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By Keith B (23rd Jul 2007)

Resistance: Fall of Man is a first-person shooter developed by Insomniac Games who you may recognize as the people who brought us the insanely fun Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet and Clank. Fall of Man takes them in a different direction with a darker, bloodier tone that still keeps you glued to the controller waiting to see what happens next.

Take Doom, Call of Duty 3, War of the Worlds, and the Predator movies, put them in a room with some Barry White music on, then wait nine months and the result should be something close to this game. Game play is very much like COD3, with presentation feeling like Doom- from the growling monsters that you can’t see, to the enemies surprising you at every corner. The spindly-legged “Stalkers” can’t help but make you think of War of the Worlds, and the Chimera (your main enemy) look an awful lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger should be chasing them around a jungle toting an M-60.

The one thing that sets Resistance: Fall of Man apart from every other first-person shooter I have ever played is the artificial intelligence of the Chimera. Start firing at these elusive buggers and they will duck behind objects, move quickly across the screen, and otherwise make themselves not such an easy target…even for your huge selection of different weapons. Find a hiding spot and fire at them from afar, and they will notice where you are firing from and retaliate. One thing is for certain, these guys will not lie down and let you blast through them at your leisure, like most monsters in FPS games.


The Story


Resistance takes place over 4 days in July of 1951 in an alternate history to what we know. Many things, such as World War 2 and the rise of Communism in Russia never even took place. The game’s official website mentions tons of other details not mentioned during game play and is a very interesting read, especially for a history buff.

Captain Rachael Parker, a member of the British Resistance who is fighting against the Chimera invasion, tells the entire story as a narrative retrospect. The opening movie takes you back to 1949, when the Chimera first appeared in Russia and started spreading like a plague across Europe and into Britain. In 1950, the US seals its borders to prevent the Chimera invasion, and starts to censor TV, radio, and newsprint to avoid mass panic of its citizens. The Chimera use “Spires”, large missiles that hit the ground and open up, releasing “crawlers” which resemble the scarab beetles from the movie Scorpion King. The crawlers move across the area, infecting any human in sight with the Chimeran virus, which puts them into a deep coma. Next, “Carriers” which look like huge flying jellyfish, scour the battlefield and collect all the infected humans then transport them to a Chimeran processing center. At the processing center, multiple humans are combined to create one Chimeran hybrid. You get to see this process first-hand in a later level. An interesting note: The Chimera processing centers were actually excavated from underground, and not built from scratch or flown in from space, much like the walkers in War of the Worlds, suggesting that the Chimera had been here longer than man had known.

The Chimera walk on 2 legs, and are able to fire weapons and operate vehicles like a human. The similarity pretty much ends there. Chimeran metabolism is 12 times that of a normal human, which gives them the ability to heal very quickly. This speedy metabolism is a double-edged sword though, as it makes them heat up very quickly and would cause them to die if it weren’t for the handy cooling system implanted into their backs at birth. The cause for their rapid metabolism is revealed as a bacteria dubbed “Sym-Bac” by the scientists who have discovered it. You come across vials of the gooey yellow stuff throughout your game.

With Russia pretty much completely in control of the Chimera and Britain steadily losing ground, the Americans finally decide to enter the conflict in 1951. This is where you come in. You are Sergeant Nathan Hale, a member of an elite US attack squad dispatched to York, England on July 11, 1951 to help the Brits fight off the Chimeran invasion. Things do not go well, and the squad is overrun by crawlers and infected, all falling into a coma. A British squad comes across the massacre and is surprised to see Sgt. Nathan Hale slowly wake from the coma.

Following your miraculous recovery, you take on some of the characteristics of the Chimeran soldiers, including their ability to heal very quickly. Your health bar is split into 4 sections, and at any time during the game after you have been hit, you can stop fighting for a couple seconds and your bar will refill to the top of the nearest section. If you are missing entire sections of health, you can pick up vials of the Sym-Bac serum mentioned earlier to refill one section at a time.

Armed with your new abilities, you set out on a series of missions aimed at destroying the Chimera, and bringing peace back to the human race.

The Game

FOM plays very much like Call of Duty 3 for the PS3. It controls like most FPS games out there but is noticeably lacking a compass in the bottom left corner which would have proved very useful at times, since you tend to get lost trying to exit the later levels. The Chimera are very agile, and like I said earlier the AI for them is tremendous, so I would recommend that the new player take a bit of time in the early levels familiarizing themselves with the controls. The first time I played this game I hated it because even on the easy setting, I was getting creamed.

Weapons are fired using the R1 button, but Resistance goes a step further, giving all of them dual functions. You start the game with the M5A2 Carbine, which also functions as a grenade launcher. Very quickly you come across the Chimeran Bullseye, the primary weapon for your alien foes, which (by pressing L1) fires a tag that sticks to your enemy turning your rounds into homing rounds that seek out the target that has been tagged. The entire game is chock full of new and interesting weapons ranging from a sniper rifle to a strange contraption that fires biological mines that give you the option of setting them off one at a time, or blowing up the whole cluster.

The L23 “Fareye” sniper rifle fires MK10 rounds at over 3400 feet per second. What really makes this thing dangerous is its dual function, though. By pressing and holding R1, you hold your breath and send the entire world, as seen through your scope, into a slow-motion crawl. This function proves to be key in searching for the ever elusive alien-splattering head shot.

The “Auger” is another nasty little toy that has the ability to fire through solid objects, giving you the advantage of taking out your enemies as they cower in fear behind a barricade, a tank, or even in the room above you! Its dual function is also very handy. Pressing L1 will create a temporary force field in front of you, keeping enemy rounds out but still allowing you to fire through it. Use it wisely though, extra ammo for this one is sometimes hard to come by.

