Resistance: Fall of Man

In the gaming world when the next generation of consoles comes out, their very first games storming the entertainment breach with them are called launch titles. They have one sole objective, to look inhumanly better than any of the last generations' obsolete titles so that enough hype is built that the console they represent is hopefully the one favored by the masses. It only takes a couple of months and sometimes up to a year after more and more titles have surfaced, to see what launch titles essentially are and that's the consoles' betas, or appetizer, a taste of things to come. Again, while most launch titles are inevitably unveiled for not having the true capacity to handle what their new consoles can dish out, they are eventually discarded, lest we be subjected to their inferior caveman engine mechanics. However, with every new generation comes the exceptions, like Halo or Super Mario 64, and it seems as though Resistance: Fall of Man is one of those rare titles that got through the launch wire and kept going. While at first you might find yourself playing a typical sci-fi FPS, Resistance does bring it's own blend of violent goodness and originality, something rather welcomed in a genre filled with clones.

While the rest of the shoot 'em up developers were busy with another tribute to World War 2 or their own rip off of Halo, Insomniac decided to go by way of the middle child and do something a little more distinct. "Hey, why not try and combine those popular shooter atmospheres and see what we come up with?" Now you're not storming the beaches of Normandy swarming with flood, countering the demons from Doom in Hitlers bunker, or dropping an A-bomb on the helgaust, but you do go back to rewrite history in a very surprising manner.

Picture if World War 2 had never occurred. Not only would America have been toned down a bit on patriotism and country music, but a large fraction of the world wouldn't have snuffed it, not to mention the absence of the holocaust as well as the rushed creation of the A-bomb. Now begin the game in 1951 where humanity is reaching extinction, not because of some jack boot wearing latent homosexuals but by the unearthly weaponry and repulsive orthodontic misgivings of a vicious species known as the Chimera. Around the time when WW2 would have begun, these tall scaly bastards sprang out of Siberia, completely engulfing the world for the quest of sheer domination and a better dental plan. Mankind's' only hope now rests with what's left of Great Britain's forces along with a handful of army rangers. Oh and the Jews we're still killed by the way... and I can imagine more horrifically but equally along with everyone else... so World War 2 would have actually been the ladder in this game... moving on.

While it opens up with a very dark theme, it seemed as though America was going to once again cause another promising game to turn generic with their unstoppable losing streak(minus Vietnam) as well as becoming Europe's' savior. Imagine my surprise and excitement when not through the first 2 levels nearly all of the American forces had been given their asses on a plate like a tall stack at IHOP. This doesn't mean I hate my beloved America or wish death upon her soldiers, it's just that this is a fucking video game and I always love and appreciate something tragic to occur within the story of my video games because it opens up so many possibilities. Not to mention the fact that you were already on the underdogs team, so what better way to start off a game by getting your ass kicked in the first match and then participating in a few sparring rounds and 80's music montages with Carl Weathers to get you pumped and ready to do "the impossible"... or was that Rocky Balboa?

Not all of the American horde is diminished, of the few surviving rangers comes you, Sgt. Nathan Hale, whose experience is the center of the game and back drop for the games title. You see, although Hale is an exceptional soldier, the main reason he makes it through the opening battle is because of his resistance to the Chimeran mutagenic virus. While you rarely get the opportunity to combat with initial Chimera spores and creatures, the basis for your most frequent kind of enemy will be a foot soldier type of hostile that was originally human but was then transformed into a 7 foot gecko with a metabolism 12 times faster than a human being. Interesting little tid bit, in order to counter that fierce metabolism they eat pretty much anything, including their dead and wounded. That and these nifty vents protrude out of their backs to help cool them down.

Although Hale has this rare resistance and doesn't turn, he does have few Chimeran features. This gold glaze swims over his eyes and while he has no real abilities such as seeing through walls or super strength(an actual Chimeran ability) you can hear the thought waves put out by some of the more powerful Chimera(code named: angels).

Although the opening titles, cut scenes, and narrative throughout the first couple of levels pulls you into Resistance's' unique story, like my good will shopping grandmother, it often loosens it's grip and takes some time to regain it. I occasionally felt that the game might have been a lot more interesting had there been more mystery surrounding the story. There was already a fair amount, but there were times where it felt like I was on a blind date with a vegetarian psycho femme that was obviously not going so well. Seemed as though a nice percentage of narrative and cut scenes were like forced small talk in awkward situations.

Resistance can be a gorgeous game, the environments have the usual war ridden familiarity as well as a very alien setting so it never gets too repetitive. Though there were times when it was a real eye sore and you started to see the launch title within it, honestly there were moments I would have gladly traded for a documentary on knee surgery. Areas would seem empty or lazily put together but aside from those faults Resistance does have some environmental views that sometimes left me impressed.

