Starting August 19th Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers will be able to avail themselves of a free Lost Planet 2 co-op demo. Bring it the heck on...

That’s the same demo as wowed the masses at E3 and Comic-Con earlier this year, and that should be all the recommendation that’s required. If you’re still in need of convincing, though, the demo pits a squad of up to four players against a humongous, multi-legged G-Type Salamander Akrid Boss. Players have the choice of a number of Beam or Projectile weapons scattered around the arena and, we’re told, may approach their boss-killing duties in several ways – head-on, shearing its legs off or even allowing themselves to be swallowed whole in order to fight from the inside out, so to speak. Um, nice.

Moreover the demo provides a “brief” glimpse of the new, less snowbound world of E.D.N. III and the MT Framework 2.0 game engine that powers the action. Capcom are particularly pleased with themselves about that.

So that’s next Werdnesday for Goldmembers – inscribe the date in your office desktops as appropriate. Meanwhile Silver-surfers need only wait an additional seven days to join the fun. Lost Planet 2 itself launches June next year, which rather suggests that there’s plenty of time for single player demo too. Fingers crossed, anyway.