PlayStation 3
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Product Features

Genre
Action and Shooter
Publisher
Sony
Release Date
September 09, 2011
Available Platforms
PlayStation 3

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Resistance 3

This is the third instalment in the main Resistance epic series of Sci-Fi FPS games and is brought to you by highly regarded game developers: Insomniac Games. Set in post-apocalyptic America in 1957, four years on from Resistance 2, it focuses on Joseph Capelli, who had previously been discharged from military service; leaving somewhat under a cloud. Since the conclusion of the previous chapter he has been in retreat, in hiding with his young family and a handful of other wretched survivors, struggling to make some sort of a life amid the devastation brought about by the Chimera invasion. He is eventually sought out and found by Dr Fyodor Malikov (Russian Scientist featured in Resistance 2) and, after hearing of Malikov's new ideas and inspired novel strategy, is persuaded to participate in a new plan of attack. Unwillingly he sets off on his new assignment, an incredibly risky, absurdly desperate mission which takes him from Oklahoma to New York to try to bring down and defeat the Chimeran occupying forces. You must take on the role of Joseph Capelli. Rise to this crucial challenge and do your best to save the World!

  • Dave Wallace March 02, 2012 PS3
    ****

    You're cold. Scared. Hungry. Cowering in a ramshackle network of underground tunnels as alien footsoldiers patrol overhead, you hold your breath to avoid being detected by the killing machines that roam up and down the main street of what used to be your hometown. There's a rumour that the Chimera will soon be bringing in an ultimate weapon of mass destruction to wipe your clandestine human settlement off the face of the planet once and for all, and when that happens you'll have no choice but to gather your few remaining weapons and try and fight your way out, accompanied by what little there is left of your friends and family.

    This is Resistance 3. And it's all about survival.

    As you might have gathered, the third entry in Insomniac's Playstation 3-exclusive Resistance series is quite a different beast to its predecessors. Whilst the first 'Resistance' game combined the franchise's overarching alien-invasion plot with a UK-set swashbuckling World War II adventure, and the second instalment introduced a more sci-fi flavour set against the backdrop of 1950s American cities, 'Resistance 3' has more in common with the post-apocalyptic survival-horror genre. Think Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" meets Resident Evil and you'll come close to the tone that this game strives to capture.

    Along with that change in tone comes a change of lead character. Rather than being cast as an accomplished, hard-nosed soldier in the vein of Resistance 1 & 2's Nathan Hale, here you're more of an everyman who's desperately trying to cling on to the few remaining pockets of human life that still exist in the US. This immediately lends the game a more desperate flavour, and increases the sense of jeopardy right from the start.

    The opening tutorial level certainly doesn't pull any punches about the dire straits that the human race is facing, kicking things off in a grim subterranean hovel in which sickness and death are omnipresent, and news of a pregnancy in the group is a cause for mourning rather than celebration. Still, after this downbeat opening, the only way is up - and you're quickly drawn into taking a more active role in resisting the Chimeran forces, and saving your nearest and dearest - as well as the rest of the planet - from their seemingly inevitable fate.

    Once the opening sections are over, the story kicks into higher gear and you're tasked with traipsing across the open countryside in an attempt to make your way to New York and shut down the cosmic portal that's allowing the aliens to colonise our world. It's here where the real meat of the game begins, and where Insomniac gets to really differentiate this game from its predecessors.

    Instead of the largely urban backdrops of Resistance 1 & 2, this third game provides largely organic and natural environments to serve as the basis of its levels. This gives the game a more wild and unpredictable feel, and helps the programmers to avoid the kind of linear routes and story devices that made the earlier games feel a little repetitive in places.

    Interest is also generated through using a variety of modes of transport - including a boat and a train - that again allow you to explore a greater variety of geographical areas. Yes, there's an occasional sense that these levels are 'on rails' in a way that the free-roaming levels aren't, but they provide a welcome breather and a change of pace, as well as giving a decent in-game explanation for how you travel from one area to another without simply resorting to endless cutscenes.

    However, despite these innovations, the game doesn't abandon everything that makes the Resistance games such a fun experience. The traditionally large variety of weapons is expanded even further with a number of weird and wonderful contraptions, including both advanced alien technology (my personal favourite is a plasma-bolt weapon that comes complete with a remote device that functions like the 'trap' from Ghostbusters) as well as more grounded, home-made efforts that are just as inventive. Using these weapons is facilitated by the return of the 'weapon wheel' from the first game, which makes selecting your firearm quick and easy and also allows you to carry an entire arsenal around with you (rather than the two-gun limit imposed by the second game).

    The traditional Chimeran enemies are also back with a vengeance, although their ranks have also been expanded with some new bad guys to go along with the old favourites. The best new addition has got to be the supremely irritating 'grasshopper' baddie - which would be easy enough to see off if they'd only stay still for long enough for you to get a shot at them.

    And it wouldn't be a Resistance game without the occasional larger-than-life boss battle to break things up a little. Thankfully, the developers seem to have saved their most imaginative creations for these sections, pitting you against gigantic Cloverfield-esque city-destroying aliens, a huge satanic worm that lurks in the heart of an old mine, and (in my personal favourite boss level) a fully-armed alien warship that you must face armed with only a rocket launcher, atop a rickety old bridge.

    In essence, everything that was good about the first two games has been incorporated and improved upon here, with a strong sense that Insomniac have learned from the weaknesses of the earlier instalments and gone all-out to conclude the trilogy with their best work. That's not to say that this is a perfect game - there are still a few irritations, whether it's the imperfect enemy AI or the limp conclusion to one climactic level that wraps things up with a simple button-pressing QuickTime Event, rather than the cathartic battle that the level seemed to be building up to - but it's as close to perfection as the franchise has come.

    With a richer and more varied cast of human characters, a better story, a genuine sense of darkness and despair, and (without spoiling things) an ending that tries to commit to a proper story outcome rather than teasing things out with yet another cliffhanger, Resistance 3 is a fitting climax to the series, and stands as one of the most enjoyable first-person shooters that the PS3 has to offer.