Resistance 3

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why out of 3 stars?)
Genre: First person shooter
ESRB: M (this is a hard M due to gore and some profanity)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 10/6
Developer: Insomniac Games
Wiki page

If you haven't heard of this series, that might be because it's a PS3 exclusive. Also, I think it's possible that it gets mixed in with another PS3 shooter, Killzone. They are quite different, though. Mainly in the way that Killzone is best described as "utter trash" while this game is rather good. Obviously not too outstanding, though, as you may have noticed I did not give this game 3 out of 3. And I don't think it's strong enough to warrant a desire to own a PS3, so don't worry about that.

This does! And uh... well, it can play Blu-Rays! Ah ha!

But I did say this game is good. And one of the ways is the story. HOWEVER, not in the way you might think. The characters and plot aren't particularly clever or interesting, but it really feels like an individual game rather than a series. This is mainly because you do not play as the same character from the previous two games. And for some reason, this game does a better job of feeling like an alternate reality. I'd say level design helps a lot with this since it relies more on visuals than dialogue. The previous games, the first one especially, contain some rather shoddy level design. So much so that I'd probably give both of them one star each. The second one does have much better levels, but the settings are so disjointed and random that it's hard to really grasp what the hell is going on. In this one, it is made pretty clear where you are going and why. And each level features both modern design techniques and has fitting visuals for a world torn apart by Chimera. Also, Joe Capelli seems like an entirely different person.

Resistance 2 and Resistance 3, respectively. Clearly the same person, right?

Nathan Hale may be the main character in both previous games, but this guy was just a side character. All we really know is that he yells a lot and wears a beanie. He doesn't do either of these things nearly as much in 3, so he kind of feels like a new character altogether. I guess what I'm saying is: skip 1 and 2. The first one is very outdated and the second one doesn't have a weapon wheel.

Oh yes, a weapon wheel. A good part of this game's charm is this piece of FPS nostalgia. Two guns? Fuck that. Joe can carry 12 guns and 4 types of grenade all at the same time, unencumbered.

The US military could learn a thing or two in tactics here. Just carry 12 weapons! Duh!

I do enjoy being able to carry every weapon for every situation on me, but not every gun is created equal. For example, the shotgun is nowhere near as good as the Atomizer in terms of close quarters combat (the opposite may be true in PvP).  This might have been fixed by making the shotgun semi-automatic instead of pump action. You can even upgrade all the guns in the game, but that is not an available upgrade. The upgrade system is kind of nice, though. The player only has to get kills with said weapon to have it magically level up (it changes aesthetically right in your hands). And the upgrades do an okay job of giving the gun more functionality, instead of just adding damage. This goes along with the design choice they seem to have made to focus more on creativity than balance. In the end, I probably relied on the Auger and Marksman the most: the first for shooting through cover and the second for sheer accuracy and damage per second.

Another piece of nostalgia is the fact that your health doesn't regenerate on its own. At all. You have to hunt for health packs. This is at the very least a change of pace. It will sometimes force you to rethink a level by charging desperately to new cover to find supplies or providing tense moments where you survive on just a sliver of health for ages. At best, it is a breath of fresh air. I do dread games where I find myself spending most of my time hiding behind a wall, waiting for the regen to kick in. But personally, I don't know that it really adds much to the game. Maybe if Joe had a shitload of health and/or if enemies had slower projectiles. I still found myself playing a modern shooter for the most part; staying the hell in cover.

Multi-player:
I got this game used, and the code on the booklet was already used. But the shady pawnshop-... ahem, I mean GameStop... that I got it from apparently gave me a free code on the receipt. Not sure if this is standard practice, but thanks! Once the Playstation Network was done being hilarious, I tried out the multi-player for a day.

Same thing.

I stuck with team deathmatch, though, because objectives are stupid. But seriously, any FPS should be able to be judged solely by this mode. If it can't be, then there's something weirdly wrong with it. You know, because shooting things is kind of the main draw in an FPS. Maybe if Portal had some kind of head-to-head mode... hm.

At a glance, I was pretty sure that this was not going to be a well-balanced, competitive game. You can choose to use a sniper rifle or missile launcher (that's right, missile as in "guided") in your loadout, both of which are capable of a one-hit kill. This is not Call of Duty-type health levels, either. An assault rifle can easily take half a magazine to kill one person (less if there's head shots). There's also a perk, Hazmat suit, that makes you invulnerable to several types of damage. Invulnerable! It makes 5 of the 12 guns and 1 type of grenade either useless or almost useless. And after a day of play, I'm pretty sure I made an accurate first glance.

There are so many wacky unlockables and unexplained features that I found myself just yelling, "Huh?!" at the screen fairly often. For example, "killstreaks" are referred to as "berserks" in the perks section but are indeed called "killstreaks" in-game. I had to stop a number of times to examine some of these menus to try to figure this shit out. Since there's no kill cam, some serious sleuth work had to be done. Even then, I had to look online to find answers to some things. Like, "Where the hell is the Auger!?" It was in the campaign, and it was in the multiplayer for Resistance 2... what happened? Apparently it's the reward for getting a 6-kill berserk. Oh. Okay then.

You can also choose stat-less skins like "the easy to hit guy" or "the harder to hit skinny girl".

The match-making is improved from Resistance 2. For one, games are put together really fast and have no marring lag issues (keep in mind, there's always SOME lag in an online game no matter which game). Although I'm betting many will say they are much worse. In 2, players created the games and chose the game settings. This means you'd sometimes get never-ending games because the host chose ridiculous settings. And by "sometimes" I mean "all the time". I know stupid people think this is a good idea (which is why Treyarch made different systems for the PC and console versions of Black Ops) but you've got to understand this: most people make terrible game designers. This is why the designers, who are hopefully some kind of non-morons, should force what they consider optimal settings on players.

Respawning is completely fucked, though. Even in deathmatch, there is a spawn timer forced on you that serves no other purpose but to piss you off, since the game either chooses to spawn you either "as far as possible from everything" or "directly in the line of fire". I'm not even kidding. I've probably complained a lot about the spawning system in CoD every time I've played it, but at least I can tell it's trying to come up with logical places to spawn me. I might be fine with this if there was no respawn timer or if I could watch a kill-cam while I waited. But no, Resistance 3 doesn't give a fuck. Did you just get wasted by a guy using an over-powered berserk? Here, spawn right in front of him with your back turned. Have fun! But mostly I find this infuriating because the design here seems to lean towards "wacky fun" rather than competitive, so why limit players?

Despite all this, I think this multi-player is actually kind of decent. It's not my cup of tea, and I have better polished games to choose from. But I think all the wacky weapons and powers mixed with quick games and customization might be really enjoyable for some. Hell, PSN has no monthly fee. So if you have the game you might as well try it!

Conclusion:
By far the best game in the Resistance series so far. If you have been a fan of shooters for a long time, this will be a fun trip through history. There's even a level where you get captured and lose all your guns! What is this, Dark Forces? Marathon 2? Wow! Anywho, if this game had a better designed multi-player, a longer/more in-depth campaign, and good writing it would be a 3. As it stands, just a solid 2.

In Resistance 4, the game will be even more old school by removing the ability to look up and down!