Resistance 2 Review

I'l admit it, resistance 2 may have been the victim of overhype on Sony and insomniac's part, leading up to its christmas 2008 release. But even if you take away the sheer hype that surrounded it, you're still left with a a pretty uninspiring game. A decent game certainly. But the very definition of boring and average.

The story of resistance 2 follows on directly from resistance fall of man, where the protagonist Nathan Hale is picked up by a group of black clad soldiers following an epic battle between the chimera, a alien life form whose origins lie in an alien virus first noted in eastern europe in 1908, and Anglo-american military forces in war devastated occupied london, and taken to a secret US military base in iceland where you discover the origins of your unexplained regenerative abilities, which part of a secret military experiment in which a select group of soldiers got infected with the chimeran virus to see how its effects could be harnessed to fight the chimera. Following the fall of the base, you wake up two years later in another military base in san francisco, and after 20 minutes of fighting off incursions, you emerge from the base to discover a vast fleet of chimeran ships over you. The rest of the game is you fighting the invading chimera, while struggling with the effects of the chimera virus inside you. I really enjoyed the way the story was told in resistance FOM, with the black white stills, with the voice overs. But in this, the story is told entirely through cutscene's and what the characters say during gameplay, and I think it turns out a bit muddled. Its not a bad story, just badly told.



Anyway, now we come onto the gameplay, which is changed from the resistance FOM style of health packs and carrying up to like a million weapons(slightly exaggerated), to the modern warfare/halo style of regenerating health, two weapons, and holding down L1 to aim. And while its certainly more up to date with most shooters are doing these days, I found myself disappointed with this, as it feels like its lost its identity kind of, lost in the pool of every shooter that comes out nowadays. Buts its good, and there's far worse things to talk about with this game, mainly two things.
1. The lighting. The lighting in this game is terrible, to be frank. In almost all of the levels, I found it beneficial to keep the in game torch on, otherwise I kept finding myself getting stuck on rocks, or not being able to aim my gun in the right. Its not that bad on a HD screen, but on a SD screen, its terrible.
2. The bosses. in all the trailers we saw giant leviathans, battleships, Goliath's, and all manners of creatures we would seemingly get to fight. But when you get to the actual fights, you'll be disappointed. Why? Cos you kill almost all of them the same way, firing rockets/big guns at them till they die. Boring. And while they look amazing, and you look forward to some kind of epic fight.... fire a rocket and they die.

However even with all the negativity I put up there, this still isn't a bad game. When the lighting isn't being stupid, it looks very nice, and despite the simplicity of the boss fights, they do look very nice, often filling up the screen, and making lots of awesome sound effects. The shooting isn't bad, with a pretty varied set of weapons from insomniac, nothing less than you'd expect of course from the inventors of ratchet and clank, and some of the new chimeran forms, like the chameleons, who can't be seen until they're right in front of you, forcing to listen for them, and the grims, the mindless weaponless chimera who just swarm you with sheer numbers.

The multiplayer isn't bad either, with the co-op reigning supreme over the average normal multiplayer options. You can have six people on a team, its put you a level with tasks you with an objective, receiving a new one every time you complete the current one. It works on an XP leveling system, and gives XP generously, and so is really fun to play.

Overall, resistance 2 like I said, isn't a bad game. It just feels like its lost its resistance- ness spark of individuality, and was overhyped. Give it a go, its cheap these days, a tenner and onwards. its not bad at all.

*I'm looking for feedback by the way.