Resistance 3

Resistance 3 is the game experience I wanted out of Resistance 2. That is not to say Resistance 2 was a bad game – although many believed it to be – it just left me a little disappointed. The first game was a pleasant surprise from Insomniac Games, whose previous work had been exclusively 3d platform games, albeit with an action feel to them. It showed promise, with an interesting concept and Insomniac's penchant for insane weapons, it had the making of a strong series for the Playstation 3. But in some ways Resistance 2 felt like a step in the wrong direction from the foundations laid in the first game. Fortunately Resistance 3 takes strides down the right path, with only some minor missteps that prevent it from being something truly great.

The greatest success of the series has always been it's premise. An alternate history where the world didn't see the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, but rather was struck with a mutagenic alien virus known as the Chimera, which transformed it's victims into Hybrids – half human, half Chimeran soldiers -- under it's control and advanced on the world. It was a nice twist, to have World War II era weaponry bolstered by advanced alien technology. To see the horrors of the wars of the time, without rehashing the already tired WWII shooter genre. But even though the idea behind each of the games was as cool as the crazy guns they inspired, the narratives behind them weren't as interesting.

Outside of the hidden intel items, the story has really just boiled down to stopping the Chimeran invasion, or to simply just survive. That worked fine for the first game because it was setting up the series, but in the second game it became harder to care about the plight of the human resistance. Resistance 3 takes a new route, focusing on the motivation of the character you play as, in an attempt to motivate you to push through the onslaught of Chimera to your ultimate goal.

Speaking of the protagonist, you play as Joseph Capelli, an ally of the previous series hero, Nathan Hale, and former member of an elite squad known as the Sentinels, who were infected by the Chimera virus; but not mutated by it beyond enhanced reflexes and regenerative abilities thanks to a special serum. Without venturing into spoiler territory, Joe is no longer with the military, and has instead opted to settle down and start a family and make the best of a bad situation. He and his family, along with a group of other survivors have bunkered themselves under a town called Haven in Oklahoma. They had been getting by well enough until the Chimera discover their location and force them to relocate.

In the midst of the Chimera attack, Joe is reunited with Russian scientist Dr. Fyodor Malikov, the man who developed the anti-chimeran serum which prevented the Sentinels from succumbing to the infection. He brings Joe news of a large Chimeran tower in New York that has opened a wormhole in the atmosphere and appears to be gradually reducing the temperature on the planet's surface to uninhabitable levels, at least for mankind. He tasks Joe with escorting him to New York in an attempt to destroy the tower and stop whatever plan the Chimera have for Earth.

Joe is at first unwilling to undertake this journey, because he doesn't want to leave his wife and son. However he is convinced by his wife to go with Malikov because it won't be long before the cold takes their already ill son. And this really is the main focus of Resistance 3's story, Joseph's struggle to make it to New York in an attempt to save those he loves. It is a motivation that is as effective, a it is affective, in keeping the player committed to defeating the Chimeran threat. However it is light on giving motivations to the Chimera, something that hasn't been addressed yet in the series and only hinted at – and again here – through hidden items (listed as journals this time). It just would have been nice to have finally been given some explicitly clear information as to why the Chimera have come to take over the planet. It's the only let down with the story this time around, since the handling of the character and his purpose is considerably better.

The game typically reminds you of Joseph's plight through it's cutscenes, which make effective use of the game's often impressive engine. Character faces can look a little stiff at times, and the bodies they are attached to don't always animate fluidly, but there is an excellent level of detail in the textures and environments, backed up by some of the best use of lighting and partical effects I've seen outside of Killzone 3. Most of the time these effects are used brilliantly and really build up the deteriorated and abandoned atmosphere of the post-chimeran world's locales. Although it's this level of quality that makes the less interesting parts of the campaign – particularly in the second act – look rather bland. On a more positive note, all the guns look like they could blow a hole in the sun and have cool effects to match. All around this is a great looking game that has the added benefit of a solid framerate, at least in the single player, but I'll get to that later.

The voice work in the game is also quite strong, especially for Joe, which really helps sell his struggle. Sound design is also generally pretty solid. Explosions are thunderous, the Chimera sound as monstrous as you would expect and the guns pack an appropriate punch. The soundtrack is mostly subtle but quite affective when it needs to be.

I've mentioned the look and feel of the guns, but it's worth delving a little deeper because the weapons really make the game. A majority of the 12 weapons you will have access to through the course of the campaign – accessed via the returning weapon wheel from the first game – are returning favourites such as the Bullseye and the Auger. These 'classic' Resistance weapons have been slightly tweaked an altered to better balance them and separate them from other weapons in your arsenal, which when combined with the newer weapons, provides you with a pretty unique arsenal of killing devices as you progress. One new addition is the Atomiser, which fires out an electric bolt that disintegrates your enemies and offers a secondary fire which plants a mine that sucks in enemies and tears them apart as they ragdoll around it. Also there is the mutator, a particular favourite of mine which fires grotesque blobs of infectious goo that permeate into the victims flesh and mutates them into explosive, frothy, boil-ridden sacks of grossness; it is both awesome and satisfying.

