Lost Planet 2 Preview

We've seen few games that offer this level of spectacle

After a short period of messing around, our battle group got down to brass tacks. In true Resi 5 style, the monster’s vulnerable parts were helpfully coloured a bright fiery orange, clearly standing out against the rest of his dark frame. Despite the colossal size of our opponent, I was surprised to find that it was quite tricky to keep any given target area within my sights for long. My colleagues soon opted for the tactic of grappling to high vantage points around the valley and taking pot shots from there, while I pursued the riskier tactic of running around by the creature's feet.

Needless to say, this strategy soon resulted in me being stepped on and crushed to death. You've got to be doubly careful when playing this game in co-op, as everyone uses the same pool of lives. You can supplement your stockpile by activating Data Posts dotted around the map (and in fact it’s useful to do this, since they also act as alternative spawn points) but the bottom line is that you’ll fail the mission if everyone is careless.

Thankfully things went a bit better following my swift reincarnation. I jumped back into a Vital Suit and headed back into battle with our enormous foe - and this time one of my buddies hitched a lift by clinging on to the side of my mech (a subtle but very cool ability). This time I was a little more careful in my efforts to evade the boss’ lumbering limbs, and I succeeded in nailing one of his knees with a barrage of machine-gun fire. The leg was torn clean off, and a few seconds later one of the other players managed to take out one the large spikes on the creatures’ back. The lizard moaned and collapsed to the ground with a loud crash. A message popped up on screen: “Infiltrate the creature!”

This was our chance. The window of opportunity for climbing inside the monster’s gob was a relatively small one, but somehow three of us managed to get in there. It was surprisingly spacious in there too, but there wasn’t much time to admire the view: as soon as we started to blast the creature's internal organs, we were attacked by swarms of spindly parasites. While these bugs weren’t particularly dangerous individually, there were so many of them that I soon became overwhelmed and separated from my team-mates. Then I took a wrong turn (or perhaps a wrong sphincter) and wound up slipping around in a fast-moving gutter of stomach juice. Moments later, a brief cutscene showed me emerging from the lizard’s “brown portal”.

We never did manage to take down the brute. We came very close to depleting his gargantuan life bar, but then someone got squished and took the last of our lives. I can’t say I minded that much, because the whole scrap had easily been the most fun boss battle I’d had all year. Yes, the graphical detail in Lost Planet 2 is amazing - but it was the way the lizard moved and felt that made it so memorable. When you get close to the model, you genuinely feel like you’re standing next to a gigantic, living creature. It looks heavy, and when it dives into the nearby lake for cover, it makes a massive great splash. It’s detail like this that sells the whole sense of immersion, and I applaud Capcom for getting them so right. My expectations for this game are now bigger than ever, especially since I’ve heard that the lizard boss is one of the smallest in the game. If that’s true, I can’t wait to see his siblings.

Lost Planet 2 will be coming to the Xbox 360 and PS3 this winter.