Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
Posted by 7th on November 09, 2007

Resistance: Fall of Man
Playstation 3
Insomniac
7th Score: 9.5/10.0

Resistance: Fall of Man was the Playstation 3's premiere launch title, right around a year ago. When I first started reading about it, I was less than enthusiastic. It appeared to have the same WWII look that a lot of shooters around that time had, but with aliens. I shrugged it off until the following March, when (with bonus in hand) I walked into Best Buy and bought my PS3. I looked around at the various titles available, and noticed that beyond Untold Legends, Resistance was really the only exclusive action title available, and I was yearnin' for some killin'.

Now, the main reason I was hesitant to buy Resistance, despite it's hype and almost perfect review scores, was that it was a console FPS. Several years back, I bought Goldeneye on N64, and just couldn't adapt myself to the finger cramp-inducing control scheme, so used was I to the keyboard and mouse controls of my beloved PC FPS's of the day.

A few years later, I was gifted with an Xbox for Christmas, with a copy of the original Halo. I managed to curse my way through the first few levels before tossing the controller in disgust (yes, this was the OLDER Xbox controller design.) I hated the way the analogues were set up on the controller. It made me have to hold the controller with my left hand higher up on the controller than my right, which made me feel like I was constantly leaning right in the chair. At that point, I swore never to waste my time with another console FPS again.

Flash forward to today. I do not say this as a PS3 fanboy, as I have since played other 3rd party FPS titles on the PS3 that I have also enjoyed. But without a doubt, Resistance has turned me into a console FPS fanatic. Since completing Resistance, I have fought my way all the way through The Darkness, gotten my ass handed to me in Call of Duty 3 (I hate that game's "play the level over and over till you find all the safe spots where you won't get shot" gameplay) and made it halfway through F.E.A.R. I have Haze and Unreal Tournament 3 on my Christmas wishlist. Suffice it to say, Resistance has made an addict of me. And for good reason, as it's without a doubt one of the best FPS's I've played on any platform.

Resistance takes place in an alternate reality where World War II never occurred. This history is explained to you via narrated flashback cut scenes. Apparently in the early 50's, some kind of strange genetic experimentation was going on in Russia. From that came a new race, the Chimera, who with strange advanced technology quickly tore their way through Europe until all that was left was a small British underground resistance.

Enter the Americans, and Sargent Nathan Hale. There is nothing outwardly special about Hale. He's no Master Chief, no invincible super soldier. He's just a grunt on the frontlines, and he is you. As soon as Hale hits the ground running, you step into his shoes and into a world of shit, with strange airships flying overhead, pulse blasts whizzing past, and strange multi-eyed creatures trying to rip you to shreds around every corner.

But then a twist comes. Just one level into the game, you find yourself in a foggy trench, you walk around a corner, and thousands of small buglike creatures crawl up your pants and overtake you and your entire platoon, crawling in and out of your mouth, etc. When you awaken, you are the only one to survive, and your eyes have taken on a sort of golden sheen.

As the game progresses, you will come to learn that the Chimera are genetically altered humans. Humans become infected and incapacitated by the buglike creatures, are harvested by the Chimera, taken to "processing plants," and turned into new Chimeran soldiers. But for reasons that remain unknown, even up to the last scene of the game, Hale is not converted. he gains all of the Chimera's abilities... rapid wound regeneration, enhanced speed, strength, telepathic links to other Chimera, etc... but he remains human. He's the former Lokutus to the Chimera's Borg.

This becomes somewhat of a lifesaver as the game moves forward. Whenever you take damage, all you need do is jump behind cover, and one bar on your life meter will fill back up. As long as you don't take more than one hit at a time, you can keep yourself alive indefinitely. Of course, it doesn't turn out to be the game breaker that it sounds like, as managing to make it through the firefights in Resistance while only taking a single bullet hit at a time is like trying to fuck Pamela Lee without protection and walking away with only one STD.

During the first couple of stages, FPS veterans will likely experience a bit of deja vu, as the level styling, grit, color palette, and overall look of the game is highly similar to any current-gen WWII FPS out there: war-torn French towns, blasted London streets, etc etc etc. But that is just a small fraction of the game. As you burrow deeper into the heart of the Chimeran empire, the world around you becomes increasingly less and less terrestrial, eventually resembling the blasted future-scapes seen in films like Aliens, Terminator, and Starship Troopers, particularly the levels that take place in the Chimeran Power stations, where you'll find yourself fighting your way through Towering power systems high above the ground where you started, all the bodies of your Chimeran victims still visible hundreds of feet below.

When the game first starts, you will mostly see the same types of Chimeran foot soldiers. But again, as you delve deeper into enemy territory, the troops begin to take on much more varied and alien configurations: massive spiderlike creatures, huge Doom 3-like beasts, thin reaperish creatures, swarms of facehuggerish bottom feeders, and on and on. All are highly detailed, just like the environments they populate. There isn't a trace of slowdown. The game runs smooth and constant from start to finish, even in the final battles where you're surrounded by flying monsters, attacking enemy soldiers, your comrades, and a large rotating center spire that has numerous cannons and safety shields that must be blown up before you can destroy the core. the game doesn't run in 1080p, but damned if you'll notice.

And when a big battle comes, it comes on hard. Fairly early in the game you'll come to a central square where you have to take out seemingly hundreds of Chimera, only for the game to give you about half a breath and then send a large Ed-209 like robotic sentry in to wipe you out. You'll eventually face many more of these robots (and even control them, more on that later) but the first time is really a tough, awe-inspiring experience, and one of the first times that your sniper mode really comes into play. You can zoom in on a character hundreds of feet away, and there is absolutely no distortion. None. Very sharp, no distorted textures, just sweet, sweet visual perfection. In fact, I will go so far as to say that, up until this week's release of Call of Duty 4, Resistance was the best looking console FPS out for PS3, and still ranks right up there with Halo 3 and its contemporaries.