While A.I. can be bit challenging to counter on the enemy side, the striving British troops or what I call, environmental entertainment, add another layer of tyranny to the war laced game and do a damn good job of it but do next to nothing as far as giving you a hand in the slaughter. The Chimera themselves are deliciously evil looking with their enormous fangs and gold scaled skin(actually it's more of a pissed stained marble look, but that isn't so much of a bash as it is an observation) and while not being as scary as they had the potential to be, their presence does stand out as the horrific bad guy, not just another bullet sponge.

Like most sci-fi shooters, Resistances' primary weapon layout was mostly alien based and I praised it for keeping the weapons nice and medieval looking(unlike a very popular sci-fi FPS whose alien arsenal suspiciously resembled cheap nerf guns you'd get at K-mart, cough, HALO!! ...excuse me). That also didn't mean some old favorites and new human weapons didn't make an appearance. Of course we all love the thompson sub machine gun, but all in all it's one of the more worn out whores of the shooter genre. She can be seen in any WW2 and Vietnam shooter or any kind of old gangster simulator, so the fact that it decided to head to the free clinic this time around was fine by me. What stands in its stead is the M5A2 carbine. It looks very similar to another WW2 favorite, the browning assault rifle(BAR) but is far from it. Equipped in it's undercarriage is a grenade launcher, on that note every weapon in Resistance has it's own unique double task. For the M5A2 it's a grenade launcher, for the regular shotgun it's a 2 shell in one shot, and for the Chimeran top weapon(the Bullseye, a typical pulse rifle) a single round sinks deep into your enemy and every following shot after will go straight to it.

Even though the story does have a sense of progression, there really isn't any character development. Hale has an embarrassing 2 lines of dialog(if that) through out the whole game and like I mentioned before, his Chimeran infection never really plays out or comes into question as often as it should have. I do hope that the developers do something about that when the sequel hits this winter, then the anticipated let down of Hales' infection not serving any purpose would be considered forgivable. By mentioning that, I will go ahead and say that the ending of this game does leave you hanging but I was aggravated when this game pulled a cliff hanger, because although I favor cliff hangers in good games, Resistance didn't leave much in way of letting you know it left one. Instead I questioned whether or not it was the point in the game where the developers weighed the option of ending the game or just committing office suicide. Resistance is an exceptionally medium sized game but it seemed much longer and trust me you do feel it at times, but for some reason you don't want to punish it for doing so. Had there not even been an announcement for the sequel, I'm convinced most of the gamers who experienced Resistance wouldn't have even known the ending was a cliffhanger.

One of my more appreciative aspects of the game was the feeling of being overwhelmed. Ignoring the staggering numbers, advanced weaponry, or superior spider walking will smith smacking tank designs the Chimera had over me, the game did do a good job of putting you in a vice grip situation and only tightening it. I will say that while Resistance can sometimes be a breeze to walk through, there are times of desperation and many many deaths on your part.

Being an on line multi player, I was rather disappointed when I logged onto Resistance' servers but that didn't mean I hated it and didn't give it a fair shot. There are a lot of interesting things going on as far as multi player in this game, but too many old habits get in the way of appreciating them. Typical and unoriginal game types along with halfway boring level designs again showed the launch title colors and the fact that most FPS's now a days play it safe. An exciting feature I grew to love in the multi player was when you got the opportunity to be on the Chimeran side. Halo had this feature as well, the choice of being the soldier or alien, but what differs Resistance from Halo in that category is how the Chimeran abilities carry over into the multi player. There's not a whole lot of cool things you can do, but it certainly does a good job of making you feel like you're on the Chimeran team. When a certain button is pushed, your character roars and the screen turns a dark purple. This allows you to see enemies(represented by a dim or bright yellow glow) through structures. This does give a certain advantage but it swings both ways, lowering your characters health, and if you're not too careful you could die while staying in this state for too long. Now that I look back and reflect, that was pretty much the only cool thing about the multi player. Weapon handling was more sluggish than in the campaign and the other gamer representations weren't in the least bit realistic. Who knows, this game is more of a campaign title any way.

So all in all I'd say Resistance stands out in a lot of ways, but goes down the same road so many FPS's have traveled. The campaign isn't something you'd repeat the next day or even week but it was certainly action packed enough not to trade in or toss. There are those games you keep that had a very intense story with distinguished gameplay and graphics to further back it up but you still don't repeatedly play it so you just keep it on the shelf for a rainy day. I call this a novel game, like a good book you read again and again over the years to have a sense of nostalga now and then. Resistance isn't really that kind of game, but it's in the ball park.