Lost Planet 2 might be the game that I have the most mixed feeling about this year. It has a lot of little things that really bug me.  Like that as you earn points in the game to unlock new weapons and abilities you can’t actually pick which ones you want to unlock. Instead you “spend” your points on a slot machine that randomly gives you whatever it wants.  There are literally dozens of weapons in the game that I’ve not even tried yet because I have not unlocked them.  It is not that I could not finish the game without them, because I did, but just that I don’t have the option.  Even if you had to use the points to progress up a weapon tree would be better if it gave me some control over which weapon types I unlocked. Additionally the series of loading and confirmation screens to get a game started is ridiculous. I don’t need confirm my save game location twice and then confirm I want to load the co-op invite I just accepted and then finally confirm that I am joining the room.  Just automatically do all that stuff.  The other thing I find lame is that with the full campaign being 4 player co-op you still can’t drop in/out whenever you want.  You can only do it between missions.

Once you get through the menu and actually get your game going things take a drastic change for the better.  The campaign is an absolute blast to play co-op.  Going it solo is doable but much more difficult as your teammate AI guys tend to just follow you around and shoot at whatever you are.  When you have 4 players working the mission objectives together you can split up and take them on from multiple sides.  On some missions you don’t even get a choice in this because the story line splits putting each pair of teammates in different areas from the start.  The missions tend to follow a predictable arc of kill a few minor enemies and then face a massive boss. I thoroughly enjoyed this pacing because I always knew that there was something bigger and badder to fight coming up soon.

I also enjoyed how the campaign is broken into 6 episodes like a tv mini-series.  Each episode focuses on the story from a different group’s perspective with the final episode tying all of the stories together.  Some of the story sections were a lot more humorous than others with some funny character interactions while others were somber and tragic.  The story itself takes place 12 years after the events in Lost Planet.  The core elements of fighting Akri, using VS suits and trying to get T-Gen remain but the world itself has changed a lot.  There are still some sections of ice and snow but there are also jungle, desert and even space based missions.  The variety of mission locations was a nice change from the original.

Don’t expect to get a lot of achievements as they are few and far between.  It is a completion’s nightmare as it will take about 14 times playing through the game to unlock a few of the achievements.  But, if you’re looking for a fun game to play with some Lost Planet 2 well worth trying. The boss fights are challenging but fun, and the story’s plot is a nice change from most shooters that spend the whole game with one main character.