Resistance: Fall of Man was the first Playstation 3 game, and is one that is still highly enjoyable 3 years later.
Contains: Strong Violence, Horror and Disturbing Images
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Resistance Fall of Man is a sci-fi First Person shooter set in an alternate history, and follows the last remaining resistance fighters at war with alien invaders. Never underestimate humanity's will to survive...
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STORY - 4/5
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The chimera attacked, and swiftly began taking out small settlements, then towns, and eventually major cities. The world was unaware of what was at hand, and feared the Russians had made a weapon of unparelled power, but the truth was far worse. Within weeks, Europe had fallen at the hands of the Chimera, a hostile alien race with no sign of mercy on the fall of the human race. They soon began invading Britain, having dug a tunnel under the channel, and not long after, seemingly all of Britain had fallen too. But as the chimera hunted down any remaining survivors, the last resistance fighters rose up from the ruins of Britain, to make a stand against the invaders.
The player takes control of Nathan Hale, a part of the Untied States Army Rangers 12,000 man task force sent to retrieve a secret weapon that the British claim can be used against the Chimera. But it isn't long before the plan goes horribly wrong, and Hale finds himself outnumbered, alone and infected by the alien virus. The cutscenes are well done, and are formed mainly through the use of black and white images which also reflect the timeline in the game. These in-between-level cutscenes are narrated, and provide you with objectives in the following level, and information on the spread and formation of the Chimeran threat. The story is immersive, as several twists play out, and not only do you want to see the game through to the end, but you'll want to know why and what the aliens want with the planet. Thre are numerous pieces of intel that can be collected through careful exploration of various areas, and give you an indepth knowledge into some of the occurances that have happened to other soldiers in their survival.
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CHARACTERS - 2/5
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Unfortunately, the characters you encounter along the story of Resistance are forgettable. You play as the protagonist, Nathan Hale, but sadly he isn't a character to get your feelings involved with. He rarely speaks, and his quietness and ignorance towards other characters, make him an unlikeable person. And when there is no depth into how he's feeling or background on him, you feel somewhat pushed away. He seems like a cool character at first glance, and he could have been, but the deeper you go into the story, the further your feelings are distinguished into appreciating him for what he's doing for the country.
There are other soldiers and allies, but none have any real appeal about them, and seem rather bland with no depth into there feelings in the same way that Hale is represented. They're watchable, but not particularly likeable.
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GAMEPLAY - 5/5
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The gameplay during the campaign is probably the game's strongest point. Many of its gameplay features stem from the alternate reality, most notably the weapons. Some weapons are based on real guns from the 1950's, while some weapons are futuristically altered in accordance with the game's storyline. Its no surprise that the futuristic weapons come from alien origins, and these are highly enjoyable to weild at will. What also makes the gameplay so enjoyable, is the implementation of a weapon ring. This allows you to pause the game, and displays all the weapons you currently have found, and you can switch to any of these at any time. Lots of variety in weapons keeps the gunplay from feeling repetitive, and each of the weapons, whether historical or futuristic are fun to dispose of the present alien threat.
The varied enemy designs also force you to change tactics, and allow you to use the weapon that you believe suits the situation adding a nice feel of unique strategy into the frame of things. Either a minor threat of a menial (unharmed and only dangerous at close range and in numbers), or a more alarming threat (A titan, which requires vast amounts of ammo to eradicate, and careful dodging movements to evade fireballs it shoots at you). Every weapon also has a secondary fire, usually more powerful than the primary function, best saved for more delicate circumstances.
As well as weapons, the player can also benefit from grenades. There are a variety of different ones to use, the highlight however, is the Chimeran grenades. One is called the hedgehog, and you throw it like an ordinary fragmentation grenade, but it lands and then springs up in a big spike cluster, and ejects the spikes in random directions, impaling all that are near it.
Hale possesses increased metabolism, increased strength and limited regeneration, and his irises have become gold/yellow, somewhat like the Chimera. He harnesses the power to use sym-bacs, the game's version of health packs, to instantly regenerate up to a quarter of his health at a time. The health system is split up into 4 segments, and careful use of taking cover when taking damage, allows the segment to regenerate after a short interval.
