent. Just make sure to have friends over...seriously, the game has several points where having a helping hand can turn frustration into fun.

Lost Planet 2 is a fun game that could be a little bit better but it is still worth buying. Pros: great fun, good story, fun bosses, good graphics, gargantuan bosses,and excellent split-screen. Cons: For me the Harmonizer (by the way the most tapped button in the game) is right next to the big XBOX Home Button so you sometimes press that button which makes a giant screen pop up and the game doesn't pause when this happens. This is very annoying (but I'm the only one who has this problem that I know of). Too many soldiers. I like fighting Akrids more than fighting foot soldiers. There are a LOT of soldiers in this game. There's only 2 player split-screen (4 player LAN and 16 player XBOX Live). With split-screen they could make the 2 screens bigger by making it so you can view the map by pressing a button instead of it permanently sticking out and wasting space. Final review: this game is very fun, with a few minor annoyances.

8.5 out of 10
4 stars out of 5

Most of the 3-2 star reviews sums up what this game is about. To play the single player campaign you have to "set up" an online session with AI players or Live friends, first pain in the a$$. Once you start the game it's fun enough to hop in the suits and such but then you start to realize...Hey i did this in the first one. I literally played 4 missions before i became bored with the game and played a cheaper older game like the Force Unleashed.. Lost Planet one was awesome, Lost planet 2 Gives you a jungle, a couple more vital suit options and a very very frustrating and overly thought out main menu to get...anywhere...Online play is much the same, Running around getting destroyed by someone who knows where the VS's are and the good weapons and getting owned by them...rinse and repeat..try it when it becomes a greatest hit and is $20. Sorry Capcom i really hate to dog it because the first one was great but this game really didn't need a sequel.

This game did improve in many aspects such as graphics and smooth gameplay and cool new features, but in the end I find the multiplayer the most fun and to me it just didnt feel as real or as fun as the original. Im having a hard time getting into the maps as well. The co-op campaign is cool, but play it w friends, as ppl on xbox live tend to be worse than the computer teammates. Overall a good game with a lot of potential but it quickly lost my interest.

Graphics are awesome but maybe too demanding. Frame-rates slow down at points on the xbox. Gameplay is mostly good. But some missions are very cryptic in what you are supposed to do. I'm talking about the ohmu like creature in the desert. You have no idea what you are supposed to unless you have a group of others who know what they are doing. The scoring system is sometimes a mystery but basically once you figure out what you are supposed to do you can lead the leaderboard system and get S rating. The ending is particularly frustrating and I had to look online for what to do. Unfortunately everyone on your team must know what to do and if they don't have voice on it's hard to communicate.

Co-Op is what drives the fun in this game if you havnt seen that pattern in all the other reviews. Its not just online Co-Op, but Co-Op with those you know, because playing randomly with other people is exactly what it always is with every other game with Co-op, your pulling from a hat, and its a big hat full of terrible, and great players.

Split-screen Co-op, isnt as great as it sounds. The elements for it are terrible, and only the Primary player makes progress and can save their character. the second person CAN NOT Load their character, or save progress, or get new weapons, or do anything at all, they are just default and along for the ride to shoot and blow stuff up, making it ALMOST a complete waste of time. The fact that you can do Split-Screen is cool, and if you dont mind not saving your progress, and dont mind the awkward setup that uses a fraction of each players screen for some idiotic minimap display(which would have been better if they just made the screen Bigger and made the minimap semi-transparent), then it can be fun.

I only bash Splitscreen co-op out of my sheer disappointment over it.

Playing this game solo, can be frustrating, and boring, and Verses Multiplayer can be pretty frustrating with Spawn Campers, but thats a flaw in Game Design and not really the fault of players. Without co-op story this game would have been a huge failure. but with it being a Used price of 10$, its actually a pretty fun game for cheap that you can have hours of fun with your friends.

For some reason this game has gotten a lot of bad press. I don't know what I am missing but I loved this game. Here are a few reasons:
-First of all, there is actual strategy involved when you play in either single player or co-op, unlike many other shooters out there. There are a ton of different weapons and mech suits to use, each with its advantages and disadvantages, that you need to switch between in order to successfully complete each mission.
-Second the game has a large variety of environments, from outer space, to frozen tundra, to thick jungle. The level design within each of these environments is great. The grappling hook ability (á la Bionic Commando) gives the game a more open and free roaming feel than many tunnel vision shooters since you don't always need to follow a single path to get through a level.
-Third, awesome boss battles, which for me is a crucial part to any good game.
-Fourth, and most important to me, the game is one of the best when it comes to couch co-op. There is a great amount of strategizing to be done between players, which is so much more fun when your talking to a real person sitting next to you. This is especially evident when contrasted to the Gears of War games which can best be summed up as "crouch behind something and then hold x to shoot until everything is dead" without any need to talk to or strategize with your partner. Lost Planet 2 far outshines that franchise and just about any other shooter I have played.
Now for the Cons:
-No intelligble story. I didn't play the first game so I might be missing something there.
-Sometimes it's hard to know what to do to get through a level. I only list this because other people have complained about it. For me this is what makes a game challenging and thus rewarding, rather than just following detailed instructions. Plus if you ever really get stuck there are guides readily available on line.
-The controls take a little getting used to, but become pretty intuitive after a few missions

