Review: Resistance 2

It’s been a long time coming, but here’s a review for Resistance 2. If you’ll recall from my first impressions – I wasn’t completely sold on the single player, but completely sold on the multiplayer. Two months later, a game purchase and a headset to accommodate my online activity may or may have not changed my opinions.

I have spent countless hours doing multiplayer, with many kills, death, medals and ribbons under my belt. Many frustrations, many accomplishments and many close encounters between my controller and the floor. And all-in-all, I can say that Resistance 2 is a great game for multiplayer and a mediocre game for single player.

My frustrations with single-player are still with me now even months later after my first experience. I find that your enemies know where you’re at before you even fire and a lot of the time you find yourself dead many times not because you lost in a shootout, but something unexpected happens. And once you get bombarded with attacks, it’s over – especially if you’re fighting elite chimera and titans.

Boss battles are massive and enjoyable. My favorite is easily the Leviathan – which ironically is a giant land-creature stomping its way around Chicago. The battle doesn’t involve heavy gunfire, but timed attacks and getting thrown around building to building. Plus, the damn thing is giant as hell. Some are annoying though, such as the Swarm. where you are pitted against what seems like a swarm of metallic flies that will cut you up if you get near it. When running from it, you have to keep running, turn around, fire some rounds to get them to separate a bit, turn around and high-tail it to safety. And when you finally fight them, you literally have to get them right next to you to trap them in the boss battle. Unfortunately, you don’t really get a cue of when to back away so that they fall into the trap. So either you miss entirely, or you die.

The graphics were awesome even on my small TV in North Carolina, so upgrading to my HD television was awesome. Multiplayer seemed to take a hit in the graphics department, but that just may be because the system is doing much more while you’re playing so it might tone down the graphics a bit. It’s always interesting to see your corpse being flung around when gunfire is going on around you. Or a massive hit from a Titan’s gunfire can fling you all over the place. Magically, though, your corpse stays fully intact. Although I will say that I have never, ever experienced any lag unless my connection went out. This is actually quite a feat in my opinion because when you think about everything that is happening and allowing up to 60 players in the same map … essentially the game is transmitting instant data to 60 people max and to not experience a hint of lag is amazing.

The ending, is somewhat of a shocker and is relatively quick. It also hints at another sequel – which I wouldn’t be shocked at all if they did. The quick ending made me feel kind of cheated though. A mere couple-minute video and that was that. Despite how short a game may be, it’d be nice to be rewarded with a lengthy ending. Final Fantasy IV anyone?

The game was pretty difficult and was backed up by my friends problems with the original Resistance. Simply put, you die too fast and when there are swarms of enemies you can’t survive very long without using the duck and cover/jump out and shoot combo. It generally takes about the same time to pick off your enemies as well, so while it’s not terribly difficult, it can become overwhelming when you’re facing around 50 enemies. Other enemies seem relatively cheap too … such as the chameleons. Your only hint of them being around is the stomping of them running at you (which has a tendency to make me a nervous wreck) and then shooting at them when they lunge at you. If you don’t put enough bullets into them – you die. No ifs ands or buts. Titans also have a tendency to be frustrating because two of their hits kill you, they have wide range and you end up pumping clips after clips into them.

The controls – at first – are rather frustrating but eventually you get familiar to them. Of course, I’ve also been playing a couple of hours a day so I may just be used to them. I remember playing the first Resistance and thinking how weird the controls are – but it’s nothing terrible … none of your important actions are linked to the L3 or R3 buttons and your shooting/running controls are done with the shoulderpad … which are just common now.

The shining star of this game comes from multiplayer, in my opinion … I’ve found both online and offline multiplayer to be really enjoyable. Both Cooperative and Competitive come with a leveling system so each game gives a rewarding feeling. Cooperative gives you occassional upgrades for whatever class you choose. You can choose from a Soldier (the tank), the Spec Ops (DPS) and the Medic (Healer). All classes feel relatively weak at first but eventually as you upgrade, the new items make it easier for you to get killing blows on enemies which reward extra points. So yeah, you are kind of punished for being low level … but what game isn’t like that? Infact, I would feel rather unrewarded if I had people that were around level 1 beating my score when I dumped hours into co-op. You also get a visual indication when you upgrade … so when you join a game, people can see if you’re a low level or a high level. My personal favorite is the Spec Ops … but I’ve always had a thing for DPS classes – tanking and healing seem boring and overall you know you’re not doing a lot of damage to the enemy.