Even typical weapon archetypes have a twist in Resistance 3, thanks to both the awesome secondary fire options and the new upgrade system. Rather than opting for some kind of currency or skill point system for weapon upgrades, Insomniac have taken the approach of their other flagship franchise, Ratchet and Clank, and made an experience level system. Basically, by using a weapon, you build up experience for that weapon and when you get enough, it levels up and it gets an upgrade. Each weapon has 3 levels and this system really encourages you to mix up the weapons as you progress through the campaign to keep all weapons relatively even as the game's difficulty increases. Progress for your weapons also carries over between playthroughs and loading up levels, even between single player and cooperative modes.

Fortunately Resistance 3's campaign is a fun enough ride to keep you interested long enough to get adequate use out of all the weapons. And a ride it is, following the footsteps of almost every action game released these days, Resistance 3 takes the rollercoaster, set piece oriented approach and does it effectively. The variety of enemies you encounter along the way combined with the array of locales you traverse, offers a pretty exciting experience that for the most part is pretty well paced.

The removal of the regenerating health mechanic from the second game has helped this in a way, by forcing the player to keep moving forward in order to find the necessary health kits to survive. There were times where the game didn't seem to offer as many health kits as it should have, but for most part I felt as though I was going to be alright if I kept moving rather then popping in and out of cover until all the bad guys were dead.

It is only in the second act that the game can slow down a bit, lingering a little too long in enemy infested, poorly lit corridors for my liking. I fear it may have been an attempt to stretch out the campaign length which stands at about 6 – 8 hours, depending on difficulty and how thoroughly you search the environment for journals. This can also have a detrimental effect on the pacing, as quite often I found myself looking for journals when NPC's were calling to me to trigger the next sequence. It wouldn't have been such an issue if more of the background information was put in your critical path between action set pieces, but often they were tucked away in a corner when more pressing matters were at hand.

It's worth noting at this point that the NPC's in the game offered up the only real bugs – outside of the game's competitive multiplayer – that I saw in my multiple playthroughs of the campaign. Many sequences in the game require you to follow a character to a door, that they will either open, or you will get the prompt to open yourself. In both situations these NPC's can not trigger their next scripted action and will just stand firmly in place gazing intently at the door. I didn't have it happen on my first playthrough thankfully but on my second playthrough I encountered it more than a few times, which forced me to get killed by enemies in order to reload the checkpoint, since that doesn't exist as a menu option. The cooperative campaign is where this glitch became aggressively disruptive, occuring with almost every scripted NPC intereaction throughout the course of the game.

That being said, the coop is a nice option if you have a friend – online or offline -- who wants to sit in and take on the Chimera with you. It is essentially the same campaign, but the second player takes on the role of John Capelli, Joe's brother who is only ever referred to by one NPC at the beginning of the game and by Joe when he has fallen in battle and needs to be revived. I can only imagine the sibling inferiority complex John must have when in every situation where the brothers encounter other humans, they compliment Joe's exploits and defer to him for what the next move is, while John is just standing there quietly, doing his part. It's not game breaking, just a little silly, and it doesn't stop it from being an enjoyable mode to play with a friend.

Unfortunately the competitive multiplayer suffers from a few more issues, which mar what would otherwise be a decent multiplayer offering. At the time of this review the game has already been patched twice within the first two days of being released, in an attempt to address a number of issues plaguing the multiplayer at this point in time. Things such as sluggish framerate in firefights, matches not letting anybody spawn and just freezing before they even begin and lag causing players to fly all over the map and become invincible. Insomniac are aware of the issues though and I'm sure they will eventually sort this stuff out, but it's a bit disappointing that these issues weren't addressed in the beta. Perhaps it should have been run a little earlier than it was.

The modes and gameplay on offer in the multiplayer however, are quite good. It's the standard shooter lineup of deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and various other objective modes you would have seen in other shooters recently. As well as killstreaks, perks and persistant levelling to round out the modern shooter criteria. Thankfully this isn't a knock against it, because Resistance 3's unique arsenal of weapons and clever twists on typical perk archetypes make the experience stand out from the rest of the pack. All the guns seem to make an appearance in the multiplayer, some tucked away as killstreaks so that their powerful abilities cannot be abused, but it allows for some pretty devastating combinations that keep the gunplay interesting. All in all I think it's an enjoyable multiplayer that is let down by issues that are hopefully shortlived, especially for those buying the game used who have to buy a PSN Pass – a new Sony initiative to follow the tracks laid out by EA – to play online, although new copies will obviously come with a code.

Resistance 3 is a great game, that could have used better implementation of it's backstory elements and more time spent polishing it's multiplayer offerings. However, I would offer this wholeheartedly to any Resistance fan who may or may not have been deterred by the previous entry in the series. And for shooter fans in general, you will find a really solid campaign here, one that takes you on a more emotional and heartfelt journey through the Chimeran apocolypse then previously offered by the series. It also provides what could be a nice alternative to the oversaturated multiplayer shooter market, if people stick around long enough to see the issues addressed. Ultimately Resistance 3 is doing something different with the shooter genre, with it's unique setting and ridiculous weapons, while still offering something that feels familiar for shooter veterans.