[HEADING=2]It's About Time! reviews by a Stranger[/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]Resistance: Fall of Man[/HEADING]
It's odd that as I find myself attacked from all sides by what appears to be every person on the planet for bad reviewing (don't leave just yet), I find myself reviewing another game in order to relax myself. This review though, will be a lot better; well I hope so as I plan to spend a hell of a lot more time doing it. Although I will not stoop down to omitting these opening paragraphs as while they have been criticised for being completely irrelevant, I rather enjoy writing them as it gets me in the mood for doing these and I like to think that it relaxes the reader (that's you!). Well I hope anyway.
Resistance: Fall of Man was one of a handful of titles to be released alongside the PS3's launch and puts the player in an alternative-history in 1951 where a possibly alien race called the Chimera appeared in Russia and have already taken over the whole of Asia and Europe, excluding Britain. It was the first game on the PS3 to sell over one million copies and has been met with generally sound scores (86 on Metacritic although, confusingly, 6/10 in the official Playstation magazine). It was developed by Insomniac, a studio most famous for their work on Ratchet and Clank.
After a brief synopsis of events you are introduced to the new protagonist in the franchise, Nathan Hale. As Sony's answer to Master Chief, he's a man with no back story, no wife back in America or anything, he's just a sergeant in the army sent to England in a 12,000 man taskforce to retrieve a weapon that could defeat the Chimera. What elevates him to super-soldier status is rather more interesting though, his entire company falls on the bad side of a spire attack and are all infected with a virus that will slowly turn them into Chimera. Hale, however, wakes up. He finds that he can now take a lot more bullets and his irises have turned yellow, amongst other things.
This story is all very well, but it takes the backseat in this game to the atmosphere, Resistance is a first person shooter with horror elements, these elements come in the form of the player constantly being put at ill ease, the best examples of this are the levels in the Chimeran conversion centre where you see the process that turns a human into a Chimera and also the tunnel levels where it is just you wandering through an underground tunnel system, crosshair darting around as you inspect every crevice for an enemy. These are done extremely well, so well in fact that on my first playthrough I put down the controller and didn't return until 3 days and one "man up" session later. The atmosphere is what prevents the game from sinking into the swamp of generic FPSs that are churned out constantly nowadays.
Now I'm not an expert in this field, but you might want to think about shooting some time soon...
The gameplay itself is also well done, guns shoot where you point them and the recoil is present but not unbearable. There are a wide variety of weapons to choose from and all of them are completely unique and extremely imaginative, this points to the developers work with Ratchet and Clank as insane weapons were prevalent in that game as well. You begin with a simple assault rifle but soon you will acquire guns which shoot through walls or even slow down time. This variety enables a host of different play styles so although the game may be incredibly linear, you can play each level a different way. The different grenades are also worth a mention, the Chimeran hedgehog grenades fire razor sharp spikes in every direction and there are even Halo-style grenades that create a spherical shield that you can cower in. However, even with this huge variety of lethal things at your disposal, some of the enemies do take more bullets (/lazer beams) than your garden tank and it can be very frustrating when you unload a slug into a standard Chimera only to see it walk through the blast and hit you round the face with its gun.
Resistance mixes up the different ideas for health in FPS games into a health bar that is split up into four sections, if you hide behind cover you will only be able to refill the section that you are currently in. You will need to pick up sym-bacs (health packs) to replenish your health further. Personally, I applaud this system, it doesn't endorse cowering behind walls to magically regrow limbs but it also means that you are never stuck with one percent of your health before the next encounter. I'm very surprised that no other game seems to have adopted this and I'm especially shocked that they dropped it in favour of the "wait a while before magically healing" system in Resistance 2.
The locations in this game are pretty varied, they range from cities to the countryside and then to Chimeran structures, however they are made very similar due to the green/brown type of graphics that FPSs are ever so fond of. It makes some locations feel the same and doesn't give the impression that you move around all that much during the story. It is charming however as a Brit to fend off the invasion in Manchester Cathedral or in Grimsby, especially as there are a noticeable lack of games set in Britain.
