Video Game Review: 'Resistance 2'
Minor complaints drowned out by glorious, and beautiful, alien invasions.
Dec. 1, 2008— -- "Resistance 2" is, in a word, awesome. That is, the game is both undeniably fun, tense and challenging, but is also, at times, visually awe-inspiring.
In the sequel to 2006's critically acclaimed "Resistance: Fall of Man," players find themselves in an alternate universe where, in 1953, an alien invasion by the bug-like Chimera has spilled over into the United States. Nathan Hale, the story's flawed protagonist, has been infected by the Chimera virus and must use his remaining time as a sane human to, well, kill a whole lot of aliens.
The game is visually stunning and seems to take full advantage of the Playstation 3's considerable hardware. Each level is sprawlingly enormous, as are some of the extraterrestrial foes Hale comes up against.
That's just fine, though, because Hale has an equally impressive arsenal of both human and alien weapons with which he can dispatch them.
The weapons are, in fact, one of the game's strongest points. From the solid, straightforward human-made assault rifle to the I-can-see-you-through-a-wall-and-kill-you alien Auger, the player is forced to change strategies dramatically to accommodate the weapon at hand.
"Resistance 2" also avoids repetition -- the death knell of most shooters -- by varying pace and environment greatly. The game's developer, Insomniac Games, makes impressive use of inaction to build tension between sometimes overwhelming action sequences.
One minute Hale is sneaking through darkened corridors with only his flashlight to guide him between sporadic and terrifying zombie-like alien attacks, and the next minute he is just one man in a gigantic battle between humans and aliens pitched over more than two city blocks. Such battles are made even more challenging and rewarding when the aliens' impressive AI is taken into account. Hale cannot hide behind cover for long before he is flanked or forced out by a spikey alien grenade.
One problem with the single-player endeavor, however, is that Hale comes up short of victory all too often in those battles. On its easiest setting, "Resistance 2" may prove devastatingly difficult for even a seasoned gamer -- forcing the action to be bogged down in oft-repeated portions. Invisible, one-hit, one-kill enemies are some of the main offenders in this case.
