Looking back on Resistance 2

Resistance 2 was released in 2008 and was the follow up to the widely successful PS3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man. I believe this game is one of Insomniac's best games ever developed and one of Sony's most content filled published games ever.

Not only did Resistance 2 have a single player campaign it also featured multiplayer in two variations. Both multiplayer modes track the player's performance, gaining experience and leading to benefits and rewards, as well as assigning the player a skill ranking.

Cooperative mode features a separate campaign supporting anything from two to eight players. Players are tasked with many randomized objectives around the map, while defeating hordes of Chimera in the process. The strength of the enemy forces is altered based on the number of players and their skill levels. There are three classes to choose from: Special Ops — long-distance damage dealers, who also provide ammunition; Soldiers — the "tanks" who endure the most damage; and Medics — who drain life from enemies and impart to teammates.

Competitive mode features support for up to 60 players during the Skirmish mode; this is the most number of players in pretty much any PS3 game (excluding MAG) and ran at 60 FPS. Five games modes are available: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Core Control (Capture the Flag), Skirmish, and released via update, Meltdown. Skirmish has players getting split up into squads of five and take part in objective-based proxy-battles. Players can play as either the Humans or the Chimerans and get to choose their weapon loadout before and during a game while respawning.

I guess my point is- it's wild to think a game like this game out on PS3 and offers arguably more content, more replay value, and more multiplayer fun than the majority of PS4 exclusives in the last 7 years. It was basically 3 games in one for the cost of $60- PLUS the online functionality was FREE. How times have changed.

I hope for PS5 Sony goes back to this- now, of course I love their great single player games that are full of content (like Horizon and God of War) and enjoy their current MP offerings (Last of Us Remastered, Uncharted 4) but would love to see them bring back this type of support.

The first 2 were alright, but 3 was really good... aside from having to play it on console at 30fps of course. ;)

Played all three and simply found them to be average games myself.

R3 was definitely above average. It was a well crafted game similar to HL2. It is my favourite game from Insomniac and probably the best console exclusive FPS I have played.

@BassMan: I just never really got anything special out of them myself. I would say that the third one was the best of the bunch though.

I hope so. Resistance, Motorstorm, Socom, Warhawk, Twisted Metal.... lots of good fun with those titles for online gaming.

@BassMan: 3 is my personal favorite. Definitely best campaign. However, as a whole package, I think the winner is R2 based on the amount of content it offered.

I see where you are coming from. I don't like to play FPS on console though (shit compared to PC), especially MP. So, I just judge the games solely on their campaigns and we are in agreement that 3 has the best campaign. :)

What's the framerate on the PC version? ;)

Shit like the PS3 version....

@BassMan: Sorry that PC is shit like consoles. ;)

Resistance FoM was the best one. I didn’t care for the sequels.

I came to appreciate the Resistance series over the years.

Most shooters of that generation featured fairly repetitive encounters, failing to use their full roster of enemy types and weaponry.

Resistance was constantly forcing you into different gameplay styles with a great arsenal of weapons. Defensive, aggressive, strafing and backpedaling in order to deal with the current setup.

In many ways R2 is the best example of this. Getting rid of the weapon wheel allows the player to make use of power weapons from the start. Which in turn allows for a greater variety of enemies from the start. It's just more engaging and more difficult than most shooters last gen.

Mix in a great alternate reality 1940's setting and some great locations... yeah, I'd say it was a legitimately good game.

Its only sony series i want to play.

Killzone>Resistance.

Only played the third one as I got it along with my PS3, and found it pretty bad to be honest... however in general I do hate playing shooters of any kind on console, so might be a bit biased!

Loved Resistance 1&3, but the second game felt like a huge step back for me:

-Instead of health packs the game now had regenerating health (to try and be like COD)
-Instead of a weapon wheel with many interesting guns, you now had a limit of two guns (to try and be like COD)

2008 was a time where every game tried to be like COD, and it was a dark period in FPS. Because games lacked any sort of creativity, and I really liked Resistance for its creativity.

The multiplayer of Resistance 2, on the other hand, was nothing like COD. And I freaking loved it.

Agreed with Ragnarok. 2 felt extremely scripted compared to the first one. Plus I really like controlling the tank and stalker.

1st one has by far my favorite campaign.