There are a large range of enemies that you will have to pleasure of taking a gun to. The most common are the hybrids, they closely resemble the human form and still use guns as their preferred method of attack, although they do have some very frightening teeth on them. Other enemies include the insect-like Crawlers that attack in giant swarms and the mystical Angels, huge, elegant, levitating monsters that control the other Chimera via. their minds. As the narrator tells you "Kill the angels and you kill the Chimera".
Now being that this game is set in England, you can expect a wide array of terrible English accents and stereotypical language. The narrator may as well be so well-spoken and up herself that she is honourably accepted into the royal family, similarly the shouts of "Bloody Hell!" should be replaced by ones of "Fookin' 'eck, y' see tha'?". Granted this does not have too much of an effect as your fellow soldiers are usually killed off fairly quickly but it is still irksome.
When the game was first released, the graphics were amazing. Although most surfaces are covered with a film of brown and green they still look very nice and everything (especially the Chimera) is incredibly detailed. Today, the graphics hold up fairly well but it is not nearly bright or colourful enough to be considered pretty nowadays. They did up the ante in Resistance 2 as that game was fucking gorgeous but that is a review for another day.
If you handed me Resistance and told me that it was a mash up of a horror game and a FPS I would hand it right back to you, but now I have to say that it fully satisfies both departments. Though the game is not perfect it is definitely up there and is a nice change from the stamped-out FPSs that we are bombarded with these days; with the variety of guns and enemies, the great health system and a lack of bullshit motivation apart from "just do it!". It's refreshing.
Feedback and all that jazz is welcome
It's odd that as I find myself attacked from all sides by what appears to be every person on the planet for bad reviewing (don't leave just yet), I find myself reviewing another game in order to relax myself. This review though, will be a lot better; well I hope so as I plan to spend a hell of a lot more time doing it. Although I will not stoop down to omitting these opening paragraphs as while they have been criticised for being completely irrelevant, I rather enjoy writing them as it gets me in the mood for doing these and I like to think that it relaxes the reader (that's you!). Well I hope anyway.
Resistance: Fall of Man was one of a handful of titles to be released alongside the PS3's launch and puts the player in an alternative-history in 1951 where a possibly alien race called the Chimera appeared in Russia and have already taken over the whole of Asia and Europe, excluding Britain. It was the first game on the PS3 to sell over one million copies and has been met with generally sound scores (86 on Metacritic although, confusingly, 6/10 in the official Playstation magazine). It was developed by Insomniac, a studio most famous for their work on Ratchet and Clank.
After a brief synopsis of events you are introduced to the new protagonist in the franchise, Nathan Hale. As Sony's answer to Master Chief, he's a man with no back story, no wife back in America or anything, he's just a sergeant in the army sent to England in a 12,000 man taskforce to retrieve a weapon that could defeat the Chimera. What elevates him to super-soldier status is rather more interesting though, his entire company falls on the bad side of a spire attack and are all infected with a virus that will slowly turn them into Chimera. Hale, however, wakes up. He finds that he can now take a lot more bullets and his irises have turned yellow, amongst other things.
This story is all very well, but it takes the backseat in this game to the atmosphere, Resistance is a first person shooter with horror elements, these elements come in the form of the player constantly being put at ill ease, the best examples of this are the levels in the Chimeran conversion centre where you see the process that turns a human into a Chimera and also the tunnel levels where it is just you wandering through an underground tunnel system, crosshair darting around as you inspect every crevice for an enemy. These are done extremely well, so well in fact that on my first playthrough I put down the controller and didn't return until 3 days and one "man up" session later. The atmosphere is what prevents the game from sinking into the swamp of generic FPSs that are churned out constantly nowadays.
Now I'm not an expert in this field, but you might want to think about shooting some time soon...
