Oh man, Resistance 3 it's easily one of my most replayed games of all time up there with titles like Mark of the Ninja, Vanquish and FEAR to name a few examples. I've played most of the games in the series with the exception of Burning Skies and I at least enjoyed all of them. My favorites being Fall of Man and 3. In spite of me replaying it so much, I'll more critical on it than if I were to play it once or twice, I do get more critical the more I replay which is a side effect. I also tried to play on hard mode this time around. If I were to make one big criticism on R3 is that it's easy to see why the series did die out. This game is completely removed from Fall of Man and also R2 as well to the point where each game in the series feels completely different from the last with the Chimera and the weapon line up being the thing that links everything together. R2 had a focus on multiplayer where R3 had no trophies for mp feeling like the mode was a contractual obligation.
This leads to story and it's easy to see that R3 is more or less Half Life 2. Fall of Man was an alien invastion during WW2 and R2 was super soldiers fighting off aliens in alternate pre Cold War America. R3 is in the post apocalypse where the Chimera are like the Combine and it's a post apocalyptic road trip to get New York. One aspect R3's story does well is how it humanizes many of it's NPCs from Capelli's family and community to Charlie Tent's rag tag fighters to a religious community all the way down to cannibals. When it comes to the people Capelli meets, he has to earn their trust like moving a down battery or killing a monster in the tunnels or helping a captive in the base of the Cannibals. Cappelli doesn't have much personality himself during gameplay but the various npcs you'll meet are interesting enough.
However it's hard not to draw the Half Life 2 connections. You help out Resistance fighters, break out of a prison, fight zombies in an abandoned mining town and fight a monster in the tunnels like in that game all while heading to a Citadel except here it's in New York.
There also some criticisms to the story divorced from that game like how Malikov never tells Cappelli how to stop the wormhole before he dies. Cappelli never talking during gameplay making him hard to connect with as a character. How SRPA couldn't take down the Chimera but a depowered Capelli and Charlie Tent can. How much of Cappelli's assault on New York can be skipped over since he needed to be rescued by Tent and then the former has a sudden epiphany on how to stop the wormhole.
R3's story is decent if derivative and having some major problems. However the story was never really the main attraction.
In terms of gameplay especially in terms of it's weapons and combat, it beats Half Life 2 by a mile and in terms of weapon feedback, it's the best in the series. The super loud and punchy sound effects especially with the Bullseye and Marksman to the very detailed and gory animations to the enemies making very loud groaning sounds as you are hitting them. The weapons like the Bullseye, Auger, Marksman, Rossmore, Magnum are all back but can be levelled up now which makes them even deadlier. An issue with this system is that you would have to play the game 3 or even 4 times just to level up every gun. The level 3 magnum's alt fire makes it the best pistol in gaming.
The enemy line up especially when you are fighting the Chimeran Hybrids is great you got the foot soldiers, Ravangers, Shock Drones, Long Legs, Stalkers, Steelheads, snipers, brawlers and widowmakers are fantastic and keep you on your toes. They have enemies that run that run the archetypes of your close range, mid range and longer range combine that with the weapons and damage animations and it's easily some of the most fun first person shooting in the 7th gen.
With that said however, you won't be fighting these enemies for the whole game. You will also spend a good chunk of the game where there's no Chimera footsoldiers for much of it. The parts where you'll be mainly fighting Grim and human enemies. The latter is where R3 loses what makes it so much and very much resembles the hitscan human enemy combat you often went up against in many 7th gen FPS games. So for a good while of R3's campaign it's fighting human hitscanners and zombies which isn't playing to R3's strengths. Everything does pick up in New York and back to fighting foot soldiers.
This does lead to another criticism which is the health system. I do like that it's finite and not regen like in R2. Enemies also drop health upon death abeit inconsistently. I did really wish your health can regen up to certain thresholds since shots enemies fire can't be as reliably evaded like in Fall of Man since it's more hitscan now. Due to this playing on higher difficulties and using close range weapons feel like games of luck since you have to kill an enemy upclose to get health back but you could get down before you even close the distance.
Overall, R3 might be derivative of HL2 but it's weapons and combat makes it the best HL2 inspired game.
No comments:
Post a Comment