fps

Review – Resistance 2

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Resistance 2 from Insomniac Games is the highly anticipated sequel to the fairly enjoyable Resistance: Fall of Man. Insomniac is one of Sony’s prize jewels, an exclusive PS3 developer who makes big hits on a tight time schedule. This time around however, (for the very first time in fact) I wasn’t pleased with their output. This game has its moments and is sure to be enjoyed by many, but I’ve played too many shooters to accept a second-rate product from a first-rate company, especially in the saturated season we fortunately find ourselves in.

Resistance 2 continues the story of Nathan Hale and an alien invasion that takes place on an alternate earth in our World War II era. The all-powerful Chimera have filled America’s skies with massive warships and are exterminating the nation in a maelstrom of nuclear fire. Playing Hale, you will visit various locales throughout the States, gun down the inhuman enemy in droves, and perform the standard suite of special forces-type missions that are always used in games to explain how one man can destroy whole battalions of troops, obliterate massive pieces of architecture, and change the course of a war. →  Xenosaga 2: Jenseits von Gut und Pöst

Review – Call of Duty: World at War

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As expected, Activision has pimped the hell out of 2008’s yearly Call of Duty release, World at War. The savvier gamers out there have not been fooled, and have spent their energies trashing it before it even got a chance to prove itself. They know that WaW was developed not by series creator Infinity Ward, but by Treyarch, whose two game Call of Duty pedigree has been viewed as less than stellar.

I assert that this judgment was unfair. Big Red One was developed for last gen platforms, and managed to be very clever given its hardware limitations. As for CoD3, the snarky blog commenters betrayed their true lack of intelligence. It should have been obvious to anyone that the game was a stopgap, a way for Activision to “exploit” a favorite moneymaker with a yearly release. World at War has twice the budget and development time that CoD3 did. If you truly want to judge Treyarch’s ability compared to IW, this is the time to do it. →  Hell is other gamers.

Review – Left 4 Dead

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In an industry where cooperative gameplay is tacked onto nearly every game just for the hell of it, it’s refreshing to see a game where it is the primary focus. All too often, coop is given the short end of the stick – added merely to grab a few more sales from suckers like me. In Left 4 Dead, Valve has created a cooperative FPS with their traditional polish and balance. The versus mode, whether originally intended to be “tacked on” or not, is surprisingly fun, making it a good game for small versus games as well.

Left 4 Dead is what I’d call a running-survival game. In a location filled with zombies, a team of four survivors must make their way from point A to point B. In between the points, there are a few safe houses, which break up the action. The four human players need to stick together and make good use of the environment to survive the trek, as the zombies will quickly trap or surround any individuals who stray too far from the rest. →  Phoenix Write: Just Posts for All

Review – Resistance: Fall of Man

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In Resistance: Fall of Man, scrappy human soldiers in the UK go up against a technologically superior (and seemingly alien) foe in an alternate, World War 2 era universe. To those uninitiated in gaming culture, this may sound like War of the Worlds updated by half a century.

If only it were that whimsical. As a PS3 launch game, you can’t fault developer Insomniac for making Resistance a comfortable and conservative experience, but at this point it is mostly good for building up interest in Resistance 2.

Almost everything in Resistance will be familiar to action game aficionados. While technically set in the early 1950’s, the outdoor environments are reminiscent of any World War 2 shooter. The enemy Chimera bear some resemblance to Gears of War’s Locusts, while their technology and architecture looks to have been contracted out to the Combine from Half Life 2. The controls are immediately familiar, the health is Halo style, and the friendly AI worthless.

About the only thing it does drastically different is the weapons, which is understandable because the developers are the guys behind Ratchet and Clank. →  Densha de Read! Shinkansen