All of your weapons have an attached tactical flashlight, which you need to turn on manually but is a must-have in some of the tunnels and darker levels. I just left mine on all the time to avoid walking into a dark corner and getting surprised by a hungry alien.

In addition to the fancy firearms offered, Resistance also gives you a couple different types of hand grenades to choose from. The two most notable are the “Hedgehog” and the “Air fuel Grenade”. The Hedgehog is a Chimeran ordinance that, when deployed, pops into the air and fires out hundreds of steel pins in all directions, slaughtering anything in its path. Even though the game gives you a warning when one of these little nasties is tossed at you, sometimes it is extremely difficult to find cover in time to avoid losing at least half your life. Don't fret, though. You'll pick some up for your own use, and get to exact some of your own prickly revenge. Speaking of revenge, the Air Fuel Grenade is used only by the humans and when deployed it adheres to whatever surface you threw it against, including alien skin. After it is firmly stuck, it leaks out a green gas that covers a large area, then ignites in a fiery explosion that turns any enemies near it into harmless crispy critters. Burn baby, burn.

Tons of burnt out vehicles litter the landscape in the game, but occasionally you find one that is still functional and you get your turn at the wheel. Jeeps, tanks, and even a choice Chimeran vehicle or two are up for grabs every now and again. Without ruining the entire game for you, I will tell you that the Chimeran “Stalker” handles like a Cadillac, and packs a nasty punch as well. (Wink,Wink)

Visually, Resistance is a virtual candy store for the eyes. The cut scenes between levels feature black and white renderings that are so realistic you think: “Maybe there really was a huge alien spire sticking out of the ground in the center of London in 1951.” A lot of attention to detail went into this game, even down to the propaganda posters on the walls of a human base that read things like: “Don't let them scare you! They are harmless without teamwork! Enlist today!”, and my personal favorite: “Terror crawls! Help us fight! Buy war bonds!”.

In the chapter titled: “Into the Fire” set in Nottingham, England, you are fighting your way to the top of a steep hill that is firmly entrenched with Chimeran soldiers doing their best to keep you from making it up. With artillery raining down from the sky and rounds coming at you from every direction, you zig and zag all over the face of the hill as you make your way up. Because of the steep grade of the hill and the realism of the movement, I actually got a little sick to my stomach playing this level, and had to pause for a minute and rest my eyes. I do not get motion sickness easily, but the folks at Insomniac games really put out a masterpiece with this level. Haywire equilibrium aside, this is one of my favorite levels in any FPS I have ever played.

The music in the game blends seamlessly with the action so that you barely notice it is even there. You are concentrating so hard on not getting your head separated from your body, you only realize that the music had been building in intensity during your firefight when you have cleared the area of enemies and it abruptly switches to something more low-key.

The real star in the game's audio is the sound effects. From the various growls and groans from the enemies, to the clank of a bouncing grenade, Insomniac touched all the bases with these ones. You just have to hear it to believe it.

Game Modes


Besides the one player Campaign mode, Resistance also offers Cooperative and Multiplayer options as well.

Cooperative is the same as the Campaign mode, although now you can fight for the human race alongside a friend. I've never been a fan of the split screen, and even though the game offers a handy indicator that directs you to your partner should you get separated, we lost interest very quickly and instead took turns playing in one player mode. This is no fault of the developers, we just found the split screen took away from the full experience of the game, even on a 65 inch widescreen television.

The Multiplayer online mode is stuffed with different options and especially caters to the new guy who has just picked up the game and wants to blast away online without getting repeatedly slaughtered by more experienced players. You may play as either the humans or the Chimera in the online modes. Insomniac has added the “Ranked Game” option to the online menu, which will pair you with and against players of a similar skill level. Keep playing ranked games and your skill level is affected, either moving you up the ladder or keeping you where you are, depending on how well you do. As you improve your rank, you can earn medals and ribbons depending on your play. There are three different options for Ranked games including “Free for All”, “Team”, and “Grab Bag”.

Free for All is the “every man for himself” option in multiplayer mode. After choosing the free for all option, you can choose the type of match.
Deathmatch is everyone killing each other and earning as many points as possible before time expires. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the allotted time. Conversion is similar to Deathmatch with a small twist. You start Conversion mode as a human. If you die, you respawn as a Chimera hybrid. Die again, and you are out of the game, but can still watch the action using the Spectator Mode.

Team mode is split into four different types of game. Team Deathmatch is the same as Free for All Deathmatch, except your entire team is trying to outscore the opposing team before time expires. In Meltdown, you try to capture the other team's “Coolant Nodes” for their reactor, causing it to overheat. When all of the opposing team's coolant nodes are destroyed, their reactor blows and your team wins. “Breach” is similar to Meltdown, with your ultimate goal being to destroy the opponents' reactor. As you capture their coolant nodes throughout the map, you create new spawn points for your team and bring up additional defenses for your own reactor. “Capture the Flag” is just as it says. Capture the opponents' flag from their base, hang it in your own base, and earn a point. Rinse, repeat, etc. The team with the most flags captured at the end of the set time wins the game.

Options abound in the Multiplayer mode. You can join a clan, create a friend list, and text message other players. Although I didn't find it quite as addictive as the online feature of Call of Duty 3, I can see wasting a lot of hours on this in the near future.


Overall

Resistance: Fall of Man was billed as THE must-have release title for the PS3. I agree. This game takes the capabilities of the new system, and exploits them in its favor, offering beautiful visual effects, ear-tingling sounds, and most notably fantastic gameplay for the new gamer and the grizzled veteran alike.