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Resistance 2 is gigantic, humongous, and several other choice words that appear when you look up “big” in a thesaurus.  As Sony’s signature first-person shooter for the holiday season, this sequel earns every sizable adjective with its 60 man multiplayer mode, 8 player co-op, creatures that tower over skyscrapers, and levels that cover an astonishing amounts of real estate with nary a load time.  The entire theme of this game can be summed up as big, but more importantly, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to play.

Coming to America

The campaign starts immediately after the conclusion of Resistance: Fall of Man where the Chimera threat had been fought back in the United Kingdom.   The U.S. military forcibly pick up our hero from the first game, Sgt. Nathan Hale - a special man carrying the chimeran virus, but not susceptible to its effects. Getting bit by this bug typically turns you into a horrible multi-eyed monstrosity.

The game jumps right into the action with an attack on your homecoming flight over Iceland. During this exchange, a strange chimeran entity reveals itself and becomes the driving force for Hale as he travels across an America ravaged by the creatures.  The game is rife with images of American cities demolished with floating battle stations darkening the skies. While this may sound like one of many games articulating the end of times, somehow, this apocalypse doesn’t feel as weighted with severity and hopelessness.

Resistance 2’s roller-coaster ride sensibilities constantly throw new gameplay, new enemies, and new environments your way.  About halfway through the second level in San Francisco, R2 achieves a pacing that never relents and kept me playing continuously just to see what was next. In this epic sequel, the game feels more like a series of events and action sequences inside of which the enemy behavior is just as tenacious. Yes, it utilizes scripting, but the overall effect is a sense of freshness throughout, leaving many lasting impressions of awe.  The Chicago level, which features the Leviathan creature shown at E3 and on the side of buildings in L.A., is particularly noteworthy; it vacillates between the intimate terror of a Romero movie and a Roland Emmerich summer blockbuster without feeling forced or inconsistent.  I would elaborate more but that would spoil one of the more incredible experiences in the game.

The Beauty of Ruin

The other element of R2 that works with the pacing is the astonishing artistic and technical achievements in the game.  The sense of scale is on display, but the variety of looks and visual tone inside of just a level give the game a greater creative energy that really help propel it forward.  As opposed to the grey skies of England in the first Resistance, many times the game is played in broad daylight and colors are popping off the screen. It may be a world on the brink of destruction, but it’s not oppressive in its palate.  

There are a couple of quibbles with the single-player campaign. Every so often there are gameplay elements that feel too contrived, such as enemies in water that can’t be killed.  Resistance 2, along with every other game I’ve played this year, doesn’t have a final boss battle that actually feels like a denouement.  But, in light of the massive achievements on display throughout the campaign, they can be put aside in favor of just letting Insomniac take you on their wild wild, ride.

An Army of Many

Of course the game’s ambition doesn’t stop at single player.  The competitive multiplayer has been bumped to 60 players which, in light of the chaos in Resistance: Fall of Man’s 40 player matches, might sound like a bad idea if the geniuses at Insomniac didn’t already have firm control over the chaos.  Skirmish mode is an all out battle where you are assigned to squads who are given specific goals inside one of the massive maps in the game.  These goals change up dynamically to help move players around the map to prevent the frenzy of up to 60 players bouncing off the walls.  It works and even without microphones, I found my squad effective at coordinating tactics. While fans of the Gears and Halo-style of shooter might find this a little harder to wrap your fingers around, the bottom line is that Resistance 2 multiplayer works and is a blast to play. 

The eight player co-op is equally ambitious.  You can play one of three classes - Medic, Spec Ops, or Soldier - as your squad works through scenarios from both the original Resistance and the new storyline. These side missions are completely unique and are not retreads from either game’s campaign.  These multi-man operations are driven by the collection of “grey matter” that certain enemies drop. Find enough of the gray stuff and you can unlock weapons, armor, and character models. 

The classes are well balanced and no one stood out over another.  This is especially true of the Medic class whose primary weapons leaches energy off of enemies and can then be spread around to other teammates; you’re not just standing back helping your buddies who get to have all the fun.  The action is fast and furious with often absurd numbers of enemies on screen with no detectable drop in frame rate or texture quality. Team members have to work together to get through onslaught of aliens. This does make initial outings a little chaotic, but once you get a flow with your teammates, there’s some impressive devastation you can wreak. The co-op campaign does have a narrative thread, but missions are randomly selected and the same setting can have new objectives when played through again. Unfortunately this means that the co-op campaign doesn’t match up to the single-player campaign.   This would be more of an issue were it not for the leveling system which gives the essential drive to return and get more badass.

Join the Resistance Today!

All in all, Resistance 2 is a major improvement over the original in every way. It is an awesome experience of seeing a team of developers at the top of their game and pulling out all the stops.  There’s something magnificent in the campaign’s execution, a wholesale devotion to having a lot of fun.

Article by: Adam Sessler