Read What I Play: Resistance: Fall of Man

Heyo! I’m gonna join this new “blogging” craze. I love the site, I love video games, so I’m just gonna share my opinions on the games I play. I’ll try to post at least once a week, but it will probably be more like whenever I’m bored at work.

So without any further ado, I present ‘Dgenerate’s Blog’

Lat week, I decided to pick up a PS3. I wanted to get the cheaper price, and was a little worried about the missing EE chip in the 80GB model. So now I have a PS3 (my roommate has a 360 so I’m not buying one yet). Thanks Visa! The only thing that really looked interesting was Resistance: Fall of Man, which I bought used. I got home, hooked it up and popped in my new game.

Reistance: Fall of Man takes place in a WWII era (in an alternate reality when WWII never happened). A race of weird-looking humanoids appears to destroy the planet. Asia and Europe are a write-off already, and the race of creatures, called the Chimaera, have the UK in their sights. You play as Nathan Hale, an American soldier sent over to help with UK’s reinforcements.

You are tossed into battle with your rifle, as waves of Chimaera attack: you kill them and move on to the next checkpoint. There are no health pikups, but after a short amount of play, you are infected by the Chimaera and develop a bit of health regeneration. Health only regenerates to the nearest ¼ of your health bar, so to fill back up you eventually need to find health pickups. There is no cover mechanism, but there are plenty of places to take cover that you can poke your head out of. On the flipside, grenades and a shotgun work really well, too.

The level design was good, and there was at least a bit of variety in the levels. Some levels were outdoors, some large and some small indoor areas, and even a Halo-esque vehicle level. There wasn’t very much in the way of enemy variety, however. You are pitted against the same enemies throughout most of the game, with a few exceptions.

The game had decent graphics, but after playing titles like Gears of War (you will see a lot of references to Gears in my posts), it felt slightly less-than-next-gen. By no means does it look like a PS2 game, but after hearing all the tales about PS3’s power, I guess I just expected more. (Perhaps UE3 spoiled me)

One of the best parts of the game was the weapons. You start with a standard rifle, but as you progress, you get a lot more high-tech, and exciting weaponry. I’ll start with grenades. First off you have the standard grenade, which doesn’t need much explanation. I got a very ‘Halo’ feeling when using the shotty + grenades. Next up is the Hedgehog Grenade. Basically a ball of spikes that will explode and clear a small area. Great for clearing out a room. Finally there is the ‘other type of grenade that I don’t remember the name of’. After it lands, it will release some gas for a second or two, then ignite the gas and incinerate the area. This is an awesome weapon and looks amazing when your enemies fall as they burn.

The sniper rifle has a neat feature, where you can slow down time while looking through the scope. This basically guarantees a headshot, but watch out, because you have a sort of ‘stamina’. If you use the effect too long, you will have to let it cooldown to use it again. The shotgun: think Halo. There was also a gun very similar to the Flak Cannon, that shot particles that reflect off of walls.

Overall great level design and presentation. Most of the stuff in this game has been done before, and the graphics are a little sub-par. If you can overlook these flaws, however, there’s a decent game underneath.

My final note: This is a highly polished, well developed, comepletely standard FPS.
My final verdict: Delicious.

I beat Resistance and then popped in Shadow of the Colossus. Next time I’m bored at work I’ll give you my impressions on that game.