The only thing I like about 3 are the upgrades, otherwise the campaign is meh. Also think it performed the worse out of the 3.

As for multiplayer, I never really liked the co-op in 2, the competitive was fine. Didn't really play 1 or 3 online.

You're not missing anything.

Meh, I think I only played the 2nd one and found it mediocre as hell.

I will say this however. I actually like Resistance: Retribution PSP and for it's time, was an excellent game and still holds up today as one of the best TPS's for the PSP.

PSP Forever!!!

I played the first, thought it seemed rather rushed in its completion, I felt confident sequel would be better so I gave it a shot, but I got so bored I didn't bother to finish it. Never bothered with the third. Only played the SP campaign never bothered with online MP.

The first one was way too long for it's own good, second one was okay I guess. Too bad I never played the third one, still have a PS3, but the visuals are going to look abysmal at this point.

I only made it three levels into the campaign before giving up. Just didn’t strike a chord with me. And since I didn’t play it until a year or so after its release, I didn’t bother with the MP.

R3, meanwhile, was great and the first iteration where Resistance finally seemed to find its identity rather than play copycat to other, better games.

Resistance 2 is fucking terrible, including the multiplayer. Weak game feel, regen health with ADS shooting, enemies having fast ass hit scan attacks and being massive sponges, a more limited weapon pool

Both the first 2 resistance games are rubbish tho, the third game was the first good game they got out of that series, but naturally is the one that sold the least. smh.

The weapons,8 players co-op was a blast.

Resistance 2 multiplayer was amazing back then. I loved the co-op.

I loved the first Resistance, IMO the best campaign of the series. It was a blast to play with a unique and fun variety of weapons.

Resistance 2 had potential, but it felt like it needed more time as it had some bugs and other issues (at least in the campaign), I also feel like they tried to hard to mix CoD and Gears of War into the game. Still fun, but it could,have been better.

3 was the weakest IMO. Not sure why it gets all the praise and even gets compared to HL2...?!? Its not a bad game, but has a much slower pace and jist not as fun IMO.

I'd like to see Sony with a badass FPS. TPS is getting tiresome.

not really, resistance 3 definitely to me looks like best sony game.

having far more gameplay than any of sony games that are mostly cinematic movie games.

Gggmanlives is almost more of a casual than ghost, almost.

Yeah I played R2 for a bit.

I remember liking the weird co-op multiplayer.

I don't really remember much else. The enemies were bullet sponges.

Resistance 3 was the best for the single player perspective.

But I played so much of that co-op mode in Resistance 2. Playing the commando with the bubble shield and holding the front line was really fun. Had a nice lil upgarde path for each class and everyone seemed to work together nicely with lil or no mic communications.

I remember thinking how good the weapons in this series were. The alternate fire feature of each weapon was a nice touch and made this a bit more memorable than the average shooters out there. The puke gun was real fun!

3 had a lot of mini-boss skirmishes that involved squads and made you feel part of an actual resistance than just 1 hero going on a rampage.

I want new games in those 4 for sure.

They all don't need to be AAA big budget games either. Give me a solid AA experience that tries something new.

Except for Socom. Just Remake Socom 2 for PS5

@Star67: I think SOCOM is coming back there’s rumors of a reboot for PS5. Possibly BluePoint Games.

Insomniac has been posting a lot of Resistance content on their social media, wont be surprised to see a PS5 announcement this year.

It was alright, but each one was a missed opportunity for one reason or another.

It was a weird series in that it didn't really seem too build from one to the next. I mean the story I guess (mostly?) carried over. But more in terms of the feel of the game, the online especially felt like 3 totally different games.

None of them were "bad", but this franchise never hit the technical level that Killzone did. People did play that 8 player co-op for whatever reason - that mode seemed to have the most staying power (whereas R3 multiplayer died almost immediately, and the R2 standard multiplayer was pretty dead - whereas the co-op kept going awhile longer), I found it boring after a few runs.

Average series, but I agree about the value. So much better back then than it is now.

Had it been released today, you'd pay 60 bucks for around 40% of the game, and the other 60% you'd have to purchase separately, all for a measly 375 bucks.

@jcrame10: I keep hearing it's coming back....we will see.

I'd be happy with a Socom 1-3 Remake to be honest. With a Multiplayer mode that has maps from all 3.

I can only dream