Resistance: Fall of Man Review
What's the best thing about the PS3 in 2020? Is it the amazing line-up of games and the readily availab-no it's how cheap every game is. Needing something to chill with after Christmas destroyed my wallet, I decided I'd play Resistance: Fall of Man, a launch game for the system. I wanted a new series to start a retrospective on and it seemed like a good pick, a launch title, games in the series are readily available for like... a dollar each.
Resistance launched as the primo game to have from the launch titles lineup, Gamespot gave it a great review, IGN gave it a great review, with those flattering ratings and being developed by Insomniac, a very respected developer for Sony, it seemed like a good choice to pick if you were there launch day. And it was, but it is definitely less flattering now than it was then and not because of it "aging" which frankly is a bullshit phrase in my opinion. I think people were just excited to see a new console and happy there was a game that was pretty good at launch and they rolled with it, Resistance has plenty of flaws which are very much issues of the time it released, but hey let's get into it properly.
Resistance succeeds mostly due to its compelling game play. Truly, Insomniac made a great feeling shooter here, everything is responsive, the A.I is smart and even your team mates feel real and not just hastily thrown together code to make it seem like at least someone's on your side. The weapon variety is great and you'll see yourself switching between each, especially near the end of the game where it's almost required if you don't want to die. Speaking of, Resistance isn't an easy game. Considering the easing of difficulty in the present day, it's quite cool that Resistance doesn't want to hold your hand. It will send you back to checkpoints if you don't learn how to play. If you just sit there and don't move, you're gonna die. If you don't vary your item use, use your grenades, pick up health, you are going to die. It makes you strategize and that is a great aspect to the gameplay.
Outside of game play however, is where everything just becomes pretty mundane for me. Resistance was released at a time where FPS's were quite easily the most popular genre and a key feature of shooters at the time, was a brown, smudgy look with very little color variation. Resistance plays that note to a T, the browniest of browns, the most middle of the road kind of story, the fact that the enemies are aliens doesn't really make it stand out, neither does the alternate time-line story we're going with. Soundtrack is very similar to others of the time... I guess the problem is there just isn't much that differentiates this game from the other shooters of the time, bar the fact that the A.I and the game play is really, really good.
To conclude, Resistance relies incredibly heavy on its gameplay and it DOES succeed, but if Resistance had a more striking story line, an original soundtrack and a more vibrant, interesting color palette, Resistance could have been a classic we're all talking about to this day, but as it stands, the original Resistance, is just a fun game... check it out.