Resistance: Fall Of Man

by Tom - 2007/08/17 3:35am

Finally, with the release of the PS3 comes Sony’s headliner title, Resistance: Fall Of Man. This is the title that Sony hopes to take the first steps into taking the PS3 where the PS2 had been for so long, one step ahead of the next big console. The title is solid in many ways, has its own little quirks, and also in many ways, the game is a cross between Medal Of Honor: Frontline and Halo.

You take control of Sergeant Hale of the United States army, coming overseas to fight off an invasion by an alien race called the Chimera. You land in England and are infected with the Chimera virus during an offensive, which is how the Chimera multiply; however, unlike everyone else who goes into a coma after being infected, you wake up and find you have Chimera like abilities. From there you join the British assault against the Chimera to stop them from further invading England. The way the plot progresses is much like many other FPSs though, eradicate an area of enemies, get to the finish, and move on. Here and there you have to blow up a few things before you move on to the next area, but other than that it’s pretty straight forward.

The arsenal you get your hands on is quite nice. From normal automatic rifles to standard Chimera weaponry, to more bizarre tools for you to use to slaughter your opponents, the arsenal isn’t without its standards despite the range you get. As afore mentioned, you have your standard assault rifle, and get shotguns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers; you also get your not so standard Hedgehog grenade, Auger radiation rifle, and dual-wield weapons. So your choices are quite diverse.



As far as graphics go, they’re much like any other launch title. They don’t quite take advantage of the PS3’s full power, but at the same time, they could easily bury the best that the PS2’s graphics engine could push out. They’re not eye popping, but there aren’t any blotches or quirky color problems after the scene loads, lag and bog downs aren’t an issue, and glitches in the scenery minimal at the very best.

The game isn’t without its faults. The enemy AI doesn’t exactly live up to that of a race that’s supposed to be able to wipe out the entire human race. They tend to use a tactic of sheer number and firepower than a tactic of strategy... actually they don’t seem to use any sort of tactical strategy at all, except for maybe a flanking maneuver every now and again. Other than that, much of anything else you can find are minor grievances.

The online gameplay isn’t too bad either. Like the single-player mode, it takes a bit of Halo and a bit of Medal Of Honor: Frontline, and smashes them together. The match types can be a mixture of Human vs Chimera, Human vs Human, or Chimera vs Chimera. The Chimera have an interesting ability that can be activated that allows them to see other entities through walls via a purple aura, and they can run faster for short periods of time, all of this, though, causes the Chimera to heat up, and once you get too hot you start to take damage. Humans are fairly typical, they can run for any length of time and they have a radar system instead of the odd sort of X-ray vision the Chimera have. The online map sizes range from fairly small to decently large sizes, supporting pretty much any number of players from two to 40. You can customize your own character to an extent depending on your rank. The problem there is, once you get to that rank you have to keep playing, or you fall behind in rank from other people who play and you lose your costume bonuses. After a while though, the constant use of rocket launchers and one hit kill weapons gets tedious and those who are new to the game will find themselves being killed by other players… a lot. So after a while the online version loses its charm.



But for some reason, the single-player mode has a way of sucking you back in to have just one more go, there’s something slightly addicting about the game, but it’s not entirely relevant why. For a launch title this is the best that Sony had to offer, and it’s not too shabby.