Lost Planet 2 is set ten years after its predecessor and the world of EDN III has thawed out a bit, providing us with beautiful and varied locations. Thermal energy is still needed to run machinery on the planet and killing the bug-like Akrid is the best way to get it. The campaign will take you through six episode as you follow the exploits of various factions locked in civil war on (and above) EDN III. Unfortunately the plot doesn’t really engage and it’s hard to get too involved in the fates of characters whose personalities seem entirely represented by their accents, clothing and helmets.

There is a lot of eye candy here and somehow it just feels right. Lush forests with deep undergrowth, gritty urban environments, underwater caverns, trains, massive desert vehicles and even a space station provide backdrops for your adventures. A decent score accompanies the game and did a good job adding to the overall feel of things.

All the basic weapons are present, including machine guns, shotguns, rifles, and rocket launchers. There is also a deployable metal shield that can be used to soak up lots of damage. Different types of grenades are available for causing explosive havoc. Vital Suits add an extra dimension of destruction to the mix. Some are robotic exoskeletons. Others are vehicles like speeders or helicopter gunships. They use large weaponry, which are detachable, re-attachable and usable on their own. Various turrets are also available on some levels. Ahhh, death in a rainbow of flavours!

You are also equipped with a grapple that is vital for getting around quickly and reaching some areas. I found some of the controls and game play mechanics to be awkward or annoying. The grapple is great, but you can’t use it while jumping or falling. A dash move is activated by holding down B, but you steer like a tank. If you’re hit or take a long fall, your character staggers and you can’t do anything for precious seconds. Many attacks send you flopping around for what seems like an eternity before you can get up, and inflict massive damage giving you very little room for error. If you die, you respawn at the start of that area, at the cost of some Battle Gauge points, which are shared by human players. When the gauge hits zero, it’s back to the start of the chapter, which can be quite frustrating. Saves only occur at the end of each chapter so get ready for some déjà-vu.

During the campaign and the online competitive modes you will spend a lot of time activating posts. These posts boost your radar, serve as respawn points and offer a bonus to your Battle Gauge. The posts are activated by rapidly tapping the B button, which leaves you vulnerable to attack. In multiplayer you have to mash B to reset an enemy post to neutral, and then mash it again to claim it for your team. If you happen to be shot during this you are interrupted and cannot act for another few seconds. I found it to be an annoying mechanic.

The campaign missions seem to be designed primarily with co-op play in mind. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the way Capcom have done it makes the mission less accessible to solo players. You can play offline with AI companions, but I found them to be very inconsistent. Often they would be of little or no help and sometimes I didn’t even know where they were. Sometimes they would activate posts for me and other times they would just stand around near them as if they were having a gossip around a water cooler. Some missions are more difficult to solo than others, particularly if there are multiple tasks to be performed. On the infamous “train” level, you need to operate a massive gun turret, load ammo into the turret (Your AI slackers sometime help with this one), activate separate controls on either side of this gun to swing it right or left and occasionally activate coolant switches in the bowels of the carriage to ensure the train doesn’t blow up under the Akrid’s attacks. That’s a lot of multi-tasking! Coax some friends to help via co-op (four-player online or two-player splitscreen) and the whole process becomes a lot more manageable.

The end of level monsters vary in size from huge to massive, but generally weren’t that interesting. I found I spent a lot of time running round so I could aim at their weak spots or, in some cases, find them in the large environments. Luckily the end areas tend to be littered with weapons because I found I would run out of ammo several times during the fight. Eventually, after pumping interminable bullets, rockets, shells and other ammo into their yellow glowing spots, they go down.

Enemies drop boxes of credits which can be used to play a slot machine to obtain the game’s upgrades. You can win new abilities, weapons, nom de guerres (nickname that floats over your head in multiplayer) or emotes (little dances, etc). The latter two are useless and the credits from my entire campaign run resulted in two new abilities, no new weapons and boat loads of stupid names and emotes. Thanks for nothing.

Online competitive play was quite fun and Lost Planet provides some solid modes and a huge level of customisation. Elimination and Team Elimination seemed to be favourites and it wasn’t hard to find games. It’s also quite easy to join a public co-op campaign and help someone out their mission, however since you cannot join a session in progress you’ll have to keep searching for a match you can join immediately, or wait in the lobby. Although there are a lot of menus and settings it’s not too hard to find a particular type of game or create your and wait for people to join.

Lost Planet will have its fans, but it feels like a lost opportunity. If you can accept its flaws you may have a good time, but I feel many users won’t be that forgiving.