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GRAPHICS - 4/5
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You'll be transported to many different locations throughout Britain, and each is swarming with Chimera, which invites exciting action, usually with bloody results. The visuals strike you in a positive way right from the start. There is a grimy look to the colours in the environments, and these suit the game well, and makes you feel more in that space of the timeline, than bright colours would. The ruined buildings are well detailed, and really give an apocalyptic feel to the surrounding event of invasion. Blood and corpses stay in the position they met their doom, and will stay there for the whole time. Although this may go unnoticed and not seem a striking positive point to take away from the game, it still leaves a realistic trace, which many games don't offer.
The weapons are exhibited with lots of cool features, and even though some of the historic weapons look bland, there detailed to how they looked back in the 1950's, and so deliberately less detailed than the sci-fi weapons you collect.
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CONTROLS - 3/5
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The controls are fairly decent, but unlike the average First Person shooter, Resistance: Fall of Man has a different set of controls which may take a while to get used to. The main difference is the aim and shoot. While most games correspond theres with L1 and R1 or L2 and R2, the aiming button in this game is tapping R3 which makes quick shooting slightly awkward. However, there is more of a fun run-and-gun reticule here, so aiming with weapons is hardly needed as the aiming reticule doesn't expand much, allowing you a decent control of the flight of your bullets. You can always custimise your own set of controls anyway in the options menu.
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SOUND - 5/5
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The sound design is solid, each weapon sounds right, the orchestral score hits the right notes when needed, and the Chimera communicate using aggresive noises, just what you'd expect from alien invaders showing no mercy on their huge killing spree. The voice acting is strong, and while there isn't many lines in gameplay, the narration during cutscenes is perfect.
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ATMOSPHERE - 4/5
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The atmosphere encountered in the campaign sustains tension until the final battle. Some sections will certainly have the spine tingling, especially when in an overrun base, with the lighs dimmed and haunting tunnels. While some will have the tensions high on excitement, when holding off fleets of aggressive alien breeds with the help of fellow allie soldiers With that, and the consideration of abandoned and ruined houses, there is a real atmosphere portrayed for the duration of the single player.
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ENEMY AI - 3/5
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The Chimera effectively take cover, and this tactic shows you that you'll need to do the same. Standing in the thick of a battle only invites victory to the invaders, and so ducking down behind objects and waiting for the right moment to pop up and blast away can mean the difference between progress and replaying the same scene over again until you succeed. Enemies are extremely accurate, and while they take cover, they aren't too clever in any other departments. They'll attempt to get out of the radius of a grenade, but you'll notice the same jump animation each time, and it isn't really affective for them. But the intelligence of the chimera is a challenging one to overcome, and so with patience, and precise aiming, you shouldn't be highly troubled. They'll also use gun placements whenever possible, and will focus on teammates as well as you, so you don't seem like the centre of attention constantly.
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LENGTH - 3/5
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Resistance Fall of Man will take you through lots of real cities in a short space of time, but that short space of time is a quality experience none-the-less. The game should take you roughly 8 hours to complete, depending on if you take time to look around for intel or not.
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REPLAY VALUE - 3/5
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Resistance Fall of Man is game well worth playing a again, and one that is well worth staying in your collection for quite some time long after you prurchase it. You can go back through the game to earn skill points that you previously didn't earn, find all the intel you missed, and also to have a chance with some guns that are only available on a second playthrough, such as an Arc Charger, highly charged bolts to fry enemies, and Backlash grenades, which create a dome around you and reflect all bullets back into your foes.
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 8.5/10
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Good Points: Lots of fantastic guns to select from, Various and detailed locations, Well told narrated story, Scary looking and formidable alien adversaries, Solid sound design, Gunplay is exciting.
Bad Points: Enemy AI will eventually get predictable, Characters are dull and forgettable, Unusual controls for the average FPS game.