Title: Lost Planet 2
Platform: 360 (PS3)
ESRB: T
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Rating: 
Review by: Bill Jones
Apparently Capcom and producer Jun Takeuchi have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from the mistakes of Resident Evil 5, because Lost Planet 2 follows almost directly in its footsteps. Its cutscenes are directed with the same graphical style and cheesy dialogue as RE5, the series has gotten bigger and gone co-op, and, most unfortunately, is riddled with horrible interface and design issues. The third-person shooting action still involves traversing the sometimes snow-washed, sometimes lush planet of E.D.N. III, activating nodes by pumping the same button, and constantly shooting at glowing orange weak spots on enemies. This time up to four friends can suffer the campaign together online, or two on the same console with a horrible split-screen option. AI teammates are also an option, but despite being in cutscenes, they more often than not opt out of appearing in the actual missions. The real killer of the fun, though? Episodes are divided into chapters, which are divided into areas. Each area ends with a “Mission Completed” screen and stats, but if players die in the final area against a boss, they are set back to the first area in the chapter, negating as much as an hour’s worth of work. It only makes sense because a “Battle Gauge” carries over between levels, but then why does it do the same thing if players decide to call it a day mid-chapter? (more…)
