Resistance: Fall of Man

"Resistance: FoM is an incredible game bolstered by the graphical might of the PS3."

When I bought my Playstation 3, I also picked up Resistance: Fall of Man. The guys who made the Ratchet and Clank series what it is and they are well known for making some incredibly inventive weapons created this game. First person shooters have become something of a stagnant genre, with very few surprises to be had. After some time playing Resistance, I came to realize that this game doesn't revolutionize the genre but it does bring a breath of fresh air along with it. This is especially true considering that it is another world war two-era game, but due to the… quirks of the story, it has a unique and very interesting feel to it.

Oddly enough for an FPS, even the storyline for this game is fairly interesting. Due to the invasion of an alien force, called the Chimera, into Russia during the 1930's but by the 1950's all of Europe was in dire straits from a full-scale assault by these invaders. You will step into the shoes of Lt. Nathan Hale, a member of the United States Army and your typical mostly quiet hero. When they come to England to assist in the fight against the monstrous Chimera, he is the lone survivor out of his entire platoon. Resistance: Fall of Man follows this brave soldier through a number of areas, traveling across England with the British army trying to assist them in breaking the Chimera's dominance over this land. The story isn't the most engrossing, but it pushes the plot along well enough that I found myself always wondering what crazy thing was going to happen next.

Right off the bat, I will admit to the fact that I found the initial control setup somewhat cumbersome and not the easiest to use. Luckily, you can fully customize your controls, letting you put pretty much any control on any of the buttons. There will be little in the way of surprises to be had in what you can actually do: jumping, shooting, tossing grenades, whipping enemies with your weapons, reloading and zooming in to snipe enemies, all are here. The controls are very responsive and this is good as the enemies are fairly hard to kill and taking cover is very important in this game.

Charging around and killing the enemies willy-nilly is not going to work for this game. It is very important that you use the scattered objects to hide behind and pick your moments to take out the enemy. Mind you, this is nowhere near as important as it is in Gears of War, but careful use of your weapons and the environment are all key to your survival. This becomes especially true against the enemy Stalkers, giant insect shaped tanks that will cut you down in no time flat. Also, your character regenerates if not hurt for a short time, so avoiding damage becomes even more important to survival, especially since you don't have much health to begin with.

One of the most important, and distinguishing, features of Resistance is that of the weaponry. While you will find the usual culprits, such as a rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, frag grenade and rocket launcher, there is also a nice variety of other weapons to be found and used to unleash havoc on your foes. From a device that lays land mines of a sort, a weapon that can shoot straight through walls and two really cool grenades; the hedgehog, which floats above the air for a moment after it lands, before exploding and hurling razor sharp spikes in all directions or the air fuel grenades, which release a flammable gas into the air where they land before igniting and saturating the area with flames. One of the most interesting things about this game is that the enemies use the “unfair” weapons as well, such as the aforementioned Augur that shoots straight through walls. You will regularly have this gun turned on you, leaving you nowhere to hide.

To top that off, all of the weapons have alternate fires, which makes them even more interesting to use, even the weapons we have seen in hundreds of games by now. For example, the rifle is your basic rapid fire weapon that still maintains good precision, but with a tap on the alternate fire button you can fire a rifle mounted grenade launcher at your enemies or the sniper rifle, which can actually slow time down for a short time so you can line up head shots more efficiently. It's a pretty spectacular variety to some boring weapons.

But most impressive is the Bullseye, the Chimeran version of the rifle. This gun is pretty powerful, able to unload a lot of ammunition into an enemy force very fast, but the cost for this is that they are highly inaccurate shots. But when you use the alternate fire to shoot an enemy, you will hit them with a “tag” from the gun. With this tag, all of your next shots will be homed right in on the tagged target. This will allow you to tag someone, hide behind a wall and shoot around a corner or over the wall to hit the enemy. It's really cool and impressive to watch.

Graphically this game is a powerhouse with a huge amount of attention having been paid to fine details. The environments are all incredibly well detailed and most of it is highly destroyable. I don't think it has ever been this much fun to blow up a car or to shoot glass and watch it shatter. All of the characters and enemies are also incredibly well animated although the rag doll physics of dead enemies are somewhat suspect at times. Enemies will fall and stay propped up in the oddest positions. But this will be readily forgiven the first time you try to shoot one of the enemies and accidentally shoot out one of their cooling cables on their back. Watching it whip around, spraying cool air about is pretty awesome.

The audio in this game is really very good as well. The chaos of the battlefield is readily apparent when you are listening to your men screaming and yelling while the Chimeran beasts are yelling in their growling tongue and exchanging gunfire while mortar shells blow up around you. It's a bit much to take in at first, but the more it happens, the more you can appreciate it. There are a lot of nice little sound effect touches, such as a really rare one when you are fighting a Stalker, the giant Chimeran tanks. If you hide right on the other side of a wall and it launches a missile at you, the explosion on the other side of the wall will make you temporarily deaf. A ringing sound will be heard and the sounds of the battlefield, gunfire and bombs alike, will be muffled and muted to your hearing. It's an awesome touch for those chaotic scenes.

I don't think I can recommend this game enough to anyone who is a fan of chaotic first person shooters. You will not play many first person shooters that feel this fresh and new. Admittedly this game doesn't do anything to really anything to redefine the genre, but it is hard to argue with a game that does what others have done, but perfects it. There aren't many games this good and I cant recommend this one enough.

Pros: Fast and frantic gunfights, enemies are smart but not overly so and an interesting storyline that leaves you wonder what crazy thing is going to happen next.

Cons: This game is very challenging at times which can put off some people, many of the weapons are fairly useless except for “cool factor” and there are only a few enemy types to fight.

Score: 9

Recommendation: This is a must own for any PS3 owners who are looking for a GOOD launch title. If you are even remotely interested in first person shooters, buy this.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/20/07