The gameplay itself is also well done, guns shoot where you point them and the recoil is present but not unbearable. There are a wide variety of weapons to choose from and all of them are completely unique and extremely imaginative, this points to the developers work with Ratchet and Clank as insane weapons were prevalent in that game as well. You begin with a simple assault rifle but soon you will acquire guns which shoot through walls or even slow down time. This variety enables a host of different play styles so although the game may be incredibly linear, you can play each level a different way. The different grenades are also worth a mention, the Chimeran hedgehog grenades fire razor sharp spikes in every direction and there are even Halo-style grenades that create a spherical shield that you can cower in. However, even with this huge variety of lethal things at your disposal, some of the enemies do take more bullets (/lazer beams) than your garden tank and it can be very frustrating when you unload a slug into a standard Chimera only to see it walk through the blast and hit you round the face with its gun.
Resistance mixes up the different ideas for health in FPS games into a health bar that is split up into four sections, if you hide behind cover you will only be able to refill the section that you are currently in. You will need to pick up sym-bacs (health packs) to replenish your health further. Personally, I applaud this system, it doesn't endorse cowering behind walls to magically regrow limbs but it also means that you are never stuck with one percent of your health before the next encounter. I'm very surprised that no other game seems to have adopted this and I'm especially shocked that they dropped it in favour of the "wait a while before magically healing" system in Resistance 2.
The locations in this game are pretty varied, they range from cities to the countryside and then to Chimeran structures, however they are made very similar due to the green/brown type of graphics that FPSs are ever so fond of. It makes some locations feel the same and doesn't give the impression that you move around all that much during the story. It is charming however as a Brit to fend off the invasion in Manchester Cathedral or in Grimsby, especially as there are a noticeable lack of games set in Britain.
*Yawns* Ahh I'm tired
There are a large range of enemies that you will have to pleasure of taking a gun to. The most common are the hybrids, they closely resemble the human form and still use guns as their preferred method of attack, although they do have some very frightening teeth on them. Other enemies include the insect-like Crawlers that attack in giant swarms and the mystical Angels, huge, elegant, levitating monsters that control the other Chimera via. their minds. As the narrator tells you "Kill the angels and you kill the Chimera".
Now being that this game is set in England, you can expect a wide array of terrible English accents and stereotypical language. The narrator may as well be so well-spoken and up herself that she is honourably accepted into the royal family, similarly the shouts of "Bloody Hell!" should be replaced by ones of "Fookin' 'eck, y' see tha'?". Granted this does not have too much of an effect as your fellow soldiers are usually killed off fairly quickly but it is still irksome.
When the game was first released, the graphics were amazing. Although most surfaces are covered with a film of brown and green they still look very nice and everything (especially the Chimera) is incredibly detailed. Today, the graphics hold up fairly well but it is not nearly bright or colourful enough to be considered pretty nowadays. They did up the ante in Resistance 2 as that game was fucking gorgeous but that is a review for another day.
If you handed me Resistance and told me that it was a mash up of a horror game and a FPS I would hand it right back to you, but now I have to say that it fully satisfies both departments. Though the game is not perfect it is definitely up there and is a nice change from the stamped-out FPSs that we are bombarded with these days; with the variety of guns and enemies, the great health system and a lack of bullshit motivation apart from "just do it!". It's refreshing.
Yes out of 10! My highest score yet.
It's About Time! Final Fantasy XII [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.188075-Poll-Its-About-Time-Final-Fantasy-XII] Fallout 3 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.186956-Its-About-Time-Fallout-3-version-1-2] Dragon Age: Origins [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.185708-Its-About-Time-Dragon-Age-Origins] Little Big Planet [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.184065-Its-About-Time-Little-Big-Planet]
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Movies 2001: A Space Odyssey [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.179870-2001-A-Space-Odyssey-A-Strangers-verdict]
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Feedback and all that jazz is welcome