The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Kale suggested we start playing more games together. I thought this a good idea. Why not? We both had Gamefly, so we co-ordinated rentals, and both got the PS3 version of Lost Planet 2. I’ve already chronicled my reactions to actually playing a PS3 game online for the first time, so I won’t go over it again, but, you know, that was a big part of my experience, anyway.

Lost Planet was really clunky, but was one of the only decent games available at the time it came out. Thus, I know people like my brother forgave a bit as they played. It also had grappling hooks and big robots, so that was also a plus. People liked it, and it sold well, so of course they’d make a sequel.

However, the decisions they made with it were kind of baffling. They didn’t do anything to the clunky controls, keeping them on-par with the original. They took out the crazy anime story and replaced it with a story involving multiple groups of generic people with no names, which basically just makes it not have much of a story at all. This was done so they could make the entire game four-player co-op, which is nice, of course, and the reason I was playing it, but they also made some sections so co-op focused and your AI partners so stupid that they’re really crazy do to by yourself. Finally, you top this all off with use, elaborate Monster Hunter-style boss battles, which would be nice except they can also be extremely tedious. That’s Lost Planet 2.

I really hated this game on normal. Everything was much too hardcore and took way too many shots. Since the game is so slow and plodding, it meant you could get fucked over way ahead of time, and not be able to do anything about it. I got to the end of one of those big boss battles once, and Kale and I died and failed the mission. The idea of redoing this half an hour boss battle was not appealing at all.

I asked if we could switch the game to Easy. We did. Then we had fun.

The game was still pretty hardcore, but the pressure was then off. Bosses went down easier: it almost seemed like all “Easy” did was reduce the amount of life enemies had, which, frankly, they had too much to begin with. This change let me enjoy how creative some of these big boss battles were. One of the most memorable ones was a battle where you’re on a train with a gigantic gun, and you’re less attempting to fight a giant worm, but are instead loading and firing the gigantic cannon to take the worm out. The AI did nothing in this battle: it would have been a nightmare alone. Kale and I, though, had no real issues overall. As soon as we figured out how it worked, I loaded and charged the rounds and he aimed and fired. It worked well. It was cool.

The game really expects you to play Multiplayer, which I really didn’t have much interest in. To that end, you’re constantly unlocking multiplayer things, and titles called “Noms de Guerre,” which are very silly. For most of the time, Kale’s Nom was, for example, “Hardcore to the Max,” whereas I jumped from things like “Snow Shogun,” to “Gourmand,” to “Quality Time With The Family.” They’re really very ridiculous, and kind of nice. All these unlockables seem like they’d be fun if you cared about the multiplayer. Again, I had no interest, so I can’t tell you about it.

Anyway, I had a really good time playing Lost Planet 2, but it was mostly because of the company. It’s a passable game, but not a great one. It has a lot of problems and really strange design decisions. I certainly wouldn’t have played all the way through it if Kale wasn’t involved. Still, if you were a fan of the original, I suppose you are getting the same game, only with Co-op, which is a huge benefit. That’s something, anyway.