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Resistance 3

Resistance 3

Nathan Hale is dead and gone, but Joe Capelli picks up where he left off as humanity is coming to an end.

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There isn't a whole lot of fighting spirit left in the surviving pockets of human resistance. They're trying hard not to attract unwanted attention and stay hidden.

This is true for Joe Capelli, gone underground in the small village of Haven, Oklahoma, with his son and some other survivors. They live here in relative safety, until a scientist called Malakov shows up with the Chimera on his tail. A giant wormhole has opened up in the skies over New York, a direct portal to the Chimeran homeworld, and it spreads its cold over what once was the city that never slept. Slowly, but surely, the temperature is dropping and soon there won't be any humans left alive.

Malakov has been looking for Joe for months, as he needs his help in closing the wormhole. Joe reluctantly agrees to help, and together with Malakov he starts on the long journey across the continent to New York.

Resistance 3
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Resistance 3 is something of a road movie equivalent in the shooter genre. You will travel across the country, stop along the way, make new acquaintances and help people in need as they in turn help you. It's a rather nice concept for a shooter, but one that the game doesn't make full use of.

The story of Joe isn't all that interesting on its own, and the reason for the trip are a bit unclear and difficult to relate to. On the other hand, the environments you travel past are beautifully visualised, and proves that Insomniac really have nailed the essence of what human survival during an alien occupation looks like.

During the breaks between the more action-packed sequences you can hear messages on the short wave radio, people trying to trade what little rations or medicines there are, and it serves as a good backdrop to what's going on in the game. It really grabs hold of you.

Uneven story hooks aside, Resistance 3 nails the core of the shooting experience. Questionable design choices made in Resistance 2 have been dropped; you're fully kitted out with all weapons, and medkits are back, in place of regenerative health.

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The weapons are a wonderful mixed bag of tricks made up of both old and new acquaintances. The fact that the first - after the standard issue of weapons - is the wall-piercing Auger gives you some idea of the fun that's in store. Standard inclusions such as the sniper rifle, shotgun and rocket launcher have to compete with more exotic stuff such as freeze guns and a good old sledgehammer.

Each of the weapons come with some kind of alternate fire or secondary function. The Auger can create a shield, the shotgun can also launch concussion grenades, and the beautifully sadistic Mutator can spew out a toxic cloud that will see your enemies puke their way to their demise. All twelve weapons found in the game are useful. By using a gun you gain experience, which you can use to upgrade the weapons to do more damage, add a scope, bigger clips and so on.

Resistance 3

Enemies prove themselves intelligent (or at least capable of creating that illusion). The more advanced of them will try and flank you and force you out of cover with grenades, reminding us a bit of the commandos from Half-Life - a compliment in itself - and there are a dozen or so enemy types (excluding bosses) you will encounter, and even if some just carry different guns they provide plenty of variation.

The Auger-equipped Steelheads hold back and constantly look for cover, while the agile Longlegs are jumping all on rooftops and ledges, as the battle rages on all around you. We are miles from the endless rows of scripted enemies that are served up in games like Call of Duty. Even the zombie-like Grims will sometimes fall back and charge at you from another angle. Along with the epic boss battles, diversity is a key component in making the Chimera such a entertaining enemy to fight.

As far as the action goes there is little reason to complain, but from a technical standpoint there are one or two disappointments. Facial animation and lip sync is fine in cut scenes, but outside of these set- pieces you will rarely see lips move correctly as a character speaks. We also encountered characters stuck to obvious pre-scripted routines, left as they were talking to thin air as we moved past them.

There are plenty of cutscenes, especially in the early sections, and you will feel from time to time that the rhythm is somewhat monotonous, catapulting you relentlessly between cutscene and action sequence. At certain points you are forced to wait until a NPC opens a door, with scripting sometimes triggered in a way that you need to find the exact right spot in order for it to kick in. Far from an optimal experience.

Resistance 3

The entire campaign can be played with a friend, both in split screen and online. While it's not drop-in/drop-out co-op, you can start your co-op campaign from any mission you have reached in single player. We definitely recommend you play Resistance 3 with a friend as the battles gain an extra dimension when you're two.

That takes us to the production side of things. While Joe's voice-actor has a tendency to overact at times, overall the voice-acting is of high calibre, and the same goes for the rest of the audio. The weapons have a fittingly heavy sound, and the death roars of the Chimera are utterly satisfying. Apart from stiff facial animations the game is visually appealing, and there is a good sense of scale as you encounter the giant Goliaths. The colour palette is heavy on browns, blues and greys, conveying the sense of impending doom.

Resistance 3 isn't a perfect game, but there is not much to complain about either and we would recommend the game to everyone who owns a Playstation 3. And while it's not a very original experience, it still feels fresh compared to Call of Duty and its many clones. Even if this isn't a game of the year candidate, there is plenty of fun to be had with Resistance 3.

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08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
+
Great weapons, intense battles, co-op campaign, builds on a great foundation.
-
Some technical issues.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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