Genre: Third-Person Action

Platform: Xbox 360

Publisher: Capcom

Classification: 16 (PEGI)

At first the pace can seem a little slow and the control mechanics slightly awkward, but like the crazy unrecognisable and somewhat alien vines, shrubbery and foliage that inhabit some of the many beautiful locations experienced in Lost Planet 2, it’s a definite grower.

Taking place ten years after the original, the snow has started to thaw, meaning that the locations now have much more variation than before, each locale brimming with detailed beauty. Graphically things are a giant mechanised leap from Lost Planet, with many more fine touches and what seems like a film grain filter on top.

Campaign mode is the meat of this gastronomic feast, being playable in solo, with up to three AI controlled teammates or with three real people over system link or Xbox LIVE. There’s also the feature to go shoulder-to-shoulder with a friend via split-screen.

And that’s what the game is all about, rolling in a team and working together to thwart the enemy, whether it be the gross creatures known as Akrid or other teams of pirates. But because of the lobby style wait between levels, even the single player storyline progression can feel fractured and even broken.

Competitive multiplayer is also an option, offering plenty of variation through a plethora of maps and modes.

It's the size of the Akrids that makes Lost Planet 2 stand out so radically from any other game. Who doesn’t like the prospect of working in a team to pepper foul creatures with bullets, grappling up onto their grotesquely ugly limbs in order to get a better vantagepoint of their fleshy orange weak points? It sounds grim, it sounds harsh and it sounds dangerous, but that’s life on these war-ravaged lands.

Unfortunately the controls are clunky to the extent that the characters feels robotic, even when not in one of the mechanical Vital Suits. It's a problem that should have been addressed as it lets the otherwise nice package down dramatically.

SCORE: 6 / 10