Don’t resist the review…

Resistance 2 is the sequel to Resistance Fall of Man (hence forth RFOM) where once again you’re fighting the good fight against the Chimera. If you’re new to the series consider reading my Fall of Man review first. Note: This review contains minor spoilers to RFOM

The graphics here look amazing. They are a leap ahead of RFOM. It’s a PS3 exclusive title and it flexes Cell muscle. It makes great use of dynamic lighting and fog effects. The explosions look great. The dynamic water effects are as impressive as BioShock’s. Pools of water reflect and refract light. The forest area boasts amazingly detailed foliage. It took me a while to figure out but the game also makes use depth of field. It’s used dramatically in cut scenes where the foreground is in sharp focus while the background is blurred. It’s also used less dramatically during game play lending to the visual appearance of depth. The models appear to be much more detailed than in RFOM. You do battle with several colossal building sized BIG bads. They like the rest of the characters are incredibly detailed and well animated. Surfaces have an appropriate glossy or matte range. Even the skin on human characters looks like the real thing pulling up on the other side of the uncanny valley, though the in game facial lip synch animations are stilted.

Single Player

Like RFOM, R2 is a straight forward first person shooter. It’s even more of a roller coaster ride than the first. I don’t think I experienced more than a minute of play without getting shot at or attacked by something. But as anyone that’s been to an amusement park can tell you, roller coaster rides don’t last very long. This game is much shorter than the original. I finished it in less than ten hours playing “normal” difficulty. The upside to this is there’s very little repetition in the game. You don’t stay in any locale long enough to get bored with it, though it would have been nice to take in the scenery a bit more as you spend a lot of time looking at the back side of the rock you’re hiding behind.

There are a few game mechanic changes from the first game. Player movement feels slower both while running and walking so it feels heavier. RFOM’s segmented health bar has been replaced with the standard COD style where if you don’t get hit for a time your full health replenishes. As mentioned above there’s water now, but not much swimming. If you were a fan of the RFOM levels where the player drives various vehicles, you’ll be disappointed; there are none in R2. The biggest departure from the original is that you can only carry two weapons. When you pick a new weapon up it replaces the weapon you are currently using. Ammo is much scarcer now too, I found myself running out a couple times. The designers again deserve praise as they managed not only to visually improve the original RFOM weapons, but also added a couple new ones.

Plot wise the game picks up right where RFOM ended. Once again you’re looking through the eyes of Nathan Hale. The intro cut scene actually overlaps the original’s end cut scene. You’re picked up in a helicopter and taken from England, as this time you duke it out on the other side of the pond. The major plot points are conveyed through cut scenes. Some background information is provided by intelligence packages that you find scattered about. There are also some radios you’ll hear playing news casts describing the Chimera invasion horror. Most of the level objectives are communicated through in game radio conversations. These can be hard to follow since you’re often in a gun fight while they’re talking. What’s more confusing is when your character answers back. There’s no visual indication to show that it’s you who’s talking. I would hear a voice saying “I’ll take care of that” only to realize after I started doing it I was the one who said that.

But my biggest gripe is the game play suffers from sudden death syndrome. Or rather I suffered sudden death syndrome. For instance while you can swim a little for the most part if you fall in the water you have two seconds before a Chimera alligator will chomp you in half. There are also invisible Predator Chimera. The first time I ran into one I thought it was incredibly cool. Visually they’re amazing, but they bound at you so fast if you’re facing the wrong direction or miss their slight tell you’ll be dead before you know what hit you. There’s the Chimera that do nothing but run fast at you and explode. There’re also giants that shoot explosive fireballs that travel at you faster than you can out run and powerful enough to damage you behind cover. Needless to say while the reload time is short it sure isn’t fun and occurred more frequently than I would have liked.

Multi-Player

R2 also includes cooperative multiplayer however unlike the original it isn’t the single player campaign and it supports online as well as offline split screen. In cooperative you play as a medic, special ops or soldier with a team of up to eight to complete objectives against Chimera forces. Each player type has unique skills: medics can heal (in co-op you do not regenerate) and speed up respawns; special ops shoot more powerful weapons with slower discharge rates and can distribute ammo; and soldiers wield full automatic weapons and carry lots of ammo. Unlike single player and competitive modes you are unable to pick up other weapons and the enemies are tougher so you need to work as a team to defeat them. Occasionally you gain “gray tech” which can then be used to unlock weapons. The objectives on a map vary as to what you’re defending or attacking, but all the objects play out as: run to an area and kill a horde of Chimera. It’s a decent system but for whatever reason I didn’t find the fun.

Competitively you can play death match, team death match, skirmish (squad based objects), and reactor (capture the flag) game types in either ranked or custom games. Before you spawn in you can choose your equipment including main weapon and rampage bonus. As you kill enemies you build up your rampage bar. Once it’s full you can trigger your rampage bonus which lasts for a short period of time. Rampage bonuses include things like the ability to see all enemies on the map, an energy ball attack, increased damage resistance, etc. Playing ranked games earns you experience eventually allowing you to level up to higher ranks. Each rank unlocks rewards such as new player skin options and rampage bonuses. Creating a custom game gives you plenty of options, but only ranked games earn you experience. The maps are large supporting up to 60 players. I never had any noticeable lag issues but surprisingly I found myself unable to find any ranked games to join several times.

Conclusion

Overall the game is a visually stunning solid shooter. Fans of the series will be happy with everything but the short single player campaign. It’s not fair to R2, but after playing BioShock, Fallout 3, and Resistance in the last six months dare I say I’m getting a bit burnt out on mid-twentieth century apocalyptic I Am Legend FPS action. I’ll be looking for something completely different.

Rating: B