Still Playing… Lost Planet 2
Writing about games means that you get to play a lot of games. A lot of games. That sounds great, but in fact, it doesn’t leave you a lot of time to really dive into the ones you enjoy. You’d expect that the games you’d play when you have the chance, of your own volition, would naturally be the games you rated the highest. But that’s often not the case. Sometimes it’s those games that maybe have their issues, but are still enjoyable. Games that you find yourself drawn to. Games like… Lost Planet 2.
I bought the original Lost Planet as soon as it came out, and spent hours on it. It had its faults, but there was something compelling about trying to find all the hidden emblems and weapons and VS’s scattered throughout the levels. I appreciated its old-skool style coupled with its flashy visuals powered by the then-infantile MT Framework. But then, there weren’t that many games for the Xbox 360– as the only 7th-gen console – at that time.
Lost Planet 2, meanwhile, emerged into an already crowded genre of third-person shooters, with an uneven weighting on co-op play hampered by terrible AI when played solo. The story was nonsensical, the difficulty punishing, and the setup simply not conducive to solo play whatsoever. It was enjoyable, in the right circumstances, and the multiplayer modes were superb, and I was feeling kind enough to give it a 7/10, more than many reviewers. Normally, that would make it the kind of game that I’d play maybe a few times, then leave alone.
And yet, I’m still playing it. Not religiously, certainly, and certainly not as much as I once did. But I find that I’m still drawn to it, that I still want to re-play certain sections. Is it because the set-pieces are that good? Well, in some occasions, maybe, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a compelling reason for me to keep going back, and I think I know what it is.
Ranks. And Unlockables.
Normally, I’m not the kind of person who feels the need to get perfect ranks in every level and collect every single item in the entire game. Yet with Lost Planet 2, I am. Perhaps it’s the simple system that ranks you, Resident Evil 5 style, for each chapter depending on your performance in the level. Perhaps it’s the fact that there are hundreds of different costume parts, weapons, taunts and taglines to unlock for my custom character, who I can now play through the game as. Perhaps it’s the fact that when I play it online, I see gamers darting around the maps with a level of grace and skill I can still only dream of, and it makes me want to be better.
Perhaps it’s the fact that I just like it.
