I've been replaying the Resistance trilogy...

[Szuran]

I'm replaying the Resistance trilogy after such a long time that I don't even remember playing them initially. And boy, what a ride. I'm at Resistance 2, but it's far enough to share some thoughts. I think you guys should give it at try--well, at least the first one.

 

Resistance: Fall of Man was like a rollercoaster: I loved it, then I didn't, then I loved it, and so on, until the end. After sleeping with these thoughts, I got to say: this is a unique and GOOD game, but not without flaws. However, these are flaws I can appreciate.

 

Initially I was shocked because... wait, there's a JUMP button? In a game from the Gears of War era? WAIT. There's no marker telling me where to go? There's an element of actual EXPLORATION? Not much of it, but still - I have to rely on VISUAL CLUES? And... and I can carry ALL THE WEAPONS? There are MEDKITS (with partially regenerating health)?

 

This was heaven.

 

For me, this was a mindblowing discovery: a modern(ish) game that didn't actually treat me like an idiot! And that's what games from back then liked to do.

But, Resistance proved to be cruel. Just brutally, punishingly hard. At least at times. Around the halfway mark the difficulty spiked. Checkpoints were rare, enemies didn't take any bait, and sometimes there were hordes of them.

 

This (AT TIMES) was actually fun, because with quite a varied arsenal, the difficulty was in choosing the correct weapon to deal with any given situation. It required juggling weapons at times, and this was an adrenaline-pumping experience; just an all-around well designed shooter. That could've used more checkpoints, because seriously, replaying large chunks of levels for the fifth time in a row isn't very exciting.

 

A big flaw, at first, was the color palette. Resistance is the greyest of grey games. Well, in some levels it's the browniest of brown, but it's always just one boring color. The game makes a point about the protagonist (which is the boringest dude in gaming) having yellow eyes, but I didn't notice, because in the level where the cutscene took place, everything was yellow-ish.

 

But, this made the game look very clean and allowed visual player direction. I never had any problem findind the right way, so I started to appreciate this approach.

 

On to Resistance 2!

 

AND WOW, THIS GAME LOOKS AMAZING.

 

I'm saying this sincerely: the visuals here are just incredible. It's more about the design than the polygon count, but holy crap, the first level, with a giant robot towering above you, is eye-poppingly pretty. And the atmosphere is spot on; I've always thought that the Resistance games are better at gamifying Terminator than the actual Terminator games.

 

But... But wait, what's with this obnoxious "now do this, now do that" tutorial? Resistance 1 didn't have anything like it. But okay, it's just a tutorial.

 

Wait... Why do you show me the objective marker? WHY? Resistance 1 was so good at avoiding this and making it perfectly clear where to go! I guess here, more detail in graphics would make it more confusing, so with much reservation, I accept it.

 

But the next sin is deadly.

 

ONLY TWO WEAPONS.

 

No.

 

NO.

 

You just don't do that. Resistance was all about choosing the right weapon for the situation, it was about learning the game. Every fight was like a puzzle. You had to find a way to solve it.

 

Here, if there's a rocket launcher, then I guess you get the rocket launcher, because you don't have ammo for other weapons anyway. There's no experimenting, no freedom. It's your run of the mill late 2000s Call of Duty ripoff.

 

Well, it's not THAT bad. Actually, I love the game for the atmosphere and world-building, but still... The first one was so good. I enjoyed so much that fight when I knew a huge and agile mine-spitting bug was coming, and I tried different tactics: mine the field around it, use wall-penetrating ammo, try to snipe his a**, grenade-spam it... IT WAS FUN! Why not develop and polish this kind of design, instead of reducing it to hand-holding?

 

I remember, faintly, being completely blown away by Resistance 3 back in the day. Nowadays, I don't know if it holds up. I can recommend the first game with clear conscience. The second one is still very good, but not nearly as good.

 

I really hope for the best.

[Nevander]

I never got to enjoy these games because of them being PS exclusives.

[Foodles]

Played Resistance 1 way back in the day and remember it being alright, enjoyable enough at least. But I've no real desire to replay it and I heard that the sequels were trash so never even got them. It was a similar situation with the Gears of War series in that the first game was pretty good but everything else afterwards was bad.

[Szuran]

For me Gears are unplayable nowadays. Back in the day I liked 1 but got horribly bored by 2. I tried to replay 1 a couple of months ago and it's just so basic, so simplistic - you literally go in a straight line from wall to wall and shoot enemies that spawn right before you. I like the setting, but it's sooo boring. Also, it doesn't help this game is grey all the way through, because unlike Resistance (where monochome worked as it made everything nice and clear), the design here is full of detail and it all becomes a grey blurry mess.