Reviewed: November 28, 2006
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Sony Computer Entertainment

Developer
Insomniac Games

Released: November 13, 2006
Genre: FPS
Players: 1-4
Online: 2-40

8
8
8
8
8.2

Supported Features:

The story for Resistance is a convoluted mess. Are the Chimera aliens, zombies, or some ancient civilization slowly being dug out from the bowels of the Earth? Actually, it’s all three but you’ll have to play the entire game to figure out the details. What’s important is that you’ll be spending the next 15-20 hours in some serious combat against creature, machine, and some scary mixes of both.

Even more interesting is that the game takes place in some alternate time line or parallel universe where the Chimera have already taken over Russia back in the 30’s and are now trying to take over England in a far more technically advanced 1951 where US and British soldiers wield all sorts of inventive weapons – and not just alien ones – as well as flying futuristic drop ships that are more suited to Halo than a post WWII-that-never-happened timeline.

The story is told through lots of maps and black and white photos and still images, mostly narrated by a female voice. Actually, the entire game is played from a storytelling perspective, with you reenacting events that have already transpired. You play as American soldier, Nathan Hale, who has been sent to help with the British resistance, but secrets and plot twists are lurking around the corner of just about all of the 20 chapters.

Sadly, the PS3 online network hasn’t improved much from what we were forced to tolerate on the PS2. There is little structure to organizing games, and while you can create friends lists and organize clans, it is far more tedious than doing the same thing on Xbox Live. Plus, with no voice chat support, you are forced to text-message gamers in the lobby and have no way to coordinate your team-based games online. Plus, the overall network is plagued with lag and dropped games, making all these amazing modes virtually unplayable, or at least unenjoyable, and that was with games that didn’t even approach the maximum of 40 gamers. We had trouble getting 8-on-8 matches to flow smoothly.

Sticking closer to home save the day with a competent solo campaign that you can even play cooperative in a split-screen mode. I couldn’t see a noticeable increase in enemy numbers or AI so adding a second player can make the game almost too easy at time. If one player dies they will respawn at the last checkpoint after a certain amount of time or the other player can heal them. If both players die you both respawn at the most recent checkpoint.

Speaking of checkpoints, we may as well get this out of the way early…checkpoints suck in this game. There is no logic to their placement. Sometimes you’ll hit two or three checkpoints really fast with nothing in between and other times you’ll play for 20-40 minutes, engaging in multiple serious battles only to die and have to replay those same 20-40 minutes over…sometimes multiple times. It really kills the spirit of the game because I would always try to play “intelligently”, taking cover and taking my time, picking off the enemy and playing like a smart soldier. Then I would die from some stupid mistake and have to replay, only this time I was pissed so I would just rush through like Rambo. And sadly, I often did better playing that way, so the game doesn’t really encourage or reward immersive gameplay.

The story mode begins with you getting dumped onto an urban battlefield full of debris, friendly soldiers, and a whole mess of Chimera advancing down the crumbling street. Veterans of FPS games will feel right at home with the controls. Everything is right at your fingertips for switching weapons, firing in both primary and secondary modes, and even tossing grenades. There is a context-sensitive use button that flips switches and enters and exits vehicles. You can crouch but you can’t snap to cover, lean, or even go prone. The SIXAXIS is used to some limited extent. I was assuming you could steer the vehicles (like COD3), but alas, I was only able to shake the controller violently to break the hold when I was grappled by an enemy.

Combat is a lot more fun than other FPS games thanks to a great selection of weapons and an arsenal that grows all the way to the very end. You’ll start off with only two or three guns, but by the end you’ll be using the radial menu to choose from all sorts of human, alien, and experimental US weaponry, each with exciting primary and secondary functions. There is also a fun assortment of grenades including my favorite; the Air-Fuel grenade that disperses a cloud of gas then ignites the entire room on fire burning anybody and everything inside.

You’ll have plenty of chances to try all these weapons as you go up against an amazing number of enemies. These can be as small as those spidery creatures that hatch from pulsating egg sacks or as large as giant spider tanks who only have a small weak spot. The one thing that really annoyed me was that even when I was a part of a huge battle with dozens of other soldiers all around, the enemy would always focus their attentions on me.

Friendly AI is surprisingly good, especially on the jeep levels where I was driving and the commander was manning the turret in the back. He would lay down some serious cover fire so I could unlock a series of gate switches. He also did quite well when we worked as a team in a few mission. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t die, which is always a good trait to look for in a partner.

I really didn’t like Resistance when I started playing it. Other than some kooky weapons the game seemed to take the FPS genre back a few years in development, especially when you had the superior Call of Duty 3 being released right alongside. But the more I played the more I liked it, and once they started breaking up the repetitive missions with jeeps and tanks, and started introducing more enemy types and weapons, it got pretty cool. Insomniac did a great job of evenly distributing the content across the entire game, so there is always something new as you advance to the epic final level, which words can’t even begin to describe.

Level designs are also pretty standard, at least until you enter alien territory and especially that final level…oh, that final level. You have a mix or urban settings as well as wide-open hillsides and even a trip through downtown London in a tank, but the level of destruction is disappointing. Almost nothing explodes or breaks apart. I can fire the main cannon at a row of phone booths and they remain intact. This gets confusing in the jeep levels where you can drive through some fencing but others (that look the same) will stop you dead in your tracks.

Cutscenes are stylish and simple, but for a launch title I want to get blown away by movies, not a boring slideshow that makes me feel like I’m in history class. It seems Insomniac took the cheap and simple route for telling this story. When an actual in-game cinematic happens, it’s pretty cool.

The entire game seems to be running through some sort of filter that not only smoothes everything over but also washes out all the imagery. It’s almost as if somebody has been tweaking the brightness and contrast settings. There are no sharp edges or even any real bump mapped textures. The game runs natively at 720p and maintains a silky smooth 30fps in solo play and split-screen.

The music is pretty minimal, mostly kept to the slideshow cinematics and a few ramped up moments of encounters and boss fights. Most of the time you’ll be left to the raw sounds of war where each weapon makes numerous unique sounds resulting in devastating effects. Combine all that with soldiers yelling, Chimera hissing, and giant war machines terrorizing the landscape and you have a pretty energetic aural experience.

The voice acting is excellent although most of it is limited to the narration during the cutscenes and the occasional scripted lines for encounters and radio updates. Hale, like most video game heroes, is a man of very few words, so don’t expect any witty one-liners.

The multiplayer games modes, at least at launch are virtually unplayable. We tried for weeks and only achieved reasonable results on very small sessions of 8 total players or less. Hopefully Sony will work out their online issues, but even if they can reduce or eliminate the lag and dropped players, their entire network needs revamped if they want to ever come close to what Xbox Live is offering. You can’t play a team game very well when you can talk to your teammates.

Resistance is good but it certainly isn’t as good as everyone wants you to think. Much like Halo 2, the media has been sucked in by all the pre-release hype. And when compared to Call of Duty 3, the only thing Fall of Man really has going for it is that it’s a PS3 exclusive. So if you have a PS3 you will most definitely want to check it out.