Resistance 3 finally realizes the series' potential and easily tops the first two games.
A large part of Resistance 3's success on the story side of things can be attributed to its new protagonist. The ending of Resistance 2 saw the demise of the series' former stalwart hero, Nathan Hale. Infected by the Chimera virus, Hale had to be put down when he finally turned into "one of them." I was admittedly happy to see him go-he was about the most lifeless hero I'd ever been forced to assume the mantle of. The man who pulled the trigger (and subsequently became my favorite character in R2) was one Joseph Capelli, an insubordinate underling of Hale's whose open dislike for his commander came through loud and clear over the course of the game. Capelli returns as the player character in Resistance 3, and you'll spend the entire campaign guiding him through various horrific encounters with the Chimera.
Capelli is a far more interesting and believable player than the overly manly, irritatingly heroic Hale. He actually manages to come across as real human being, and I wound up liking him quite a bit by the end of the game. Hale was a crusading hero with an apparent messianic complex, but Capelli is a flawed and regretful man whose melancholy and depression is mirrored by the desolate, hopeless world around him. He spends much of Resistance 3 thinking of his family and clutching a tiny mitten belonging to the child he has to leave behind in the game's opening scenes-a rare but refreshing display of weakness in a genre that is usually overbearingly macho and gung-ho. Capelli's believability and genuine ability to elicit sympathy and even empathy from the player yanks Resistance 3 out of the standard bog of boring Captain America stories and adds more to the story experience than any other single change possibly could have.
Resistance 3's strong main character is complimented by a radical shift in tone for the series. While Resistance 2 embodied a gag-worthy hoorah, guns blazing, we-can-win hopefulness, Resistance 3 takes a far darker approach. The resistance to the Chimera invasion is not going well and the organized human forces have all but fallen to pieces, leaving only small pockets of independent survivors who are far more concerned with staying alive than defeating their alien foes. Chimeran death squads stalk the land, hunting for any remnants of humanity that could take up arms against them, and small enclaves of humanity spend their waking moments desperately clinging to the few resources they have left. All of this comes together to create an experience that is oppressively hopeless from start to finish, and the game does a fantastic job of making you feel like you are fighting a losing battle. In fact, there are even a couple of scenes in which you actually do lose and have to be rescued-not exactly standard fare for the genre. Capelli's main objective-close the wormhole over New York city- essentially amounts to a suicide mission, and most of the campaign involves him watching his (and others') various plans fall apart in one way or another as he makes his way across the heartland of the United States. It's not at all clear that he is going to succeed in his endeavors for most of the game, and even up until the very last level Resistance 3 will have you wondering if you're actually going to be able to pull the whole thing off.
The campaign is a wild ride while it lasts, but sadly it doesn't last very long at all. I finished the story on casual in just under six hours, so even if you add in a couple of extra hours for the higher difficulty levels Resistance 3 is not a very long game. The story makes excellent use of its time, though, and I actually played through the entire thing without even realizing it in a single sitting-a true rarity for me. Constant assaults by Chimeran troops, well-placed, varied on-rails shooting sections, massively intimidating boss battles, and a few refreshingly light stealth missions manage to keep the excitement level high for the entire length of the story. Interspersed throughout the experience are the enormous, scripted set-piece moments that the series (and the genre) is known for, and they most certainly don't disappoint. Highlights include being hunted by a group of Goliaths while sailing down the Mississippi River, battling an awfully ugly creature called "Satan" in the mines beneath an old church, and a couple of pitched battles with massive widowmakers. Lest you think that all of that sounds a bit standard and predictable, Resistance 3 boasts some of the best pacing I've seen in the shoot 'em up FPS genre for quite some time; I never felt bored with overly frequent slow sections or overstimulated by constant gun battles and massive set-pieces. Add in the fact that the game's entire campaign is playable in co-op with one other person and you've got a pretty strong campaign on your hands despite its brevity.
Resistance 3 also benefits from a slick persistent weapon upgrade system that can really help extend your time with the relatively short story mode. Causing damage with a weapon fills up what amounts to a level-up meter, and when the meter is full the weapon will automatically upgrade itself right then and there on the battlefield. These upgrades can be as simple as attaching a scope or increasing damage, but there are also some really nifty enhancements such as an ability to fire flaming buckshot from the Rossmore shotgun. There are 12 weapons in the game, and each one feels unique and fun in its own way. You can also carry all of them at any given time thanks to the fact that Insomniac eliminated the irritating two weapon system from Resistance 2, so you'll never really run out of new ways to rain death on the Chimera. Each weapon has three different upgrade levels, and your progress with each carries over into every playthrough you do of the campaign in both single player or co-op-a good thing since it is impossible to level all of them all the way up in a single run. It's really just a new game plus mechanic if you want to get cynical about it, but its implementation in a shooter of this type is brilliant in my book and really enhances the value of an already stellar if short campaign mode.
The graphics in Resistance 3 don't disappoint, either. Some character models look a bit jagged (especially in multiplayer), a few animations are stiffer than I'd like to see, and you may encounter a few very rare instances of muddy texture work, but the game as a whole comes off looking fantastic. Enemy models look suitably disgusting and things generally blow up nicely when you expect them to. The lighting is top notch and it's used to enhance some interesting environmental design that is actually very reminiscent of Half-Life 2. One area in particular brought back memories of a certain dark, creepy town from that fabled title. To top it all off, Resistance 3 may very well sport the best snow and rain I've ever seen in a shooter, even rivaling the awesome weather effects in graphical powerhouse (and personal favorite) Killzone 3. Snow and dust swirl around you believably, rain drips down the camera as you charge through a torrential downpour, and the game's wet surface textures are impressively lifelike. I could go on and on about how stunning the game's weather effects are, but I'll save us some time and put it to you this way: I'll never again be able to look at rain and snow in games the same way after playing Resistance 3.
