Furthermore, each player is equipped with a hover pack, so that you can gradually glide your way across should you mess up an ambitious leap of faith. With everyone floating around trying to bomb each other and the initial confusion in getting used to the atmosphere, what starts as a menacing deathmatch turns into a hilarious space ballet. It's even funnier with the Vital Suits.
Another stage – which competes with NEOS as my favourite so far – puts teams on opposite sides of a huge stadium arena filled with grey blocks that form a multi-tiered battleground. Power-ups are slap-bang in the middle, and the challenge is to beat down any competition for the best stuff and get the best chance of survival. All while a crowd cheers on in the stalls. Lost Stadium is another example of putting some light-hearted action against a serious backdrop. And I dig that.
While I'm on the subject of digging, I played through the first couple of missions on the series' newest feature – the four-player co-op mode. My team's campaign was to infiltrate the mining site of a band of Jungle Pirates (this was shortly after evading some Snow Pirates) and destroy their operations on E.D.N. III without falling foul of the Akrid that roam the planet. I wonder if there are any Space Pirates, Heat Pirates or Tree Pirates hanging around later in the game...
The co-op plays as the co-op should – tightly executed with interesting recon missions, exciting enemies and strange wildlife. As more of the planet is accessible due to the ice thawing, you get to see some more colourful and adventurous locations this time around.
What I found pretty cool was that the Prologue stage contained two completely different missions, with one half of the co-op team taking out Akrid by a crashed copter and the other half battling enemies in the air to rendezvous.
Missions were short and sweet, lasting about five to ten minutes each, but the benefit of the co-op was largely strength in numbers. Which is fine, but I hope there will be some missions where each player will need to do something different in order to work together. But right now, playing
Lost Planet 2 on co-op and multiplayer (after a while) is really quite fun.
In fact, the only thing I'd say is that the controls may be rather confusing for those who are used to similar shooting games. Using the default settings, clicking the right analogue stick reloaded my weapon, up on the D-pad zoomed in and out and the bumpers rapidly switched your position by 90 degrees.
The X button lets you use your 'Anchor' grapple hook, but you can't use it whilst jumping or in the air, which is a total bummer. No awesome Spider-Man-ing for you.
The control setup isn't quite so noticeable on co-op, but in a multiplayer scenario – where ease of use and reaction times are king – the differences from the norm might throw some people off in the heat of competition.
I'm sure it's changeable though, so there's probably nothing to worry about in that regard. Just know that
Lost Planet 2 may be inspired by others, but it looks like it's a whole new world of its own.
Lost Planet 2 is heading for release on 18th May for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
