Resistance: Fall of Man

Resistance: Fall of Man
Publisher: SCEE
ERP: £39.99

This brutal sci-fi shooting spree is from the team behind Sony’s kiddie smart Ratchet & Clank adventures. Imagine Disney turning its hand to animated shock horror; you’d certainly be curious but remain sceptical. So the first major coup achieved by “Resistance: Fall of Man” is that we doubt you’d guess its playful origins unless told. Your only clue is the outlandish arsenal of bizarre weaponry required to combat the ‘Chimera’ – an otherworldly enemy that threatens to destroy humanity.

Mankind’s battle for survival is fought during an alternate 20th Century reality. Instead of asking us to fight Nazis or the Japanese (yet again), “Resistance…” shoehorns British and US forces into archetypical WWII-era locations that are partially transformed by the Chimera à la “War of the Worlds”. The result feels like “Call of Duty” meets “Halo” meets “Half-Life” but in a way that you’ve never seen before. You couldn’t come close to this grand scale ruckus on a PS2 (though Gears of War outguns it on Xbox360)

Comparisons to Microsoft’s Gears of War end with the sci-fi association. The Xbox 360 game is a third-person squad based ‘stop and pop’, whereas PS3’s flagship shooter is all first-person ‘run and gun’. Great because of familiarity with the controls, but arguably disappointing that Sony hasn’t stretched the genre beyond fancy visuals. Occasionally the motion-sensing SIXAXIS control is brought into play, but only to shrug off enemies and perform a melee attacks such as a rifle-butt to the chops.

After all it is the goofy weaponry and far reaching war torn vistas that compel you to play, whether in single-player, co-op or various online multiplayer modes. 1950s style rifles and bazookas are racked alongside futuristic firearms that’ll shoot through walls, form a defensive shield or home in on tagged enemies. In classic fps style you can carry the whole lot wherever you go, which lessens the tension but increases the fun of all-out shooting. You’re going to love the Hedgehog grenade too, already a classic and likely to influence many fps games to come.

Up to 40 players can venture online in the largest multiplayer maps yet seen. One of the six modes, “Conversion”, grants supernatural powers to anyone who dies and is re-spawned as a Chimera. It’s a cool touch, typical of the gleeful inventiveness encountered throughout the whole game. As with any fps the multiplayer needs time to prove itself, but only seasoned fps pros might find cause for complaint.

Back to Playstation 3 Launch Special