lessons not learned.
When the first thing you see as you start up the third game in a series is a motion comic for an intro, it sets the bar. Now story telling never has been Resistance’s strong point, which is a shame. As the setting Insomniac have made is one of the best of this generations. A world in which an alien virus has caused world war 2 to never happen. Instead an alien invasion by the Chimera happens, humans turned alien, a mixture of virus, cybernetics and war machines of sizes varying from small to sky scrapper. A tale that's been told so far with the invasion of the UK in the first Resistance and the PSP exclusive game. Followed by the US of A falling in spectacular fashion in two. But as cool as that sounds, in game it has always been told in such a disjointed fashion that it never seems to have the weight behind it that it could.
The one consistency with the story of Resistance though, has been the sense of the world being pretty much screwed regardless of your characters actions. The ending of two in particular left off with a ‘yeah world still fucked’ feeling, which i though was refreshing compared to many games happy endings. Resistance 3 picks up four years after the end of second, and from the start the atmosphere is bleak. Stuck in the basement of a dilapidated house, hunted by Chimeran death squads and clinging to life by a slither with a handful of other survivors. Its one of the things the game nails for the most part, as you travel from Oklahoma to New York. The sense that this world is no longer yours and it wants to kill you for still being there.
In particular the art direction and level design constantly puts you in familiar environments that have become alien. Untended farms, war torn towns, ravaged country sides and a wasteland New York covered in four story high snow drifts. All with elements of alien fauna and technology seeping in and twisting the world into something else, and looking impressive whilst it dose it.
Another consistency is weapons. Gone is the ability to only carry two guns from the second, and once again your entire armoury can be with you. Something the game is better off for as insomniac provide a good range of guns, from the relatively tame shotgun with a grenade launcher attached and magnum with remote control exploding rounds. Too a lightning gun with a singularity grenade, a gun that mutates foes in to balls of puss, even a cryogenic gun that includes a sonic blast to shatter frozen enemies. Insomniac have a knack for making crazy guns that do crazy things, and provide them once again. Each feeling satisfying to use as you make your way through the campaign.
Another strong point of the resistance series has been set piece boss battles, unfortunately it felt very hit and miss with resistance 3. Fights against Widowmakers, a screen-filling spider like monster, and a beast called ‘Satan’ being memorable and enjoyable battles for survival. But for every good one, there was a poor one. The brawler fights a particular offender, that also highlighted one the weakness’s of the game. The brawler fights them self were fine, arena like fights, pitting you against a giant muscled rampaging monster. The trouble being other enemies being introduced to the fight.
Gone is the regenerating health of two, missing is the segmented bars that needed packs to get back bars the heal them self from one. Now you are stuck with one bar that never comes back until you find glowing green jars of life scattered around the levels. But when enemies chew through your life with reckless abandon, it quickly turns once fun fights into exercises of frustration. Battling hit markers that show the wrong direction of the enemies and where your being hit from and controls that lack responsiveness to act quickly enough to the situation. I spent several fights running blind, hoping to stumble across health by accident so I dint have to start from a checkpoint for the fourth time. Made worse by the fact that if i wanted to change weapon, each time the full screen weapon wheel came up, my screen was blocked but the action continued regardless. These were fights that should of been great, i should of been enjoying the battle, instead i was just getting annoyed.
I can understand the argument for non-regenerating health for building tension and forcing a more measured play style. I grew up on medi-pack shooters and had a great time. But those games had the controls to allow it to work. If this was a mouse and keyboard game I would probably be far more forgiving. But the very nature of a controller, and this being a ps3 game, it dose not allow the precision needed to tow the right side of the fine line between pleasure and pain that the medi-pack creates. This wasn't helped by the lack of consistency with placement of them. Some points i had so many of them lying around the place after the battle it felt a waste to leave them there. Whilst others it would be a barren land in need to glowing green help whilst i was being torn a new one left right and centre. It created what felt like artificial spikes in difficulty, never striking the right balance.
It kept making me think this game wasn't fully finished and polished. Other inconsistencies happened as well, such as the body's of the dead free floating in the air, with limbs that would silently fly off if hit. I never though i would play a game and think that its weird that no sound plays when you gib a body. Or cut scenes that appeared for seconds yet seemed to have little bearing with what had just happened, as if you had just missed a large chunk of something but they had to cut it because they dint have the time to elaborate.
But I suppose that last point about cut scenes is something insomniac have been doing through out the resistance games. As much as I enjoy the setting they have created, the way the story is told is still awful. Its just as disjointed in going from place to place as its forebear's. With characters you don't care for and inspire no form of empathy what so ever. That you seemingly are meant to care for the main character and his family is dire and embarrassing. They even wholesale rip-off, well attempt to, a half-life 2 character with poor results. To top it off the ending is just bad. Considering that the number of enemy types was cut from 24 in two, down to 15 in three, you would think that there would have been more chance to create characters instead of steal them from other games.
I cant say the game overall is bad, it has some great moments and great guns. No, I think the most I can say overall is disappointing. This is a game that should have been great but through some poor design decisions, and what feels like a state of being unfinished leads to a greater lack of cohesion of every element. Its a shame that the Resistance trilogy goes out a disappointing whimper rather than a glorious shoot out it could have been.