A lot of people tried to compare Resistance to Gears of War when it came out, stating "this is no Gears killer." And it certainly isn't. But it isn't meant to be. It's a different kind of game that takes place in a different setting and has a different visual style. Visually, and gameplay-wise, it strikes me as more of a combination of Quake, Medal of Honor, Halo, and Ratchet and Clank. Yes, that isn't a mistype.

Resistance was made by Insomniac, the creators of everyone's favorite lombax. The influence of those titles can be seen in the title's weapon selection and usage. Ratchet and Clank is known for it's unusual, exotic weaponry, and that gameplay aesthetic has made its way into Resistance. You have all your standard WWII era weaponry, and your typical Reese-style pulse rifle. But then things get interesting. You have a sniper rifle called Far Eye that comes with a special "focus" ability that allows you to slow time for more accurate headshots. Much like Zorg's weapons in the Fifth Element, your pulse cannon has a tag ability where you can hit one enemy once, and all future rounds will focus only on that target. You also have a weapon that fires blobs of goo that can be placed strategically so that they get stuck to enemies who walk through them. You can then detonate those blobs for mass damage. You have a hailgun-type wepon whose rounds bounce off surfaces, allowing you to ricochet shots around corners. You have smoke grenades, frag grenades, grenades that hover and shoot spikes in all directions, etc. But by far my favorite weapon is the Auger. the Auger is a pulse style weapon that can shoot through solid objects. by that I don't mean you can blast holes through walls. I mean the rounds morph THROUGH solid objects and hit targets on the other side. This is ideal for enemies hiding behind cover. Of course, since these are all weapons you steal off dead Chimerans, it also means they're using these same weapons against you.

Above I compared Resistance to Halo. This is mainly because, like Halo, there are sections of the game where you pilot various vehicles: battle tanks, jeeps, and as mentioned earlier, you eventually get to use the Chimera's Ed-209ish battle droids against them. These scenes allow you to decimate troops in short order, and play out more or less identically to the vehicle play in Halo. These occur every few levels, and provide a nice break in the pacing.

The music in the game is epic and orchestral, and seems to change on the fly according to the intensity of the action going on. The sound effects are devastating, and make for a good way to show off your sound system, each explosion shaking the ground under your feet. the surround sound is put to great effect, allowing you to tell where enemies are hiding, when one is sneaking up on you in the dark, etc. The music and effects combined really put you into the game in a way I've rarely experienced before. My wife had quite a fun time making fun of me as I played, because she was constantly catching me leaning in my chair for a better look around corners, jumping when something came out at me, backing up in my seat when an enemy got up in my face, and so on. You really lose yourself in this game.

The difficulty level is pretty advanced for someone fairly new to FPS titles, but for you Unreal/Doom old school veterans, you should be able to just walk right in and start blasting Chimeran ass (though this is not the case on the harder difficulty levels.) Unless of course, you can't adjust to the controls.

Which brings me full circle. Unlike Halo on the Xbox (I eventually played Halo on the PC and enjoyed it much more than its console cousin) I picked up Resistance and within an hour was circle strafing like a pro. The dual analog sticks on the Sixaxis are perfectly aligned, which allowed for much less hand crampage that I experienced with the Xbox controller. Motion control is only used to shake enemies off of you, so no worries about adjusting to motion controls ala Lair or Red Steel. The inventory system is rather easy as well, making hot swapping from gun to gun quick and effortless. There's zero delay from button press to reaction, everything is tight and precise. In short, FPS console controls just don't get any better than this.

So why only a 9.5? Why not a perfect score?

Two reasons, one major, one not so much.

First, the minor issue. Resistance has very realistic ragdoll physics. Bodies will fly, their limbs flailing about, and land in various different poses depending on the terrain, from what angle they were shot, with what weapon, and so on. But once they land and settle into their death pose, they become motionless scenery, like walking up to a rock. You can't kick them, shove them, move them by pouring more ammunition into them as you can in The Darkness. So often times, you'll come across a dead Chimeran, and its "stiffness," pun intended, doesn't look natural. Room for improvement there. But even so, they look fantastically detailed up close.

Now the major gripe, and I'm guessing you know what's coming. Online play.
Now don't get me wrong, online play on Resistance is a downright blast of frenetic fragging. you have your typical modes and what not you'll get on any online FPS, and you can have 40 players per campaign due to Insomniac's dedicated servers, much like you'd experience with the overwhelmingly addictive Warhawk. But fans of Xbox Live will find it limiting. You can't invite friends into the game, you don't have in-game cross media bar for chatting and what not, you can't really form continuing teams where you're playing with/against the same people every night. Those whose first foray into online fragging IS Resistance will have no gripes. Others will probably feel a twinge of disappointment. These are certainly things that can be added through updates from the PSN as Sony gets a better grip on what an online FPS experience should be like, but for now, it feels somewhat stripped of features that Xbox and PC games have been enjoying for years.

So there you have it. Resistance is an almost perfect title, one of the best FPS's I have ever had the sublime joy of playing. If you have a PS3 and have yet to plunge into this title, you are doing yourself a disservice. And if you've been holding off on getting a PS3, this should definitely be your first purchase. A year later, it still stands as a must-have title for the PS3, and for good reason: it really is that damned good.

-=7th=-