In an outerspace level, a tiny shuttle in the orbit of a planet grows to the size of a massive spacestation as you jetpack your way over to it, a beautiful illusion of scale that reminded me of Katamari Damancy's world-altering perspective shifts.īut as for the main draw, the insect battles are spectacular, and not just visually. A little later on, a pretty straightforward factory level turns into a labyrinth of interconnected conveyor belts that feels more like something out of an 8-bit Megaman game than something from a modern shooter, with Mechs blasting each other and getting dropped to their deaths off of treadmills. Early on you find a fortified enemy position which is suicide to charge, but which has a sewer system underneath and behind it that allows you to completely outmaneuver your enemies if you take the time to explore (the game doesn't tell you to sneak around at all, it just kills you efficiently, and you have to figure out the rest on your own). While this makes the campaign uneven at times, even the levels with mostly human opponents have some really nice surprises. It feels almost like a laggy online deathmatch, even in singleplayer - no one dies quite as quickly as you expect and, when they do, they're often faking, and ready to pop back up in a second or two. The shooting of giant bugs in their pulsating weak spots is gratifying work, but fighting human enemies feels a bit off - everyone has a few more hit points than you expect, and people who get knocked over have invulnerability while they're on the ground. There are plenty of memorable boss battles in the game, but there are also plenty of military complexes and large scale firefights with enemy humans, and though these missions are a nice change, they never feel quite as polished as the alien battles. The game throws total changes of pace and new controls at you as rapidly as its plus-sized insects.Īctually, here's another criticism: There should have been more insects. The level design is as varied as anything I've played this generation, and often great. What you don't get used to is the continual surprise the mad inventiveness which continues almost throughout the entire 15 hour main campaign and makes every other shooter of the past year look so by-the-book that Lost Planet 2 starts to feel otherworldly. Once you learn the finer points of the opening menus, get past the first volley of nonsensical cutscenes with which the game attempts to scare off prospective players, and figure out that this is a game where you're punished for dying too many times - or letting your co-op teammates die - by having to replay entire 30 minute chapters, you've acclimated yourself to most of the indignities that the game inflicts on you. So it's a shame that the game is a clunky experience from the get-go. Alas, real life doesn't offer enough such opportunities. Where else am I going to perform rocket launcher surgery on the inner organs of giant insectoid aliens who can squish me under their toes like an ant, before they flush me out their, err, digestive system into the seat of a battle Mech alongside three of my fellow space-pirates? A Mech, that is, which can combine with other Mechs to transform into Voltron. By VGChartz Staff, posted on / 4,987 Views
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |