Resistance 2

[Oliath]

CAMPAIGN

My initial reactions were of disapointment as the inroduction parts of the game played out.

One of the first things that attracted me to Fall of Man was the wonderful narration. It played out over the loading screens ontop of pictures of the game world. The actresses voice added a whole layer of depth to the game that arguably made more than just yet another shooter. It was this narration that engaged me into the game and kept me playing it.

This time round the narration is replaced with admittedly beautiful looking..... but rather dull cut scenes.

Perhaps it will just take some time to get used to, but already i do feel more detatched from the world than i did the first time around.

All this disapointment was quickly blasted away though when the game opens with you facing off against an almighty alien machine.... i mean MASSIVE. Maybe three times bigger than the Scarab walkers in Halo3... and this is just the tutorial level.

One of the other perks of Fallout.... something that kept it fresh... was the great weapons. Insomniac are the guys that produced Ratchet and Clank so as you can imagine... interesting weapons are their thing.

Right off the bat they introduce you to their brand new revolver.

Primary fire acts as you would expect.... but if you tap secondary fire it detonates any bullets that have been fired in an explosion. Great fun to use.

You of course have your trusty bullseye too. This is the Chimera (alien race) primary weapon.

Its essentially a plasma rifle. Its fun comes from the secondary fire though. This shoots a homing beacon which subsequent shots will then follow. So you can tag an enemy... nip back around a corner and watch as your bullets curve around the corner to finish him off.

Visually the game is stunning too. Miles apart from the first game which was very basic even for its time.

This time around they really have cranked a hell of alot out of the PS3 and tt all runs at a gorgeous 30fps.

There were a few odd moments though.

On my first attempt my AI buddy who was showing me the ropes just refused to move on after i hit a checkpoint. I had to reload and start that bit again.

Another time i just kept dying for no apparent reason. Turns out i was supposed to NOT move from where i was told to stand.

Yet another time i ditched a rocket launcher only to find out i actually needed it to finish off the boss... no other weapon would do... so i had to back track and pick it up again....... sensible level design would have placed a spare one nearby just incase people didn't want to follow the rails so closely.

Worryingly all this happened in the first level of the game!!

I have yet to play any further so i'll let you know if things shape up, but as far as gameplay goes i am really enjoying this so far.

COMPETATIVE MULTIPLAYER

This is where the game is supposed to shine.... and i was honestly not dissapointed.

Infact i would go so far as to say that i actually prefer playing this over gears2 at the moment.

First off is the scale of the thing.

The very first game i joined boasted 45 players on a decent sized map. It was a team deathmatch and not as carnage filled as you would expect.

The maps are scalable.

What this means is that if more players join (it can support up to 60!!!!!) then more parts of the map will open up to adapt and vice versa.

Both teams fought mainly with ranged weapons accross the map. I went all John Rambo with a few guys using some mid range weapons and mopped up some of the enemy from within their base.

Another game i played was a kind of capture the flag game where you have to steal enemy energy cores and bring them back to your own. The flow of this was great and i was surprised to see the amount of team play involved. I am so used to people legging it oiff and going for the glory, but immediately a whole bunch of people stayed back and held down rock soild defence in the base while i joined another squad that was pushing into the enemies base to grab the cores.

The multiplayer is broken down into squads... so even though you are in a game of thirty a side, you are in a squad of no more than five. Each squad is then given its own objectives throughout the game... so there can be a deathmatch raging on among some other squads... but your squads objective may be to go capture certain points..... at least this is how i THINK It works at the moment.

I have also played a few deathmatch all vs all games which were fun but frantic.

For multiplayer you basically pick a weapon loadout... pick a beserk and then spawn.

There are quite a few weapons to choose from and all of them have unique features... my personal favourite for base defense or attack is the AUGER. When you use the iron sights let you see AND FIRE through walls. The walls SLOW the plasma down BUT increase its power.

The beserks are like little perks that can only be activated once you have gained enough exp. They do stuff like show enemies on radar, give your team increased health for a bit, give you more powerful bullets for a bit and so on. The nice thing about this is that you can only use them ONCE your exp meter is full. You earn exp by completing objectives and also naturally by helping your team... so assists are almost as valuable as a kill. I think on the whole this encourages team play.

The most notable thing was that with all these online players not ONCE did i experience any lag whatsoever. They have done a top job at pulling this all together and making it work so smoothly and it makes you wonder what the heck happened at EPIC for them to have so much trouble with TEN players online and terrible matchmaking and lag problems.

CO-OP MODE

This is probably my favourite part of the game.

It is where i spent most of my time with the BETA.

It plays like a cross between team fortress2 and a WOW raid.

The idea is that you and up to seven other people can play as soldiers fighting a battle that runs along side the main story!

You can pick to spawn from three classes:

A soldier - minigun, shield - more health.

Spec Ops - Scoped rifle, plasma rifle, ammo supplies

Medic - Ray gun that damages enemies which then gives you charge to heal team mates + machine gun

Its built so that you all need to work as a team and support each other. EXP is rewarded for successfully fulfilling the main part of your roll.... so if you are spec ops... while you do get EXP for killing bad guys... you will get MUCH more for keeping your team stocked up with ammo. You are espeically useful to the solder. Their shield runs out after a while and needs to be kept stocked by the spec ops.

Medics can revive people much faster than other classes, and also gain EXP from healing.... but they have to shoot the enemy to charge up their healing ray.

Sounds a bit naff but in context.... when there are eight of you in a dynamic mission its pretty intense and relentless.

The missions and baddies scale according to how many players there are and according to what rank they all are and finally by how well you are doing at completing other objectives in the current game. This means that no matter who you play with it will always be a challenge to push through to the end. You all really need to work together especially when taking down some of the MASSIVE bosses that are in there.

I have played with quite a few people...... all the time randoms met via the matchmaking and generally everyone seems to play pretty well. Most people do support each other. You get the odd typical guy taking it all a bit too seriously and telling people off for not playing their roll properly but you can mute them easily enough lol.

After you find your feet and find a preferred roll, its greatly rewarding playing it out and ranking up accordingly. I managed to go through an entire level (which take around and hour!!!) without actually playing an aggressive roll. Instead i focused on keeping the team well stocked with ammo and at the end of the game i was the one with the most EXP from it :-)

Anyway... to sum up:

This is a GREAT value for money package when you look at what you have. I read somewhere that to complete everything in the game would take you about 450 hours!!!

I rekon i'll be playing mostly co-op with a bit of multiplayer thrown in.

Again..... not a reason to buy a PS3, but if you were on the verge and you like your shooters and your online play then this is a pretty damned good game to tie you over till Killzone2 next year.

xxx

[Oliath]

surely i can't be the ONLY person with a PS3 that rushed out to get this game?????????

[DANGERMAN]

Yep, I've still not played the first one yet. Maybe one day

[Oliath]

Well the first one is a very different game!

This one was rebuilt from scratch.

You gonna get killzone2?

[DANGERMAN]

I dunno, I'm not the biggest fps fan and again I never played the first one. But it's been getting good previews and if I've acess to the ps3's exclusives it seems a bit stupid not to get them. Guess it depends on how flush I am at the time.

[David]

Never played a Resistance game, but this does sound great, and the fact that the co-op campaign is different is a really nice one, shows how much effort they put into the game. Insomniac is one of my favourite game developers, they seem to just make good games by default.

[Oliath]

Yes they do.

I love ratchet and clank too... on of my fav games on PSP and the PS3 version is great fun indeed.

When i wrote my impressions i wasn't too sure how the multiplayer squad system worked. I have since done some more research and found tis vid which explains it nicely.

Its pretty impressive stuff actually and a great way to manage that many players and have them all play nice

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/05/19/resist...-squad-tactics/

I particularily like the idea that if one squad is doing badly the game will order another squad in to back them up... and if some individual is owning it makes him a target for one of the opposing teams squads to take out!!! So the game automatically tries to balance out the match using the different squads as its tools.... very very clever.

[DANGERMAN]

I got the first Resistance yesterday and finally put it on for a blast, and it's not bad at all so far. Its also probably not worth starting its own thread for given that the sequels out and only Oli seems to have played it.

It's strange, it feels very retro in a lot of ways despite looking fancy. Everything looks open, and while not photorealistic (its not trying to be) does a pretty good job of recreating what parts of York look like, the Ye Olde bits anyway. Like I said everything looks open and town like but it really isnt. There's a point right near the start where another squad joined me from the side to take out some

Chrimera on higher ground, I had a quick look at where they came from and it was all blocked off, same with the houses, they all look like you could explore them, but you cant get the door open to find out. The shooting is very gamey, satisfyingly so in that you're not underpowered compared to your enemies, AI is decent, they do tend to follow patterns but will sometimes break cover and take you out.

The only thing I dont like so far is the checkpoint system. If you die you have to redo that section, fair enough most games do that, but in the early stages theres no way for you to recover your health, so you might have to do things multiple times and be suffering because you took too much damage in the early part of that section. You do get regenerating health fairly early on, but rather than Halo et al, you have a life system in your health, meaning you can only recover so much. Fine when you dont take much damage or when theres more health around, but because the cover system isn't anything special (you likely take damage trying to break cover and get a shot off) mistakes are punished hard. Case in point, I cleared a room from above (or so i thought) took my time picking enemies off then lobbed a grenade at the stubben ones. All seemed clear so i dropped down, and lost nearly half my health from 2 shots by some twat out of sight. good AI if deliberate I guess, but a bit annoying that up until then I'd done pretty well.

Anyway seems good so far, worth a tenner, feels a bit like Gears with Lara croft narrating

[Hendo]

Did a bit more in the campaign (started from scratch though) and it's really nothing special. If it was a multi-format release it would get completely ignored.

Went online and did a mission where you have to hold a post for a certain amount of time while blasting the other team and it's alright. It's ok but again, nothing special at all.

[Sly Reflex]

Anyone want in on Resistance 2 Tuesdays? Aiming for an 8pm start as usual. Either post or send a message on PSN if you want to join in, all are welcome.

[Dunkster]

I can actually now admit that after experiencing some PS3 shooters, I can say I like this game better than Killzone 2, don't get me wrong KZ2 is a fine looking game in its own right, but this just feels so much more accessible - (ie controls! ) so much so I could probably describe Resistance 2 as my fave PS3 exclusive shooter outside Call Of Duty. The massive alien invasion over San Francisco Bay is one of the the most impressive set pieces - when I first played I just stood there on the platform for ages looking at all the little crafts sooming all over the place & not to mention the motherships soaring - no, towering into the sky, its like a scene out of Independence Day. The sense of scale really is awesome!

[Sly Reflex]

I played a Resistance Tuesday today, it's rather good in co-op, anyone who has not tried should. It might seem a bit odd to start with, but once you get into the swing you will enjoy it.

[Sly Reflex]

So, the single player on this. It's a bit shit. It's the game I'm currently trying to erase from my backlog and it really is dull, badly designed in some places. Instadeaths. Silly sign posting. Silly difficulty spikes. I've died more times on this game in one level than I did on Killzone 3 (no impressions thread, maybe I should start one if anyone gives a fuck?) all way through. I dunno, they really dropped the ball with this SP compared to the exemplary co-op mode. One thing that does piss me off no end is that dispite being in a group of about 10 soldiers, everything shoots at me and me only, and any melee enemies go for me and me only too. It's fucking retarded that this is still in games. It's like playing Call of Duty but even worse. Somehow.

On the upside it still has the best water I've ever seen in a game, sometimes it's movement is a bit exaggerated but mostly it reacts as it should. It looks lovely. All the weapons are fun to use and have secondary fire/features that come in handy. My favourite is the sniper rifle that can slow down time and the alien sniper rifle that fires a bolt of static out that zaps everyone it passes. I'm hoping I have this game wrapped up soonish though, as no matter how nice it looks and how nice the weapons are, it's dragging like fuck.