Continuing with their triple A title release a year, Insomniac dropped Resistance 2 last Tuesday into grubby, cheetos stained, gamer hands. Resistance 2 picks up the story literally where Resistance: Fall of Man left off.

There are some big differences between Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2. The chimera no longer need processing plants for human bodies, they simply gestate in a cocoon.  Even the weapons that carried over from the previous title have undergone some changes. The machine gun, which was your mainstay through out most of the first title has been powered down to almost useless, as even the lowly chimera need more than a single clip worth of shells to take down. The bullseye which was a decent alternative to the machine gun in the first game, is woefully inaccurate without it’s alt fire mode being used first. The auger is much improved, no longer do you shoot blindly through the wall as it now offers the ability to actually see those enemies. The offices favorite weapon is the .44 which now has an explosive round as it’s alt fire mode. Why they wouldn’t ad this tech to the machine gun is a mystery. You can check out the wiki for a full write up of the games features.

There are good and bad points in resistance. Some are forgivable depending on how picky of a gamer you are and other are less easy to ignore. Insomniac has added a few RPG elements to Resistance and depending on how your tastes lean in that genre these feature may please or aggravate you.

Physics:10/10

Everything in this game blows up, falls, flies through the air, and bounce off each other with realism. All attempts to get this game to glitch the main character through the floor or high into the air have met with failure. Insomniac has made sure the colossal enemies move through the environment convincingly, not bumping into things in odd ways that would normally cause severe damage.

Graphics: 10/10

By far the standout point of this game. As soon as you hit the title screen the graphics quality jumps out at you. Usually it is an automatic 9 in this category for a game not rendered in 1080p. However Resistance 2 gets a bi for the amount of content on the screen at once. Most titles are very wary about having too much on the screen at once. Resistance 2 has no problems running buttery smooth with 20 enemies and 16 allies on the screen, and unlike GTA IV and Dead Rising the high number of models does not result in blocky looking characters.

Controls: 9/10

The controls of this game are tight and responsive. However, and this seems to be a growing trend, some of the buttons are mapped poorly. Crouching and running are mapped to the same control. On an analog button this sometime registers differences in button pressure as commands to crouch. Ending a sprint in a crouch is a common occurrence, as is the game mistaking a command for a short sprint to a downed player as a crouch press and not a short hold. Another area where the poor mapping creeps in is the alt weapon/ revive downed comrade control. Unless you are careful, which is hard to do in the heat of battle, about where you stand to revive a fellow player you may find yourself pointing your shot gun at enemies 200 yards down range. Simply switching these buttons so that mistaken revives end up as crouches and mistaken runs switch weapons would have been a far better choice.

Sound: 9/10

Most of the sound  in this game is right on. The explosions are crisp and clean, as are weapon retorts and the monster roars. The issue with sound in Resistance 2 stems from Insomniac’s choice of story telling. The characters often talk through radio, even if standing 2 feet from each other. Often times low levels of back ground noise combine with the radio distortion to make the conversation unintelligible. The ride down the elevator while rescuing the doctor stands out as the best example of this. Nathan Hale has also been given a rather bland and cliche “tough as nails” soldier voice.

A.I. 9/10

The A.I. in resistance is better than most FPS. Not only will the enemy fall back for cover or try to out flank you, they will work together. Smaller enemies will hide behind the shields of larger ones as cover and if enough of the enemy exists they will charge your position enmass. Some of the bigger enemies in Co-op though are dumb as stones. They are perfectly happy walking in circles doing nothing but soaking up damage.

Story: 7/10

This is by far the worst aspect of the game. When word hit of the 60 player online, seperate co-op story line, and single player story, Insomnia gave the impression that they were releasing a title on par with Orange Box in terms of value. Nope. Turns out they sacrificed a lot of the single player to spend time on the other things. The story takes all the unknown elements about the chimera from the first game and makes them cliche.  The Chimera lived in the ground before man was here ala: War of the Worlds. Mans experimentation on the chimera has lead to his down fall, “grey tech”, etc, etc. The story falls flat in co-op as well. It has been reduced to command telling you where your next way point is and giving you a few lines of fluff text to fill the gaps between the mobs of enemies you must face. The choice to tell the story through Nathan Hale may have won out in a focus group somewhere, but that choice definitely removes the mystery and allure of the first games story telling.

Gameplay: 8/10

Another contentious point of the game. What Resistance 2 does, it does well, but it does a lot less than the first title in the series. Resistance 2 is more heavily scripted than the first title and there is a lot of learn by dieing. This stands out nowhere clearer than the woods ambush stage. Kill this guy. Then quickly grenade this group, but hurry because another chimera is about to round the corner. Even the Co-op mode is little more than traveling to a series of points and killing the hoard of enemies that attacks you. This has to be the first FPS that makes you level grind in order to be a more effective player. Gone are the vehicle levels. No more jeeps, tanks, walkers to pilot around, nothing to break up the monotony of the running and gunning. The huge 60 player maps beg for land, sea, air options ala Warhawk but alas it’s all ground based infantry.

Online: 10/10

Despite the limited play styles of the game the 8 player co-op and huge online battles are the most interesting aspect of the game. The quality of the online experience makes you wonder why they even bothered with the single player. It would have been just as simple to remove all the teammates in the single player mission with those of real life people. Getting into games is as easy or as hard as you want it to be. You can simply click the “Play” button or round up a bunch of people from your XMB into a party for a night of fun.

Environment: 8/10

The 50’s area is there alive and well.  ‘57 chevy replicas, neon signs, and  art deco styling. There are some mood breaking elements of the game, though. Digital camo, computers, and 21st century design pops up, particularly when it comes to the sentinels. Yes it is just a game but it pulls you out of the story to see technology that took 60 years to develop in that era.  It took us almost all of WW2 to come up with a fighter superior to Hitlers.

Conclusion:

Resistance is a good game. It does the franchise justice and is the best FPS released on the PS3 this fall, unless you want to include Fallout 3. It does have issues though. You have to level grind in order to be a more effective player. You also have to spend grey tech, which is pointless when you only have one thing to buy at any given level, and you get enough grey tech to be able to buy everything as it becomes available. Despite this, Resistance 2  offers up enough classic FPS goodness to whet anyones appetite and the single player does a decent job of moving the Resistance story forward even though it is only 9 hours long.

You can also check out the HornyMelon.com LBP review of Resistance 2 by doing a search for “HornyMelon.com LBP Review: Resistance 2″ See if you have what it takes to defeat the Leviathan LBP style.