1. I bullied you into doing it.
2. You love to read my ridiculous sweeping generalisations and witness my frequent, over-opinionated U-turns.
Well friends, may I present you with a thorough lashing of the former.
I've taken just about every opportunity available to get across my point that I think the Japanese have totally fucked this generation up, in software terms at least. By that I mean that western developers seem to be consistently trumping them, no matter which console they develop for. One game- other than Street Fighter 4- may be the one that has me seeing the error of my ways; that game, is Lost Planet 2.
I was mildly interested in Lost Planet 2 when I heard of it's announcement, being a fan of the first and generally being a fan of any game that has robot suits. Looking at Lost Planet 2, it's unique art design, stunning dystopian environments and over sized bosses, I start to think that this is why people love developers like Capcom. In short, this is what Japanese developers SHOULD be doing.
The other feeling that I get from watching this footage, is that I remember being promised a game with such scale and intensity last year. That game was Gears of War 2. As fantastic a game as it is, Gears 2 only shows you it's sense of scale, never really immerses you in it. When you take down that huge boss, you're frozen behind a helicopter's turret, when there's a war going on, you're stuck on top of a moving platform called Betty.
My favourite part of Gears 2 was chainsawing that worm's arteries. All decorum aside: that shit was fucking rad! But I'm looking at the Lost Planet 2 boss footage, replete with it's semi-ironic glowing weak spots and thinking "you know what would be cooler? If I could hook that motherfucker in the eye, get on his back, like some proper Starship Troopers shit! WOOO!" ....ahem, sorry.
The other thing that bothered me about Gears 2 was it's 'story'. Those guys have emotions? I thought they were the ultimate badass space marine types. I guess they wanted 'depth'. Point is, most storytelling and game characters are rubbish and it often sullies a good time. Lost Planet 2 will probably have some story, but you're not a character, just an empty avatar.
I've got a whole series of things planned concerning the importance of character coming this week, so stay tuned if you want to chip in or just listen to me going on some more. More to the point though, it'll make it all the more clearer as to just why I think having an editable, non-specific avatar in Lost Planet 2's single player campaign is another one of it's major strengths.
To summarise: Lost Planet 2 = RAD and I've done another U-Turn.
The Faux Bot
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