Let me start by saying I am a huge fan of Insomniac's other series: the Spyro franchise is one of my favorite things ever released for the PS1 and and the same can be said about Ratchet and Clank and the PS2 (and also, yes I know this game is two years old, I don't care). As such as soon as I picked up a PS3 last fall this was one of my first purchases as I had enjoyed Resistance: Fall of Man and heard that this improved the formula. I went into this game with every expectation of become a slobbering fool desperately attached to yet another franchise, but somewhere along the way this game lost me.
Let's start with the "story/setting/whatever," as there is not whole lot to say. As a sci-fi nerd, the basic overarching plot had me pretty intrigued due to the whole "fight aliens in the 1950s" and the emphasis on weird and unique weapons. Sure, it might sound a little generic, but this is Insomniac! Their prior games have had super snappy writing and R&C has some of the most WTF weapons in existence. Despite their pedigree, Resistance was a major disappointment in this department. To say that the characters and writing are forgettable is an understatement; having played Resistance 1 AND 2 through within the past 2 months I can't remember the name of a single character or a single interesting thing about the plot. The whole plot is just so deceptively boring and dull that immersion is greatly sacrificed. Sure, there are definitely more generic sci-fi shooters out there, but for a game marketed as one of the triple-A titles of the PS3, it is difficult to rationalize this sort of mediocrity. Seriously, I've played flash games that are more memorable.
Alright, let's get down to the graphics and design. When I first started playing, I was mildly confused by the level of visual inconsistency I noticed. The effects in the game are without a doubt stunning; great lighting and some of the best water I've seen in a videogame up to this point (the prettiness of water is one of my major review criteria). This made the next critique all the more confusing for me; what the fuck is up with the textures in this game (and for the record, I tried multiple TV's to little effect)? At points it looks as though it is pushing out Xbox 1 quality textures (yes and exaggeration but they weren't pretty) that suffer from being flat, dull, and very brown. For how varied the color palettes of their other games are, it is disappointing how quickly the brown/yellow/orange fetish popped up here. This mediocrity carries over to the level design, as the whole game is laid out as a pretty linear corridor shooter that relies heavily on scripting. I have to say though, Insomniac does capture the 50s aesthetic quite nicely and the Chimera have a really nice alien aesthetic for their tech and models (I would argue better than the Locust from Gears, but that is a different topic). Sound and music are fine, nothing particularly special but not bad either. The voice acting is pretty good in that nobody's speech was so ear-gratingly terrible that they ran the risk of having a weapon turned upon them, the guns sound nice, and the music is alright yet pretty forgettable. None of these points are serious deal breakers as nothing is outright broken and the game is relatively pretty, but the production value is definitely not on par with what I expect from this studio.
Now let's get to what I really loathed about this game; gameplay. If you can imagine Half-Life, Call of Duty, and Ratchet and Clank getting into a big, bloody bus accident, then you can pretty much picture Resistance 2. The game controls pretty much identically to CoD and the basic linear progression of the levels is pretty comparable with the exception of the big fucking awful R&C-esque bosses they throw at you. On paper, that sounds fine, but at points it seems as though Insomniac forgets that they are making an FPS and just went, "Fuck it, swarms of enemies and boss battles work great for R&C, but let's take away agility, provide no cover, and add some invisible enemies that do one hit kills! God I wonder why no FPSs do this anymore?" I'll tell you why, because it is fucking annoying! The chameleons are fucking awful, as once they start charging whilst invisible, you have about a second or two before they one hit kill you (and for me, they rarely charged head on, so they murdered me many times while I was trying to spot the cursed things). Seriously Insomniac, if you are going to essentially make uber-CoD dogs, at least give me a chance to fail a quicktime event or something I can feel as though my death was do to my own incompetence. This leads into another issue I had, as many of the heavily scripted levels you run through seem to only work if you do things EXACTLY as Insomniac intended. I found that there was very little room for experimentation, and attempting to do so almost universally led to an untimely demise. While you're busy being murdered by the invisible spawn of the underworld, you do get a number of nice weapons. My personal favorite was the Auger, which allows you to shoot through walls, buildings, etc, much to my personal glee and amusement. However, none of them are particularly mind-blowing. Also let me just quickly say, BOSS BATTLES IN FPSs ARE RARELY DONE WELL! Feel free to dismiss my ranting on this point if you do actually like this in an FPS (because if so you will be delighted with Resistance 2), but fighting an invincible swarm of bugs in poorly designed level is not a fun gaming experience, and it ultimately left me in a murderous rage. Some of the bosses are quite spectacular set pieces however and there are a minority that are executed reasonably well, so it is not a total loss. Additionally, parts of the levels that fall into the relatively standard formula of kill everything to progress play nicely and are pretty fun. Despite this, the gameplay feels dated because of the other factors, and not in a good Serious Sam or Painkiller sort of way, but in an, "Oh god I thought the 1990s were over" way.
While Resistance 1 had its flaws, it did allow you to play the campaign-co-op locally with a friend, which was jolly good fun as it is one of the very few PS3 games that supports split-screen co-op. Resistance 2 changes this, unfortunately, and adds a separate class-based co-op mode that is next to impossible without going online for the full 8 players. I will fully admit I have not extensively explored the online modes, but it does seem well-developed and can to its credit support up to 60 players, something very few console games can actually do.
In the end, Resistance 2 left me unsatisfied and frustrated with its SP and Co-op, as it seems more content to wallow in mediocrity than actually try anything unique or, well, fun. Production values were hit and miss, and there wasn't an engaging story or interesting characters to make plugging through the rest of the tedious experience worthwhile. Final Score: 3/5
[[Note: although I was underwhelmed by Resistance 2, I am still hopeful for Resistance 3 later this year]]
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