Lost Planet 2

That's assuming you can work out what the game wants from you in the first place. With only an obtuse diagram in the top right of the screen offered by way of explanation, you're left stumbling around in an annoying trial-and-error loop until you figure out the correct operational sequence.

These moments of incendiary frustration are hardly one-offs, either. Later in the game your team is instructed to protect a hatch door from being opened, but unless you personally oversee that precise part of the map yourself you will fail every single time. And rather than the AI members of your squad covering your back while you're shooting choppers out of the sky, they let enemies through unchallenged and you're forced to repeat the whole sequence again.

You might imagine that all of these little issues would be solved when playing alongside friends, but there are irritations unique to human co-op play as well. The main issue without doubt is the Battle Gauge system. In single-player, team member deaths never deplete your stock of points, but when played alongside fellow humans they do, and the implications of this logic are ruinous.

On the infamous train level at the end of episode three, getting knocked off the train to your death is notoriously easy, meaning that you'll likely be ill-equipped to handle the lengthy boss encounter, and have to play the entire chapter from scratch five or six times before you're in a strong enough position to take the monster down. Even willing volunteers were left trailing in our wake after that.

Although this is hardly unique to Lost Planet 2 among Capcom games, you also spend a great deal of time at a complete loss as to what's going on. The narrative across six distinct episodes flits from one group of bizarre individuals to another, without any coherent explanation as to whom you're controlling or what their motivations are.

Delivered with a peculiar detachment, this lack of explanation may be a conscious attempt to give the game an enigmatic air, but the result is that it simply feels like a series of unconnected events where the common theme is shooting gigantic insectoid behemoths with obvious glowing orange weak spots. Maybe that was the point.

All the time you're busy mouthing obscenities at Lost Planet 2's deficiencies, the more benevolent critic within you wants to put an arm around Capcom and offer credit for all the things the game does extremely well. The combat feels solid and satisfying, with well-honed control mechanics that gel within seconds, so in terms of the basics you'll have no complaints at all.

Another thing that's never in doubt is the startling visual feast laid on by the team's phenomenal art talent. As the first game to benefit from Capcom's new MT-Framework 2.0 engine, it takes an already grandiose-looking game to phenomenal new standards, with a regular procession of truly outstanding set-pieces of monumental scale.

Likewise, Takeuchi's pre-release claim of "around 40" boss creatures was no idle boast, and even some of the more routine encounters involve screen-filling creatures of your worst nightmares. When it comes to facing-off against one of the 11 main boss creatures, you'll definitely know all about it. From hideous, giant-train-munching sandworms to monstrous tentacled creatures from the deep, you'll truly appreciate the craft that's gone into these deadly obscenities.