Lost Planet 2 Multiplayer

04 Jun 2009 at 21:00:57 by Tim McDonald

Following our discussion with Frank Filice about what's new in the sequel to Lost Planet, I had to check it out myself, and check it out I did.

The mission on offer was a multiplayer co-op level, pitting the players against the Salamander boss that Filice talked about. As promised, the boss is really, really huge. It's a giant black lizard-thing that storms around the map, lashing out with its tongue, swiping its tail, stomping its feet, and everything else you'd expect from a forty-metre high alien monstrosity. Dropped in with pretty much no explanation (save “Shoot the glowing orange bits”) our team went to battle.

It didn't go particularly well. Each player has their own individual life bar, with death reducing a sort of team health bar. When that empties – when enough players have died – it's mission failed. Death isn't the end, though, with players having the ability to respawn at various points around the map that must be activated. Activating these appears to regenerate the team health bar (“Battle Gauge”) slightly, but it's still a battle of attrition.

The boss itself had various phases. Initially, shooting at the giant glowing orange bits on its back seemed to work, and then a message to shoot its legs appeared. During all of this, everyone was using different weapons that spawned around the map – I favoured the rocket launcher, with the machine gun when I ran out of ammo. Someone else hopped into the Vital Suit (the mech) lying around. Another person had the pleasure of attracting its attention and trying to keep the bastard thing away from everybody else. This was followed by a goal to actually go inside the beast via the mouth and destroy it from the inside, which, sadly, is not something we did particularly well.

There was a feeling of friendly competition going on, too, as achieving goals resulted in your name popping up on screen along with what you did, whether it was activating one of the respawn points, or taking out one of the legs. It's good looking, it ran at a decent clip, and it focuses a lot on teamwork, and it was a fun boss. If they keep this up, Lost Planet 2's co-op may well be something special.

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