Fun but forgettable...
Resistance 3 is a hard game for me to form a final opinion on. I'm not sure if I actually liked it or not. To get this out of the way rather quickly I did not dislike the game at all. I'm just very split between fully enjoying it or simply liking it enough to finish it. Thinking about the experience while typing this I feel it was honestly in between those two. It was better than many games that I've liked enough just to finish but at the same time I won't be raving about the experience or remember much of the game in months to come. I rarely have such mixed opinions but I've had them from start to finish in this case.
The game play is that of the Resistance series... Resistance 3 is the best in the series but honestly the series hasn't been that good so that's not saying that much. Resistance continues to hold a spot in the B rated FPS titles and it looks like they will go out while holding that spot tightly with this latest addition being their most polished and solid yet.
The story in Resistance 3 is nearly a decade down the road from the initial Chimera invasion and doesn't have any direct links or story elements that you would miss without the two previous titles. Saying that even if there were you wouldn't be missing anything as the story has been as deep as the kiddy pool. They clearly tried to make the world feel as real, sad and desperate as possible but it just simply doesn't pull you in like a great game should. I simply found myself not caring about characters I most definitely would in a well developed story. It's not an awful story that makes you cringe, you just simply feel indifferent.
When it comes to FPS games there are only a handful of things that can be done to make the experience as exciting as possible. Be it feel of the guns, gore, shocking moments, and intense battle sequences are some of those things that can make or break an FPS game if the core isn't already broken. In resistance 3 I found there was a slight lack of variety regarding what you shoot and the AI was lacking in said cannon fodder. I also found the amount of HOLY SHIT moments so few I really don't even think it counts and this is one of the biggest short comings of the entire game in my opinion. I had the same feeling the entire way through the game, shoot x amount of baddies, checkpoint, rinse repeat start to finish. I did enjoy the fact that I had such a wide array of weapon choices at all times and that they were upgradeable albeit automatically and some of the upgrades were not worth using the weapon to get but none the less an interesting feature. The feel of the guns was also mixed and I ended up using only a few options for most my battles, mostly the fully upgraded shotgun was the only weapon to give me my brutality jollys, blasting enemies and lighting them on fire can do that for me. I also need to give Resistance some props for keeping the flow of enemies at a good pace, keeping my shotgun low on ammo often.
If you're looking for something to shoot though this game will more than suffice it just won't be getting any game of the year awards.