If your looking for a good third person shooter and you like to play video games with an actual friend by your side rather than online, this is an awesome game. I hope they decide to make a Lost Planet 3

I never played the first Lost Planet, so I based all judgement in deciding whether to get Lost Planet 2 or not on the epic trailers I'd seen over the Internet. Boy, am I glad I did! First off, there are many design flaws that plague the game, most notably the save point issue - but, let's be honest, people playing this kind of game aren't going to be casual gamers; they're going to spend a few hours on it every night, so the fact that its save points are after 30-60 minutes of straight gameplay should not be any surprise or bother for most. In my experience, that was the main issue, frustrating, of course, but after I found out how my Xbox 360 had been saving my progress I blew through this game in about a week (I'd estimate the game plays through in about 14 hours on single player mode, which I did). Speaking of single player mode, reviews claimed it was nearly impossible, but I don't really understand where they're coming from. Yes, your AI in single player mode are largely idiots and only sometimes helpful, depending on the time and place in the game, and follow you around so much you do most of the killing in boss battles (the gigantic Akrid), but I found playing it along challenging and rewarding. The voice acting is topnotch and the orchestral music is amazing. As you probably know, you're no longer on only ice fields, which is a big plus for me as I hate the snow; I love the variety, especially being able to fight underwater and in space. The graphics are off the charts amazing - brilliant and beautiful, not as polished as, say, God of War 3's, but still very, very good with a unique quality to the MT Framework 2 engine that created them. This game also packs one of the most epic cutscenes ever, which happens right at the conclusion to Episode 5 where a train is heading with a gigantic gun to blast through a seeming impossible layer around the Over G Akrid you kill in the end - it is truly awesome and awe-inspiring. Being able to play many characters is also good, and basically you play numerous factions that all come together in the last episode and unite against NEVEC. In the end, Lost Planet 2 is a game you should experience for yourself, not based judgements on by others; who knows, you may love it as much as I do (in my opinion it's the second best game of the year).

Imagine that you've just placed the Lost Planet 2 disc into your Xbox. Even though you've played the game several times before, you are greeted with a screen requiring you to choose a storage device. You select your hard drive, being that it's your only option. Are you sure? it asks. Yes, I'm sure.
Now wasn't that fun? I hope so, because you'll be doing it every time.
Anyway, next you are presented with an unnecessarily busy main menu. Once you figure out where the game is hidden amongst all this muck, you set up a lobby to start playing.
Hello boring cut scene where a bunch of generic characters stand around and babble some of the most painfully inane dialogue for what seems like hours in an attempt to fool you into thinking the game has a story.
Finally, you're playing the game.
No matter what level you're on, the progression is always the same: Run around killing hundreds of human enemies who each take entirely too much damage to put down. If a more powerful vehicular enemy shows up, you'll need a more powerful weapon. Occasionally you get blasted by a rocket from nowhere, sending you careening across the landscape for a few minutes. Once you recover, you get to mash your thumb down on the start button for a few more minutes to refill your life bar.
And all this time what are you after? Data Posts. That's right. They try their best to convince you that you're up to bigger and better things, but you're not. You're blindly searching for little posts in the ground so you can sit beside them and tap the red button for a minute or two to raise them up.
Time for a boss battle.
A giant alien monster called an "Akrid" rises from the ground. It may look kinda like a spider, it may look kinda like a worm or snake. Regardless, they all look like they're made out of rock and magma. Boy am I sick of looking at rock and magma.
That's when one of your AI teammates dies, using the last of your respawn reserves and ending the game.
So (Oh joy!) you start over at the beginning of the level.
This time, you turn off the AI teammates which makes replaying that level you already beat even more of a pain because every bullet and missile is aimed squarely at you and you alone. But you soldier through and make your way back to the lava spider.
There are two possible strategies for the boss battles:
1) If it has legs, shoot the legs.
1) If it has no legs, shoot the glowing dots on its sides.
Either way, you'll be shooting it a lot. Eventually, it will die.
And there you have it.
Revel in your victory. Prepare yourself to watch essentially the same cutscene and play essentially the same level. Repeat process as necessary.

Now let's talk about the "RPG elements"
You have five character models to choose from. Playing with each character will unlock alternate outfits for that character. Big deal. You can't use them in the campaign mode until you've beaten it once anyway.
Aside from that, everything else is handled based upon how many boxes you picked up during the game. The boxes are dropped by defeated enemies in-game. You'll be tempted to ignore the big, obnoxious things, but don't, because they're the only way to get any customization points. How do you use these points?
With a slot machine of course.
That's right. Every 2000 points you gather out of boxes gets you a spin of the slot machine.
You can unlock one of four things:
Weapons, Abilities, Emotes, and Noms de Guerre
The latter two are pointless fluff. Emotes are stupid poses or dances. Noms de Guerre are callsigns that appear over your character's head in-game.
Weapons and Abilities are what you want. Well, not abilities so much, they're insignificant.
But you'll hardly ever unlock a gun. And when you do, the possibilities are dull and limited.
My cousin played through this entire game and unlocked one firearm. He was less than thrilled.

And that's the bottom line.
This game is entirely too much work and virtually no reward. It feels like there's a good game buried deep down there somewhere, but if there is, it has been effectively ruined by tedious nonsense.