Capcom released the co-op demo for Lost Planet 2 on Xbox Live yesterday. It’s the same demo that was shown off at E3 so I’ll embed a YouTube presentation of that.
The game is set on the same planet, E. D. N. III but 10 years after the first game. The planet has been terraformed and is now full of lush warmer environments rather than its original cold, snowy self. This means a change in the T-Energy mechanics since there is no longer a constant drain on your T-Energy reserve. Capcom added many small things the community asked for while mostly keeping the same control scheme, which works well enough.
The biggest addition is 4 player (or AI companions) cooperative play through the campaign! This alone puts it on my “must buy” list, especially after playing the demo yesterday. The normal 16 player multiplayer mode will be back for some third-person fragging, but I am more interested in the co-op personally.
The demo is limited to a single encounter, which is a Category G Akrid boss called a Salamander. This thing is huge! According to the E3 video, this is one of the earlier bosses and also one of the smallest ones! Holy crap! The salamander looks great and is fantastically animated. It can crawl over pretty much any part of the terrain near its lair, and does so quite realistically. During certain points it may swallow you, then you can run inside it and do more damage but eventually you’ll reach a point where the current of digestive fluids is too strong and takes you to it’s… uh… “end” where it… uh… “deposits” you back into the world, if you know what I mean. It’s quite humorous to see it in action. It’s weak points are the spike on its back and its legs but after taking enough damage, it will lie down in a near invulnerable state and regenerate any lost limbs.
The salamander also seems to have an “aggro” or perhaps more accurately, a “hate list” where it will chase and focus on whichever player has done the most damage at the time until someone else tops him on the list, which makes for some interesting action. Sometime it gets really pissed and chases after you very quickly, most of the time it slowly lumbers after you. It might directly stomp on you, or smack you with one of its rather long tentacle-like tongues, or smash you with its tail if you’re behind it.
The vital suit (VS) mechs are back and have been upgraded to support co-op as well. Some VS are still “solo” but friends can hang onto the legs and ride along shooting their own guns, while other VS are built with extra turret pods that friends can mount to fire the more powerful VS weaponry.
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I loved this demo and the way they basically give you a large enclosed space and 1 boss to fight. I’m really looking forward to playing some 4 player co-op in it now. Does it even have a release date yet?