Cooperative is pretty different in terms of upgrades. While you do get various new berserk items (special moves you can only use once your berserk bar fills up completely) most of the upgrades are merely unlocking new weapons but mostly cosmetic upgrades. A level 1 person may only be able to look like a generic soldier/chimera but one higher up can have specific looks. The game modes are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Core Capture and Core Control. Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch are self explanatory. Core Capture is pretty much like Capture the Flag and my favorite is Core Control. With this game, your objectives frequently change – you can take over a core which is done by getting your team around it and eliminating the opposing team, you can be ordered to kill a specific player or be ordered to protect a specific player/yourself. It keeps things moving, which is nice because in all the other multiplayer games you’re subjected to snipers, who just sit in the back and pick you off one-by-one. Your choice is to either be a sniper as well and try to get them first, or just run like hell and hope you don’t get in the line of sight. Like any form of competitive multiplayer, it can be very easy to get frustrated which is why I took about a month hiatus from it to focus on cooperative.

It a very in-depth multiplayer that gives this game a great amount of replayability. Unfortunately, the single player campaign offers very little when it comes to reasons to replay. Sure, you can replay to get all the intel which gives you a trophy, but unfortunately the campaign mode is greatly overshadowed by the multiplayer. Whether or not that was the plan is beyond me … but at the same time you can’t compare multiplayer with singleplayer because multiplayer is meant to have a replayability factor while single player modes don’t have to offer that feature. And with Multiplayer being so enjoyable and addictive, it may have been planned that single player mode doesn’t need a big need for replayability because most of the time spent on the game will be spent online.

Despite the shortcomings with the campaign mode … I really loved this game. It’s one of the most enjoyable games that I played in a long time and had a surprising amount of replayability in it – I had no idea of the leveling system or even the online co-op mode being its own sidestory. It is probably one of the most-played console games in a long time for me and most of the time I’m on the PSN, people probably see “Resistance 2” underneath it. Although some will argue that the meat of the game shouldn’t be held in its multiplayer modes, the truth is that it’s the way things are going with video games. As internet technology and speeds get faster and faster, the possibilities of playing online with someone not in the same room are becoming so common that it’s now commonplace to play a game while online with another person. (i.e. Little Big Planet, Call of Duty, Resident Evil 5, etc.)

And on that note, let’s wrap up the review.

Graphics (10 pts.)
For campaign mode, they did a real nice job. The cutscenes are realistic and the backgrounds on some of the levels are awesome. Details given to the bosses at the end of the level are really well done. But most of your time will be spent on the multiplayer – which is pretty standard. Multiplayer levels doesn’t have any levels that really show off great backgrounds and objects and is really kinda’ plain. 7/10.

Music & Sound Effects (10 pts.)
Sounds are very military-like and the sound effects are what you’d expect from the game but nothing noticeable. Infact, I’m not even sure if music plays during the missions … so either they’re not there, or they don’t have much impact on the level … but when you get a headshot with the Fareye (sniper rifle) you are treated to a nice splatter sound. 5/10.

Gameplay & Controls (25 pts.)
The controls originally are awkward to get used to unless you’ve played the first Resistance – however afterwards you get used to them. The game overall ran very smoothly. The menu and submenus all have a sort of formation and never strays from it too much. The loading times for the game are very slim. Infact, after the initial load, there never seems to be any load time. It either does it in the background or when you’re watching cutscenes. Single-player mode has a tendency to be quite difficult and can drive people not used to the genre away pretty quickly. Even after playing multiplayer for hours and then going back to single player I find it extremely difficult. While is can be considered a good thing it gets very frustrating when you die numerous times within minutes. Multiplayer is extremely fun, especially the cooperative mode. Gaining experince though multiplayer is a great way to get people to come back. 15/25.

Story and Presentation (20 pts.)
Both good and bad. The single-player has a very small storyline. The ending is somewhat of a shocker but you see it coming when you earn the trophy after beating the final boss. On the other hand, the Cooperative mode was built to be a side-quest that runs alongside the single-player mode. A nice way to integrate the two features instead of just having it there to have it. The presntation is very smooth – the cutscenes are done very well and looks like a lot of work was put into it despite the rather weak storyline.. 15/20.

Fun Factor (25 pts.)
The single-player was fun, but it’s the multiplayer that made me want it. When all is said and done, single player mode is more of an after thought, honestly. But – not to sound like a broken record – it’s the multiplayer that was the most fun. Infact it’s the most fun I’ve had since I played CounterStrike (one of the few other FPS shooters that I love). Had there been no multiplayer, this game would have been a rental. 25/25.

Replayability (10 pts.)
With co-op multiplayer offering three classes that can be leveled up to 30, a cooperative mode whose level goes to who-knows-what, and an ingame clan feature that lets you form a network of friends (given you join the right clan), Resistance 2 can last you for a long time even if you play for hours at a time. While newer games may dwindle down the competitive multiplayer, the cooperative mode is still pretty unique to Resistance 2 and I think will keep people playing for awhile. 10/10

Total Score is 77 pts., giving this game 4/5 Invaders.