Weapons And Items

You're going to have plenty of weapons to choose from in Lost Planet, and you're going to have to use most of them to get through the game. While your choice of VS will usually be a matter of finding whatever's available, you'll generally have a bit more flexibility when choose weapons.

Weapons are divided up into three categories: personal guns and rifles, grenades, and VS weapons and rifles.

Personal Weapons and Rifles

Machine Gun

The machinegun will be a handy tool for most of the game.

The old faithful standby; whenever you start a new level or sublevel, you'll be carrying a machine gun into battle with you. It's fairly easy to find more ammo for the machinegun, and it'll be a decent weapon against snow pirates and most low-level Akrid, especially the flying Trilids. Against humans, go for headshots! When you get a headshot, the screen will flash yellow, and your target will instantly die.

Even against larger Akrid, the machinegun can still be a helpful tool, thanks to its ability to lay down sustained fire against weak spots, such as those on the Chryatis. It won't do much more than bounce off a VS, however.

Shotgun

The shotgun is going to be the second weapon you find in the game, but it won't be something you'll want to use for very long. As is the case in almost every game that actually includes a shotgun, this one will fire a powerful spread of shells that quickly dissipate after traveling a few meters. Thus, it'll be useful for enemies that get up close and personal, but won't be of much use against distant foes. In general, you can trade it in for other weapons without fretting too much, as most of the enemies in the game will keep their distance from you, or will pelt you with projectiles while you try to get within range to use the shotgun. Great for dongos and Akrid generators that you can get close to, but not recommended for general usage.

Rifle

The rifle, like the shotgun, is a fairly specialized weapon. Capable of holding only six shells in its chamber, it'll be great for nabbing headshots against distant foes, thanks to its ability to zoom in with the d-pad. That mostly only works on human enemies, though, since they're really the only ones with heads, although you can probably do a good amount of damage to an Akrid weak spot if you take particular aim.

Apart from humans, you can sometimes snipe the pilots out of a stationary VS with an accurate shot from a rifle. It's difficult to do, but perfectly possible, and will let you hop into the VS and use it for yourself. Apart from that, you shouldn't expect to deal major damage to large Akrids or a VS with the rifle. Use it on humans and upgrade it to something better when you have the opportunity.

Rocket Launcher

This is the first time a "rocket launcher" has ever been featured in a game. Well, that's a blatant lie. But seriously, if you've ever played a video game before, then you should know what you're in for here: the launcher in Lost Planet is a single-fire device capable of putting down enemies in just one or two shots. Unfortunately, you can only fire one round at a time, and the reload time is fairly substantial.

In most instances, the only time you'll want to use the rocket launcher is against enemy VS's (which will usually take three or four hits to go down) or against bosses. It'll be overkill against human enemies, and will sometimes frustratingly bounce off Akrids unless you manage to hit them directly in their weak spots.

Energy Gun

Although it appears weak at first glance, the Energy Gun is actually going to be one of the most powerful weapons you'll come across in Lost Planet, and will be a fine replacement for your machine gun if you manage to find one. This is due to some of the special properties it possesses.

The homing fire of the energy gun makes it ideal for crowds of weaker enemies.

First off, the energy gun's fire will automatically home in on anything that you fire at, allowing you to take down enemies without needing to aim at them individually, even if they move around while the round is in mid-air. This is especially helpful for nabbing flying enemies like Trilids, although sometimes the homing factor can be annoying, such as when you're attempting to hit an Akrid generator and your bolts keep veering away from your target to hit a lesser enemy.

Secondly, the energy gun doesn't use ammo and doesn't need to be reloaded; shots will drain your T-Eng meter, but only very slightly. You can rapidly knock off shots and you likely won't have too many problems with drainage.

Thirdly, you can charge up your shot by holding down the firing button until the weapon flares up, then release the shot for added damage. This is of marginal effect against most humans and Akrids, since they'll die in a couple of normal shots anyway, but when you land a charged shot on an enemy VS or turret, the pilot will fly out of his or her seat and eject the vehicle rather violently, thus leaving you with a much weaker opponent to fight, as well as a relatively unharmed VS to claim for yourself. This won't work against boss-level VS's, obviously, but will still be handy in VS-intensive missions.

Plasma Gun

The plasma gun is something of an amalgam between the rifle and energy gun; it's a sniper rifle that requires no ammunition, instead drawing on your T-Eng to power itself. It's also arguably the most useful of the normal weapons in the game, since it's much more powerful against humans and VS's than most other weapons.

When fired against a human, a headshot or two shots to the body will drop your foe. Unlike a rifle, though, the plasma gun can take down a full VS from long range in just a few shots. Smaller VS's, such as the bike model, will take only four rounds before blowing up, while larger mechs will need upwards of ten. That's still a pretty small number of rounds of ammunition for a weapon that can fire on enemy suits from as far away as you can see, though!

While the firing rate isn't ideal, the plasma gun is still probably your best bet for taking down humans and vital suits. Keep a machinegun or shotgun handy for dealing with larger Akrid, though!

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