Resistance 3 (PS3)

Resistance 3 sees us step in to the shoes of Joseph Capelli. Capelli is camping out with his wife, Susan and his child, Jack, along with several other humans in Haven, Oklahoma. Humanity's fight with the Chimera seems completely lost and everyone seems to have formed small communities to just survive.

Enter Dr. Malikov.

Malikov asks for our (Capelli's) help as the Chimera are deliberately making the planet colder, which will make it easier for them to live yet will also wipe out humans in the next winter.
On a general level the story is well written and interesting enough to keep you playing throughout. New characters are consistently introduced, keeping things fresh, and even if everyone's performance isn't as polished as it could be, things stay interesting enough to make you care about what you're doing and who you're with for the entire game. Regardless, the campaign packs a punch and, especially within the FPS genre, has one of the best story-driven campaigns around.

In terms of presentation, the game does a very good job. The textures only seem to have been tweaked at best though the colour palette does a great job of keeping an engrossing ambience which does make the game look a lot better overall. The voice acting, as well as the sound effects, are also done very well and are top notch.

Generally speaking, the gameplay has been tweaked and reworked to the benefit of the game. Unlike Resistance 2, the weapon wheel is included just as it was in the first game, and its tremendous comeback really adds to the experience of it all. The gun designs are all creative and the amount of options you're given for taking down enemies is numerous enough to keep you wanting more. In addition, weapons are also now upgradeable, and the more you use them the better they become. Know what's better than shooting someone with a shotgun? Shooting them with a shotgun and setting them on fire at the same time!
The two player split-screen co-op also makes a glorious return. There were a lot of people complaining about this not being in Resistance 2 (myself included!) so it's nice to see that Insomniac actually listened to the audience. You can play offline with two controllers or invite a friend over PSN, which always makes the game more fun.

This time around the multiplayer too has received a big overhaul. Instead of giving you dozens of players across giant maps the multiplayer has been scaled down to a maximum of sixteen players in smaller maps. I was originally sceptical at first but the change does make the matches more focused on combat and gives you a lot more contact, albeit at the expense of shorter matches. Still, it's fun enough to extend the lifespan of the game by a lot and the levelling system makes sure that there's still great upgrades to be unlocked to keep you playing.

So, the visuals look great, missed features are back, the multiplayer is more intense, the story is solid and gameplay has been fine-tuned. What's not to like?

Like it or loathe it, Resistance was the first of the big success stories of the wave of new franchises Sony created for the PS3 and even though it hasn't exactly had the smoothest ride of it, the series has been consistently enjoyable enough up to now and this third and possibly final game in the 'main' series at least doesn't break that consistency thankfully.

Putting you in the boots of Joseph Capelli, one of prior protagonist Nathan Hale's squad mates in the previous game, Resistance 3 kicks off a few years after the end of Resistance 2, with the Chimera having wiped out 90 percent of the human race and having begun terraforming the planet with giant flying laser cannon looking things. Joseph and his wife and son are holed up underground beneath a ravaged small town with a small community of survivors living in constant fear of discovery by the Chimera... which is obviously something that happens pretty quickly when old scientist Malikov from R2 wanders into town to beg Joseph for help to destroy the enormous portal in the sky that appeared at the end of R2 as he's discovered that if it isn't destroyed within a few days, the rest of humanity is going to die. So Joseph and Malikov head off on a road trip across the ruined United States with the Chimera base in New York their destination, trying to survive the legions of Chimera that are between tham and their goal. The story takes a very different approach to the previous games, in that it's no longer about mankind taking on an alien invasion (as mankind has pretty much been beaten already), but about a desperate man on a suicide mission because he can't see any other action to take. The game does a tremendous job of creating an atmosphere of really being alone in the fight. In the first two games there were always other soldiers or assistance of some sort around to help Hale out, but here Joseph is alone for the majority of the game, with only rare instances of assistance in battle. There are sequences where the feeling of desperation and tension is played up to perfectly, where Joseph will end having to do stuff like singlehandedly hold off a small army of Chimera that feels so much more overwhelming than most games have managed with similar situations. A midway sequence where you're having to move through a mountain forest undetected as a patrol ship spotlight scans the area and invisible snipers stand guard on the higher ground is an excellently tense set piece. The story and atmosphere really are top notch here, surpassing the previous games in every way that it can on this front.

The gameplay is largely more or less the same as Resistance 2, just with more refined weapons and controls and considerably more polish in it's design. The first thing I noticed about the game was that it it was using a health bar that can only be replenished by collecting "med kits" of a sort, which I don't need to tell you is pretty outdated FPS design to use. You can unlock the option to use a regenerative health system (Like every other FPS does nowadays) after completing the game, but come on... why not give the option from the start? Beyond this though, the game is pretty great to play with the superb weapon design once again the star of the show that sets things apart from the other shooters out there. Most of the weapons are the same as the first two games, but they've all gotten tweaks or overhauls in how they work, from minor changes like the look and movement of the Bullseye rounds to complete redesigns like the Deadeye, which no longer allows you to slow time while aiming, but now instead can fire high powered, chargeable, precision energy blasts. I only spotted a handful of new weapons thrown in, with one gun you get later in the game that fires blobs that causes enemies to develop explosive tumours being pretty hilarious to see in action. The large scale, OTT boss fights of Resistance 2 have been toned down a bit here as well, though there are still some major bosses to be had of course but most of the decisive battles in R3 are more of the 'defend tenuous position from overwhelming enemy numbers' variety... which works in the game's favour I think, as having a boss battle like that one with the Godzilla sized chimera in R2 in this game would have felt out of place given the story and tone of the game. Beyond that, there isn't really a whole lot else I can tell you. If you've played a Resistance game before you'll be in mostly familiar territory with how the game plays and if you haven't played a Resistance game before... well... I can't imagine why you'd want to play R3 really. If you aren't a fan already this will probably do little to change your mind about the series. Oh, and as for the multiplayer... while the co-op works well I didn't really feel any compulsion to spend much time in the competitive multiplayer mode. It's competent and all (Despite needing a 600mb patch to be downloaded already), but nothing special by any means.

Graphically the game is a pretty significant step up from R2. It's not exactly on the same level as Killzone 3, but the texture work is much more consistent and detailed than R2, the lighting effects, animation and physics are much better looking and the performance is more solid than what's gone before it. It's a much better game on this front than it's predecessor, but I gotta say that at times the picture did have a slightly 'murky' or blurry tint to it (Doubtless a result of the game's sub-HD native resolution) that was fairly noticeable in places. The music and voice work are rock solid across the board also. Technically it's a very solid game.

Resistance 3 is a title that few will remember years from now, but it is highly enjoyable to play and unlike most shooters around nowadays has a bit of real imagination in it's design, even if certain aspects like the multiplayer feel a bit too run of the mill. If you're not already a fan it won't turn you around and if you go into this expecting something mind blowing then you're going to be disappointed but if you want a genuinely fun sci shooter that'll last you a while if you want it to then believe me... you could do far far worse than Resistance 3.

What fantastic news that Resistance 3 has split-screen, offline co-op mode.

It was great fun to play the whole Resistance: Fall of Man campaign in split-scren mode and really disappointing to discover that its brilliant 2008 sequel Resistance 2 had only the single-player campaign mode.

If you love playing split-screen co-op shooters then make your views known by clicking the little Yes button next to this review.

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with online multiplayer modes and online co-op, but many developers are failing to include offline co-op modes these days. Those of us who love split-screen gaming need to make our voices heard or we might lose the fun of playing split-screen forever.