Preview: Resistance: Retribution's multiplayer

5:00 PM on 02.25.2009   |   Hamza CTZ Aziz

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Last week, Samit Sarkar brought you a detailed preview of Resistance: Retribution's single-player campaign for the PlayStation Portable. Earlier this week, Sony invited me out to a fancy bar in San Francisco to try out the mulitplayer mode of Retribution.

It's really hard to get a first-person shooter or any kind of a shooter to work right on the PSP or DS. It's just way more fun to play these types of games with a controller. Yet I actually had a blast playing Retribution. It felt like I was playing a Nintendo 64 game again (in terms of controls, not graphics).

Hit the jump to see what Resistance: Retribution's multiplayer mode is all about. 

My main concern going into Resistance: Retribution was with the controls. But as Samit described in his preview, all you need to do is remember how to play GoldenEye or Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64. I played those games almost every day for over five years, so playing Retribution almost felt natural. I still had a few issues, but for the most part, I was able to kick some major ass (check out my Community Blog later today where I talk about the tournament and how I got screwed out of first place).

My main issue with the controls comes with the weapon select button. You move around with the analog stick and you'll use the left and right D-pad buttons to select your weapon. When you're in the middle of a fire fight with someone else, the last thing you want to do is stop moving. But then you also don't want to use a grenade against someone who's holding the chain gun. Unless you can get behind cover, you'll have to stop moving out in the open to switch weapons. You could place your pointer finger onto the D-pad while still moving with your thumb, but that would make playing the game really uncomfortable.

The cover system is implemented pretty nicely. All you have to do is get near an object and your character will automatically take cover. You will take less damage and inflict greater damage on opponents while using cover. This cover system was actually hard for me to get the hang of as I'm so used to having to press a button to take cover. So nine times out of ten, I would accidentally press the down D-pad while in cover and vault over my hiding spot, into the line of fire.

Back to the controls, you'll use the four face buttons as your faux secondary joystick, R to shoot, L to use a weapon's secondary fire, down D-pad to revive or taunt, and up D-pad to zoom. It's not easy aiming at a fast moving target on the PSP, but that's where Aim Assist comes in. As you play, there's a rectangular box on the screen. If an enemy crosses into the box, the game will auto-lock onto the enemy.

If you are killed, you can either respawn by pressing triangle or wait for an teammate to revive you. The game will eventually kick you back to the respawn point if you wait too long, but sometimes it's better to wait and hope someone revives you so you can be closer to the action. An enemy player though, can stand over your corpse while you're waiting and perform a taunt. Players can dance, wipe their feet, beat their chest and do a few other things to show their enemies just how much they got owned.  

Resistance: Retribution multiplayer supports up to eight-players, contains five maps, five game modes and 11 weapons. You'll have the standard Team Deathmatch, Free For All and Capture the Flag modes. One nice touch with Capture the Flag is that if the flag carrier is by himself, he'll move slower than normal. If the flag carrier partners are there to help him though, he'll move faster. 

The two other modes are called Containment and Assimilation. In Containment, there is one coolant node at each base. Players need to go capture the opposing coolant node while guarding their own coolant node. In Assimilation, one player is a Cloven (Chimera) and the others are all Maquis (humans). The goal is for the Cloven to kill and convert all Maquis players while the Maquis try and kill the Cloven, reminding me a lot of Halo 3's Infection game type. When there's only one Cloven on the map, he'll be overpowered. As more Cloven are absorbed into the fold, the Clovens lose some of added advantage. 

Overall, I had a lot of fun with the game. PlayStation.Blog was also at the event where Jeff Rubenstein interviewed Darren Chisum, Lead Multiplayer Engineer on Resistance: Retribution. Check out the interview to see gameplay and learn a little more about the game.