Resistance 2

Resistance 2 is a game that tries to spread itself out evenly between multiplayer and single player.  It takes some risks which unevenly pay off.  Overall the game is not more than the sum of its parts, but there are some parts worth noting.

Resistance 2 continues the story of Nathan Hale from Resistance: Fall of Man.  In Resistance the world of an alternate 1950s is under attack from a species known as the Chimera.  Nathan Hale, a US soldier, fought the Chimera in RFOM and as a result became infected with a virus that mutates humans into the Chimera.  Resistance 2 starts immediately after the the last game.  In fact, the opening scene of R2 is the last scene of RFOM.  It unfortunately gives little back story of the events in RFOM for those that haven't played it, and that history seems to pay little direct consequence to R2's story except for a few specific characters.  The Resistance universe seems to also have had a few tweeks that seems the need to get explained through the game.

The single player campaign is where the game seems to take its most risks.  Most of these risks involve the technical side.  Resistance strives for grandeur and over the top setpieces.  It can be easily imagined that they decided that "bigger is better" and stuck to their guns.  Levels have a large sense of scale.  Backgrounds are fully rendered and stretch off into the horizon making the player feel a tiny blip in a huge world.  Bosses a hundred feet tall loom in the sky over head.  Other bosses the size of a small house tromp around launching explosives and toxic gasses.

This large scale comes at some cost.  Even though the levels are larger.  They become more linear.  Part of this is illusion by comparison to the large sense of scale, which brings to realization that the path you are on is simple, narrow, and one directional.  Occasionally the game opens up to battles that take place in large open plazas or wide roadways littered with cover and sandbags.  These firefights were one of RFOM's strengths, and its nice to see these return.  A new and interesting twist to Resistance levels seems to take a horror survival turn.  It comes complete with dark flashlight lit hallways, arm swinging ghouls, and passing by radios with an announcer driven insane by the invasion.  Level detail also takes a hit with the scale.  Some areas feel flat and low poly, as if they were made for the last generation of consoles. Sometimes it feels it was ignored that a beautifully rendered background means nothing if the ground beneath your toes is unimpressive.  I want to gripe about the second to last level of the game where you are in buildings that are scaled to make you not feel three feet tall, but ACTUALLY three feet tall.  Door frames stretch 12 feet above your head and you come almost face to face with doorknobs.

Resistance Two gives the stars of its show to its boss fights.  Once again scale works against itself here.  Gameplay becomes simplified and shoehorned.  Alternately some boss fights are actually really cool.  One is technically impressive as it involves a morphing swarming blob of something that looks like it stepped out of the demoscene.  Luckily there are NO button combination minigames in boss fights, thank god.  Also fortunately R2 comes with a wide variety of enemies of all sizes and types.  There is a sweet spot of large enemy size with the two-story tall hulks called Titans.  Mix in at times smaller Chimera running around a battlefield and these fights are tense and may involve dying on a stupid bold move.  The most impressively tense parts of the game, and occasionally frustrating, come from enemies called Grims.  These are the arm swinging ghouls that come en-masse, sometimes by the dozens.  Sometimes you will wonder if they will ever stop coming, and that works to its benefit here.

The progression of the single player leaves a bit to be desired.  The beginning half is over in a couple hours, the last half has some serious meat, then its over with a bang that left me way more frustrated and full of questions than the famous Halo 2 ending.  There is also no inclusion of co-op in the single player campaign.  Some areas are a little cramped for co-op, and some parts like certain boss fights would be impossible to do co-op, but the majority of the game is ripe for co-op action, especially considering most of that time you are being escorted by numb-nut AI that could care less if you die.

So single player is spotty, but has its good moments.  Multiplayer will be for most the important part of this package.  There are two modes, cooperative and competitive.  Competitive is pretty standard as far as game modes and gameplay.  The difference here is the ability to have up to 60 players online on a console.  Sometimes this can mean chaotic battles, and may be too much for some.  Team deathmatch seams to take a new meaning with this many players.  Some uncanny valley is passed and thirty strangers seem to stick together much better than 8.  This creates battles that slowly move across the map and feel a little epic and memorable.

Cooperative is the shining gem of this package.  To replace having single player campaign co-op, there is eight player online co-op.  Cooperative takes eight players, puts them into one of the multiplayer maps and gives them randomly any set of objectives designed specifically for each map.  Each objective involves fighting hoards of Chimera of different types and sizes all the way up to the Titan.  The damage the Chimera can take also is more than tripled in this game mode.  It can take a few minutes of blanketed gunning to take down some of these creatures.

Cooperative's main feature that gives it fuel is the use of three different classes of characters, Soldiers, Medics, and Spec Ops.  Each class brings their own important element to gameplay and teamwork.  In fact, it is hard to imagine playing a session successfully that does not have at least one of each class.  

Soldiers are the tanks and protectors.  Their main weapon is a damage bringer, but also has a shield that protects from EVERYTHING.  This shield not only guards you, but your team mates behind you.

Spec Ops is the support class.  Main weapon is good for range but doesn't hit hard.  Spec Ops important role is ammo giving.  This is especially important for the Soldier whose shield energy runs out pretty quick without it.  Spec Ops also give out grenades to both the other classes.  Online without a good Spec Ops filling their role goes south pretty quick.

The Medic is just what you expect.  The nice part of Resistance's Medic is that healing gun used does damage enemies as its saps their strength, and then that gets used to heal your teamates with an AOE blast.

Cooperative is very well balanced between the effectiveness of each class an their importance in their roles.  A session with people that play for themselves will never get off the ground, and hence some of the "don't play well with others" type of people should stick to competitive.  The rewards of playing with a tight team pay off, especially a session seen all the way to its end can last a half hour easy.  It is too bad Resistance doesn't give a quick way to offer partying up with people at the end of a match.  Its not impossible, in fact a party system is in place and is effective when used, but a simple one button option at the ending stats screen or a return to a lobby instead of the main menu would have been optimal.  There were people I would have liked to add to my friends list or just party up with for the day, but by the end of the match I can't figure out who they were.  This might change as I get used to R2 a little more, but it should have been a little easier in the first place.  I just still miss the ease it was in Halo 2.

So there you go, my long review.  There is a lot to offer in R2, but some of it doesn't hold up or feels like enough.  To me this game is worth just cooperative alone, as long in the future Insomniac keeps the cooperative missions new and fresh.