Resistance 3's sound work is also quite good, though it can't quite live up to the high technical standards set by the game's graphics. The music that accompanies both the story and multiplayer modes is brilliantly haunting, but some guns tend to sound disappointingly underpowered and explosions don't always deliver the powerful audio oomph that I usually look for. There is also the issue of some fairly questionable voice acting on the part of some of the side characters that Capelli comes into contact with, but the general strength of the main actors' and actresses' performances more than makes up for the small amount of damage done in this regard. Besides, the last thing you're going be thinking about when a three story tall widowmaker starts testing out its pipes is how believable the acting in the last cutscene was. The enemy sound effects in Resistance 3 are probably the high point of the whole audio experience; Chimeran infantry give up the ghost with a telltale grunt and the snarling of a grim emerging from a pod behind you may very well make you jump. The game isn't likely to blow your socks off with award-winning audio, but it certainly performs at an acceptable level and none of its aural shortcomings manage to damage the experience in any substantial way.
I didn't have high hopes for Resistance 3's multiplayer once I finished the campaign since R2's chaotic, unbalanced competitive suite turned me off faster than a female grim, but Insomniac had a few more tricks up its sleeve than I gave them credit for. Resistance 3's competitive online play may be the most pleasant surprise I've had all year. There is, of course, the now ubiquitous persistent leveling system that we've come to expect from online shooters and you'll earn new unlocks as your level increases, but Insomniac has made a couple of tweaks to the formula that work very well here. There is a perk system in place ala Call of Duty, but it's backed by an interesting variation of the Black Ops system that forces you to spend skill points instead of currency to both unlock and upgrade perk abilities. These skill points are also used for weapon unlocks and upgrades. Every weapon from the single player is represented here (yes, it is awesome to mutate a corner camper into a living bomb and watch him annihilate his buddies), but rather than upgrades being based on damage done, they must be manually purchased and selected. Some of these upgrades can be very expensive, and since skill points come fairly rarely due to large XP requirements for leveling up and the fact that each level only rewards you with a few precious points, you'll really have to plan out what you'd like to do with each class and then save your points accordingly. The system really made me feel as if I was working towards the goal of being able to create my own uniquely tailored class and it subsequently hooked me for hours on end. I once played for a solid eight hours without even realizing it, another victim of the infamous just-one-more-turn mentality that marks most well-designed multiplayer experiences.
The multiplayer gameplay itself is roughly similar to a mix of the open, objective-based Killzone 3 and the more frantic Call of Duty. Most maps are relatively large and offer several paths to any given area as well as multiple angles of attack for players who wish to stay at range. Environmental effects like blowing snow and dust serve to cut down on the number of Deadeye wielding snipers in major chokepoint areas, but there are still plenty of opportunities for those with a taste for distance combat to act out their secret sniper fantasies. Certain modes favor certain playstyles, and with the large number of available game types nearly every kind of multiplayer gamer is going to be able to find something that suits them. I personally found the objective-based modes to be the most interesting, but I found that simply setting the matchmaking to "anything" offered a fantastically varied playlist that held my attention for far longer than any single mode could have. Killstreaks have also been included for your amusement; pulling out an auger for a little through-the-wall enemy waxing goodness or mutating into a massive Chimeran creature equipped with an Atomizer can be great fun. Sure, the concept of killstreaks may be downright stolen from the Call of Duty franchise, but that doesn't make their extraterrestrial incarnation in Resistance 3 any less enjoyable.
Resistance 3's multiplayer is great, but a few issues hold it back from being able to run with the really big dogs. There is a noticeable frame drop every time you are killed as the game loads your attacker's camera, and this can lead to a sometimes frustrating inability to understand exactly how you died. There also seems to be a problem with latency in many matches right now; it wasn't uncommon for me to have to bounce in and out of two to three different rooms before finding a smooth lobby. Some weapons seem to be out of balance, as well. Most notably, the Rossmore shotgun is heavily overused thanks to its shockingly long range and frankly ridiculous stopping power compared to other weapons in the game. Finally, I predict that the community is going to reach a stage at which newcomers will simply not find the multiplayer enjoyable. Once launch players have had time to unlock and upgrade every weapon and ability in the game-some of which are true game changers-a new player's prospects with the preset beginner classes will not be good. The balance of the game is heavily skewed towards players willing to devote large amounts of time to the title and while I think this will lead to a dedicated and consistent community at least for the next six months or so, I also think that it that it may eventually strangle the fun out of the game for anyone outside of the dedicated core group. A few patches could alleviate if not entirely solve this potential problem, but it remains to be seen if that's in the cards.
It's not quite the perfect game, but Resistance 3 is a resounding success. The campaign works and plays beautifully in both single player and co-op, the weapon upgrade system is addicting and fun, and the multiplayer is surprisingly enjoyable. There are a few small problems scattered around and the potential exists for a few larger ones to crop up later on down the road on the multiplayer side of things, but as of right now I honestly struggle to find anything major to complain about. Sony may have just given the upcoming Gears of War 3 a run for its money.