Saving the Human Race
As Resistance 3 begins, things aren’t looking so great for humanity—or for the Resistance series. Humans have all but lost a war against aliens. We are no longer fighting off an invasion, but rather conducting a guerrilla war against beasts who have more or less taken over.
Reactions to Resistance 2 were mixed, to say the least. In a market filled to the brim with first-person shooter games with aliens in them, it takes only a couple of missteps before a franchise meets its apocalypse.
Fortunately, it looks like the developers are introducing a slew of great new features with Resistance 3. It could be the game that revives the franchise, just as the plot could mark the beginning of a turnaround for humanity. We won’t know for a few months yet whether everything will come together as planned, but the plans are epic indeed.
You play as Joseph Capelli, who—spoiler alert—killed Nathan Hale, the protagonist of the first two games. Capelli is now a former soldier, but he’s a current husband and father in Oklahoma. When Capelli is offered the chance to leave hiding and attack the Chimera—who are trying to make the entire Earth freezing cold like their home planet—his wife urges him to go. He heads out on a trip to New York.
A lot of the changes stem directly from the human race’s bad position. While Capelli is a military man, regular people will take up arms to help you. Stealth plays a role, because ammo is scarce and you no longer have the resources to mount a full-scale campaign against the invaders. Many weapons, including grenades, have been fashioned out of random materials, not made by professionals. Even the regenerating health has been taken out to reflect life’s fragility; if you get hurt, you’ll be scouring the landscape for health packs. That last element is a bit of a throwback—but it’s also a perfect fit for what Resistance 3 aims to accomplish.
That’s just one aspect of the dramatic improvements that developer Insomniac is implementing. The last iteration came out all the way back in 2008—meaning that the studio had a full three years to develop and refine the game.
Combat should be an entirely different experience than what we’re used to. The weapon wheel makes its triumphant return, so you always have access to all the guns you’ve acquired throughout the game—guns that will now include a sniper rifle with a secondary-fire mode that allows you to blow things up. Even better, the guns will level up as you use them, becoming more accurate and powerful and adding features like alternative fire modes. According to various reports, the A.I. has improved markedly, with enemies more likely to take cover. The Chimera have a cloaking ability now, too, and in a Resistance first, the game will support Move controls.
The developers have also stepped it up when it comes to presentation. The story takes place across the U.S.—the developers cite Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road as an inspiration—and the entire game is shrouded in a creepy, brown-tinted atmosphere. The various levels are far more open than the environments in previous games; one puts you in a boat, another in a moody, sniper-filled patch of woods.
If you have a TV that supports it, you can experience the entire game in 3D. Given all the effort that was put into the graphics here, I imagine it will be a good choice for people with the requisite hardware.
Whereas the campaign is confined to America, the multiplayer maps include locations from around the world, including Bogota, Colombia. The battles will be limited to two teams of eight players, but the reduced player count allows the developers to keep the graphical detail high. In addition, the game will feature custom loadouts, in which players pick two active and two passive abilities, the latter of which includes shields. This should make for a variety of play styles to keep things interesting.
In addition to competitive multiplayer, the game will feature local and online co-op. The downside? Resistance 3 will be the first game to use Sony’s new “online pass” system, which disables certain online features for players who rent the game or buy it used. It’s not yet clear which features will cost these players an extra few dollars.
After a highly questionable Resistance title, not to mention the fact that many gamers are getting tired of mowing down aliens, Resistance 3 has its work cut out for it. It has to redeem an entire series, not to mention stand out in a crowded FPS field. If the information that’s available so far means anything, however, it’s that Insomniac isn’t cutting any corners in trying to make all that happen.
Game Features:
Joe Capelli Strikes Back
There are some commonly recurring elements popping up in the video game world today: first-person perspective, mid-twentieth century weaponry, desolate 1950s landscapes, and alien invasions, just to name a few. Most of the major video game hits of the past few years include at least one of the items on this list. The Resistance series contains every one of these, yet the pieces blend in a unique way that makes it all seem fresh and interesting. So, when actual gameplay was shown in the Resistance 3 trailer at the 2010 VGAs, we were pretty excited about it.
If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that the series is evolving.
Resistance 2 may have been considered a commercial success, but hardcore fans felt somewhat let down by it. The good news is that the developers are listening to the fans, and the third installment should address many of the major concerns. From what is known so far, it definitely looks like Resistance 3 is going to take a lot of what was great in the first two games and ditch a lot of what didn’t work so well.
One of the biggest disappointments about Resistance 2 was that it lacked the weapon wheel from the first game. Instead, players were only allowed to carry two weapons at a time. Which was kind of lame. The gamers complained, and, as they say, the squeaky weapon wheel gets the grease. It’s now official: the weapon wheel will be back in Resistance 3.
Speaking of weapons, the setting of Resistance 3 is a war-torn world in decay, and weapons are a lot harder to come by. Survivors must get creative in order to keep themselves armed. So grenades will be hand-made, not military grade. Expect to be hurling soup cans filled with gunpowder and nails at your enemies. And the guns you’ve grown to love from the first two games will have a more salvaged, beat-up aesthetic, as well as custom modifications.
Of course, the customization of these weapons means there will be upgrades this time around. As you score kills with a weapon, you will earn points that you can use to purchase upgrades for it. So basically, the more you use a weapon, the better it will become.
A brand new weapon called the Mutator has been added to the mix as well. It sounds like it’s pretty much a shotgun with a can of some sort of infectious slime attached to the side, so you can spray the Chimera with a disorienting mess of goo. Sounds like fun to me.
Multiplayer versus mode will be back, but very few details about this feature have been revealed so far. To date, there is no official word on the maximum amount of players that can participate in a match. Will Resistance 3 include the epic, sixty-player battles that were found in Resistance 2? We don’t know for sure, but it is speculated that this is not likely. What we do know is that these battles will take place all over the world in locations that are referenced, though not actually visited, in the single-player campaign. It sounds like the characters in the campaign will talk about battles in other parts of the world, while in multiplayer mode, you’ll get to actually fight in these battles. This means versus mode will actually take place within the lore of the game, offering a more immersive multiplayer experience.
And co-op will be back as well, in both online and split-screen flavors. Unlike the chaotic eight-player mash-up in Resistance 2, co-op mode only supports two players, with the second player taking the role of John Harper.
The plot seems incredibly intriguing. Four years have passed since Resistance 2, and the Chimera have won the war. The gritty-voiced Joseph Capelli is something of a family man now, with a wife and a son. He becomes ill and must seek out Dr. Malikov, which sends him on a journey across whatever is left of the United States. It sounds like he ends up in New York City, where he is given a chance to deliver one last blow to the Chimera.
Official screenshots have been slowly trickling to the public, and the ones we’ve seen are breathtaking. The world of Resistance 3 is gritty, decayed, and excruciatingly detailed. The Chimera are as ugly, withered, and richly-textured as ever. This is a game that promises to please your eyeballs. Or make them bleed. Or both at the same time.
Whether Resistance 2’s cliffhanger ending left you starving for the next chapter in the storyline or its gameplay flaws made you long for an experience closer to Fall of Man, Resistance 3 is a title to look forward to. If it can deliver on all its promises, it definitely has a shot at being the best in the series.
Game Features: