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Resistance: Fall of Man
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System:
Playstation 3
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Genre:
First-Person Shooter
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Publisher:
Sony
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Developer:
Insomniac
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Release:
November 2006
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Online:
Yes
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ESRB:
Rating Pending (RP)
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With Killzone 2 being predictably absent at this year's E3 it was up to a lesser known FPS title Resistance: Fall of Man to take the reigns as "PS3's First Person Shooter." While it obviously did not live up to the mythical "standards" Killzone 2 implanted in people's mind, Resistance still proved itself to be a very capable game. No new concepts are brought to the table (besides the story) in Resistance, but with FPSs being such a saturated genre it comes as no big surprise. While at E3 I got a chance to play one of the levels and get a feel for the game. It has potential but like said earlier, there really isn't anything new.
The basic story of Resistance: Fall of Man is the question, "what if instead of WWII occurring, an alien invasion happened instead." Set years after the initial invasion, the human race is still fighting hard against their alien attackers. Not exactly the first question that comes to mind while day dreaming, but Resistance has realized the world with impressive detail. Buildings, weapons, and human soldiers all contain the very 1940's look to them while at the same time injecting a hefty dose a futuristic style. Soldiers are garbed in the traditional WWII combat suits but with futuristic armor. Buildings look old but are filled with impressive technological laboratories. It may sound like the two styles clash but while playing Resistance not once did I think it was a bad design choice. Infact, Resistance has one of the better realized worlds in recent FPSs. What works is the familiarity of the WWII setting. Gamers who have played any WWII to death will feel right at home; while at the same time discover new and interesting twists on certain objects, or buildings. In short, it was fun to blast through the enemies not just for the gameplay but to see what new design idea Resistance was going to present; and it worked. Unfortunately, this is the only part of Resistance that feels new. Beyond this, every gameplay mechanic has been used before.
In order to fight off the alien invaders gamers are going to be armed with a variety of weapons. While these weapons are unique to the world, they aren't anything we haven't seen before in other titles. Three firearms were available in the demo I tried out at E3. The first was a human machine gun. Armed with a scope as well as secondary fire that launched grenades the weapon did a very good job in removing the enemies. It wasn't as powerful though as the alien laser rifle. Following the cliché of "the enemy is armed with superior technology," the alien last rifle quickly dispatched any enemy. The rifle also had a scope and a secondary fire that released an energy ball which would then explode after a few seconds of hovering. The last weapon used in the demo was the typical shotgun. Meant for close range combat only the shotgun proved very effective at removing any alien enemy who got to close. The secondary fire for the shotgun was a double barreled blast and packed quite a punch. But all these firearms have been seen in some shape or form in another title. Nothing really is new here.
But just because gamers are armed to the teeth doesn't mean the fight will be easy. The enemy A.I. is smart. While playing the demo the alien forces not only flanked my position several times but also knew when to take cover and wait until I was reloading. This made it so Resistance came off as a very intense shooter. We all know how there are some shooters out there that make it painfully easy to take out enemies. That wasn’t the case in Resistance. Every inch of land has to be rigorously fought for. It also didn’t help that the friendly A.I. was pretty dumb. Way too many times my “squadmates” ran in front of me as I was lining up a shot. The result was at times more friendly fire being exchanged than enemy fire.
There were two main types of enemy aliens encountered in the demo. The first were the typical foot soldiers armed with the alien laser rifle mentioned before. These guys took a fair amount of damage to take down and unfortunately suffered from the, “won’t react to damage until I die,” animation problem. With menacing faces and rods sticking out of their backs they were quite a sight to behold. The other alien encountered were little creatures that would snap at the player’s feet. Swarming in numbers the best way to take these aliens out was with the human machine gun. Beyond this no other aliens were shown in the demo.
Even though I got to spend only a short amount of time with Resistance, the game looks solid. If one can ignore the unoriginal ideas (beyond the world), it looks like they will be in for a very well made FPS on the PS3. It is too bad Killzone 2 isn’t filling this spot. But I don’t think anyone is surprised Killzone 2 is MIA. Resistance will just fill its spot.
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