Jaffa Cakes are pretty addictive. You open a pack and you can be sure that they’ll be gone in a matter of minutes. Sometimes we wish we just had more self-control. The same can be said for our gaming habits. As soon as the console begins to whirr into action you can wave goodbye to a good few hours of your life. Resistance: Fall Of Man is the kind of game that is compulsive enough online that it will draw you in and even if you’re losing constantly you’ll still go back for more. Call us suckers for punishment but online Resistance has become something of an addiction for The Shed and boy, do we suck. But that’s another story. The bottom, line is Resistance is addictive, pick-up-and-play accessible and a ton of fun.
Starting with the story campaign – which can be played alone or with a friend co-operatively - is the perfect way to get into Resistance. There’s a moderately engaging storyline, with you assuming the role of the uncharismatic American (what else?) hero, Nathan Hale on missions. Taking you on a tour of the UK from Grimsby to London is a welcome change to the usual military facilities and endless corridors of other first person titles. Oh, wait a minute. Resistance has a lot of those too as after a promising start the narrative eventually descends into predictable territory presenting you with underground bunkers, alien structures and hackneyed corridor shooting. Fortunately, this only makes up a relatively small middle portion of the game and doesn’t prove to be detrimental to the single player campaign as a whole. Fighting the Chimera – the alien/human hybrid creatures that act as Resistance’s monstrous enemies – is always a joy, since shooting ugly monsters never grows tired, especially ones as frightening and intelligent as the Chimera. We’d even go out on a limb and say that they’re a cut above The Locust from Gears Of War, but only just. Their AI provides a decent enough challenge as they actively seek out cover, never queuing up like imbeciles to be picked off one-by-one.
The mixture of 50’s Britain, scarred by impressive, towering Chimeran architecture lends the landscapes some welcome variety, seamlessly switching between the familiar, the sci-fi or a combination of both. It all blends to create a chilling atmosphere, scary in a ‘what if this actually happened?’ kind of way.
<~ Resistance is full of "Holy Crap" moments like stumbling upon this imposing conversion facility here.
Missions are injected with a little extra variety in the form of heavy vehicular mayhem. Ragging the LU-P Lynx jeep through Cheddar Gorge is a genuine thrill as is navigating the M-12 Sabertooth tank through war-torn London. It’s not exactly Halo, but hey, it’s a start. But the real stars of any FPS are its weapons and Resistance is no slouch in the hardware department. Insomniac’s previous experience on the Ratchet & Clank games is strongly evident in the game’s arsenal of inventive, exotic artillery. All fictional, the weapons are a blend of human-developed automatic weapons like the usual sniper rifles and such, advanced rapid-fire weapons like the meaty Hailstorm gun and futuristic alien pieces like the plasma spewing Arc Charger. Our personal favourites are the Bullseye, which allows you to tag enemies and then fire laser-flavoured death around corners and the Auger, which lets you shoot through walls at unsuspecting Chimeran scum.
Aforementioned online play offers a series of modes, including the standard deathmatch fare alongside some newer modes available via a quick update. This offers near infinite longevity, especially if you, like us enjoy dying every five seconds. Maybe, unlike us you may actually be rather good and climb the online leaderboard, which you can find at www.myresistance.net
Either way, it’ll rapidly evolve into an obsession as you climb the ranks and assemble a clan. Ours is The Shed of course, currently three members strong. (Whoo!)
While playing Resistance however, you can’t help but consider its rivals. Halo, Gears Of War, Half Life 2, the forthcoming Quake Wars and Bioshock all offer more accomplished shoot-‘em-up thrills. What Resistance does have is enormous potential and you can tell that developers Insomniac are going to deliver on all this promise and produce something that will not only rival, but may even surpass its contemporaries. No matter how great the sequel might be however, there will be one simple truth that will forever remain. We’ll still suck.
Ammunition: 8/10
Look out for redriceman82 and LandonGarrett sucking and dying online now.
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