One might glibly summarize PlayStation 3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man as the "alternate WWII, but against aliens!" first-person shooter where the Chimera extraterrestrials stood in for the Nazis.
Resistance 2, then, is the "gosh, them aliens sure are big!" FPS. While it's obvious that Resistance 2 draws from a large pool of influences -- both movies and games -- the overriding homage is definitely the visual impact of scenes from
Godzilla,
Cloverfield,
Clash of the Titans, and
War of the Worlds. Simply put, Resistance 2 will go down in history as the shooter where most bosses are at least 20 -- if not over 300 -- times bigger than you are. This sense of scale goes a long way toward making Resistance 2 a more cinematic, grandiose, and vastly improved sequel. The narrative kicks off immediately after the first game's ending, with Sergeant Nathan Hale assigned to the Sentinels -- a rowdy bunch of fellows also infected with the Chimera virus (instead of fully converting into Chimera soldiers, they -- like Hale -- survive the infection and are essentially humans with regenerating health and weird glowy eyes) who serve as an elite Special Forces team. The prologue finds Hale arriving at the Sentinels' Iceland base, where the Chimera (the series' big, bad aliens) stage an assault -- whose effects come to fruition when the timeline jumps forward two years to a Chimeran blitzkrieg on America, which takes up the rest of the single-player campaign's seven chapters.
The story's serviceable, but due to the lack of a narrator, understanding everything requires a bit of legwork -- you only know as much as Hale does, and scattered, collectible documents flesh out the background details. The two words that popped into my mind again and again during my playthrough (roughly a nine-hour affair on normal difficulty) were "immensity" and "variety."
Click the image above to check out all the Resistance 2 screens.
The "variety" comes primarily in Resistance 2's improvements to the original's brown-and-gray color palette and settings. The campaign jumps around from San Francisco to Chicago to Idaho, and the different locations allow for unique campaign scenarios -- such as a vicious firefight in a California redwood forest, a quiet (and unsettling) alien-infested Idaho town, and a frantic zombie invasion in Chicago. The locations allow for some gorgeous visuals, such as the assault on San Francisco or the destruction of a Chimeran ship. Both "variety" and "immensity" come from the enemy population; whether it's a screen filled with rabid Grims (Chimera that seem inspired by the fast-moving zombies in
28 Days Later), a battle against hefty Titans (who sport rocket launchers now, by the way), or a boss fight against the Leviathan in Chicago, the enemies all do a pretty good job of making you feel small. The wide range of foes makes for interesting combat situations, such as burly Ravagers propping up energy shields to provide cover for smaller Hybrids, or upgraded Stalkers machines backed up by shielded Attack Drones and Hybrids for a conceivable combined-arms force.
Since the Chimera attack takes place just two years after the first game, your weapon arsenal doesn't undergo a drastic overhaul, but it does see some welcome additions.
While Resistance 2's gun rack still doesn't have the same sense of joy and creativity as the array of guns you'd find in one of developer Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank games, the firearms feel very unique. The Bullseye still fires homing bullets, and it also comes in a more powerful "Mark II" mode (it fires blue bullets that inflict more damage than the regular yellow-bullet-belching Bullseye), and the Auger's...well, augmented with a thermal sight that lets you track targets through walls. As for the new toys, I particularly like the Marksman (a Chimeran assault rifle that blurts out a three-bullet statement and also fires a weird lightning-ball thing), the Wraith (a minigun with a force field), and two new grenades (my favorite explosive -- the fuel-air explosive -- now comes in grenade form, along with a weird Chimeran grenade that spreads out a sticky web of ignited napalm...seriously, that's the best way to describe it). Chain saw aficionados should appreciate the Splicer, a sort of Chimeran buzz saw that handily serves as a way to slice through hordes of Grims. The varied secondary abilities -- and how the A.I. (friend
and foe) correctly utilizes most of them -- makes for some entertaining gunfights.
Click the image above to check out all the Resistance 2 screens.
Because the campaign -- with its lavish production values, interesting enemies, and terrific boss fights --
is so much better than the one in Resistance, its annoyances become more prominent. The most aggravating:
Ninety percent of the time, the enemies only target you specifically.
That's fine if you're the only guy around...but when you're with a squad of fellow badasses, it's a bit illusion-shattering. Two of your buddies are pelting a Titan with rockets and gunfire, and somehow the Titan makes a beeline to
you -- even if you're not doing anything. The Chameleon -- a Chimera straight out of
Predator -- only decloaks to attack
you, brushing by two redshirt A.I. soldiers and swiping you with a one-hit-kill swing. Grims come rushing out of the woodwork -- and, hey look,
they all swarm right toward you! It's damn annoying.
On a related note, the campaign occasionally dips into "learn by death" territory, affording extremely little leeway to accomplish the task at hand (detect Chameleons before they attack, make a certain series of jumps) before you're killed...and your death served as a "gotcha, you shoulda..." moment instead of a legitimate tactical error. Also, curiously, the previous game's vehicle sequences -- which served as a nice way to break up the gameplay -- are completely absent.
On a positive note, the aforementioned immensity applies in equal measure to Resistance 2's multiplayer elements. First off, the competitive multiplayer gets a nice size boost (freaking 60 players!), and it's still gratifying to see a bunch of numbers pop up onscreen every time I kill someone, supplying me with precious experience points to purchase upgrades or abilities. Even though a 60-player match sounds daunting, Resistance 2 smartly divides the session into distinct, objective-based matches between smaller squads, which makes things manageable in such a large game (or you can go off-objective and just run around, plugging as many foes as you can). And while I haven't actually seen any full 60-player brawls yet, online games with around 40 players perform admirably.
Click the image above to check out all the Resistance 2 screens.
The co-op campaign, too, is completely overhauled --
it's now something of a mix of a World of WarCraft raid and a Team Fortress 2 match. Players take on the roles of Medics (healers), Soldiers (tanks/damage sponges), or Special Ops (heavy hitters) and run through scenarios as a team. Said scenarios are somewhat randomized, and they scale based on the number of players; two guys might fight a bunch of Grims, while a full party of eight would go up against three Titans in that same location. The discrete scenarios give that "jump in for an isolated match or two" feel of a
Counter-Strike or a Team Fortress 2,
while the class balance and teamwork directly echoes WOW. This mode's really designed for friends and otherwise cooperative players who really wanna function as a team -- I definitely didn't have as much fun in idiot-filled pickup groups. And while I like the unique approach,
I'm disappointed at the lack of co-op in the single-player narrative. Hale's frequently with his squad (or at least another soldier) for a good portion of the campaign. Why not throw a live buddy in there?
That's the main disappointment, if any, behind Resistance 2. It's a clear "we're improving upon our predecessor" type of title, and it succeeds on that front. If you're
really picky, you can quibble about certain aspects -- not as many cool visual effects as you'd hope for in a modern shooter (depth-of-field,
motion blur, etc.) or
occasional slowdown (mostly when respawning after an active firefight), to name two. But, overall,
Resistance 2 is an extremely well-assembled FPS, with an improved campaign, fun competitive multiplayer, and a damn neat take on co-op. I wouldn't go as far as to say this is the definitive PS3 game, but it's certainly one of the best PS3 exclusives I've played. Plus, I gotta give props to a game that loves giant monsters as much as I do.
