Whereupon I write a great many words
This is a big one to make up for several entries that I've been meaning to write. None of it's particularly hilarious, so you might want to just skip it all.
Resistance is an all-around solid first-person shooter with great sound, a great story, excellent visuals, and more. The team at Insomniac have captured everything that I like about the genre in to one package that delivers exactly what I expect from all games: fun. For far too long the industry's been shipping out "innovative" tripe like Gears of War that is highly praised because if impressive visuals and some gimmicky aspect that gets old 10 minutes in to the game, but lacks anything that even remotely resembles fun. Resistance bucks that trend by going back to the FPS roots and making a single-player game that's fun to play not just once, but multiple times and multiplayer that's actually worth getting online for.
In Resistance: Fall of Man you play Sgt. Nathan Hale, sole survivor of an American landing in Britain attempting to repel the horrible hordes of the Chimera. The Chimera are an alien threat that originated from somewhere in Russia (with a nod and a wink towards Tunguska) and has spread devastation and chaos throughout Russia and Europe. The game takes place in the 1950's on an alternate history Earth where WWII never happened. The technology of the age is roughly what was seen in the late 40's, but with something of a sci-fi influence thanks to the Chimera. See, the Chimera infect human bodies which then mutate in to the bad guys you fight. They don't tell you much more than that, perhaps paving the way for sequels...
The gameplay in resistance is pretty standard for FPSes, you can run, crouch, jump, shoot, and smack foes with a melee attack, so if you've played one FPS, you'll pick up on this really quickly. The game does, however, take advantage of the power of the PS3 and puts a lot of action on the screen. There was one level where it was me and about 10 or so AI allies rushing down a hill and attacking a large number of Chimeran forces with no hardware-related slowdown. In addition to this, the maps are large, with diverse terrain and optional paths that can lead to handy rewards. You never need to duck to get around the terrain, but ducking does come in handy if you wish to avoid enemy fire. And speaking of, the AI in this game is quite smart. They'll stick together, move to cover, and fire from advantageous positions. They'll even throw grenades if they're having hitting you behind cover. However, cover doesn't always stay as cover. In some cases, it's destroyable, but the enemy and their advanced technology allows them to field a weapon that actually penetrates cover. Fortunately, you get an indication that you're just about to get blasted wich allows you to move. Unfortunately, often times the enemy will try to herd you out from behind said cover where you're easier to hit. However, this weapon does make multiplayer a whole lot more interesting.
Multiplayer in Resistance: Fall of Man comes in two forms. In one form, you can buddy up with an amigo to plow through the single player, which kind of makes the whole "sole survivor" thing a bit silly, but the story doesn't seem to care and I don't think you will either. In the other form, you can play online in free-for-all or team-based games using all of the weapons from the single-player campaign. Getting online is both easy and fast, allowing you to join up with your friends, manage a clan, or just hop on to the first available server.
Dave's Arbitrary Rating: Die Hard and a bag of chips out of Die Hard - Oh yeah, it's all that and then some.
So, now the question arises, is this one game worth spending $600 on a PS3. The answer, quite plainly is no. While Resistance is a solid and fun game, no single game is possibly worth spending that much money on a system. Fortunately for me, and probably unfortunately for less-techy humans, the PS3 is loaded to the gills with fun features that the average user will probably never play with. The most noteworthy of these features is the ability to install Linux on the system without having to hack or otherwise void the warranty of the system.
As the system itself uses USB ports (along with having SD, CF and memory stick pro ports built in) it is capable of accepting any USB keyboard and mouse. No need to buy expensive peripherals or adapters, you can just grab any old USB hardware and plug it in. You can also use the ports to plug in external drives or flash memory devices. But since the built-in Game OS does not interface with these devices, you'll need another OS, which is where PS3-specific builds come in to play. As the PS3 uses the crazy-ass cell processor (which is also known as PPC64) special linux builds are necessary to get the system running. Fortunately, Yellow Dog Linux has a build all ready, complete with step-by-step instructions on how to get it running. I put Yellow Dog on my PS3 and, while I'm still getting used to Linux as an OS (I'm lookin' at you Chad...), I have to say that it makes for a fine media center PC. I've got a build of mplayer running on the box now, which allows for playing media of most standard formats.
For me, at least, having this as a media center PC and a Linux option makes the system worthwhile. I use pretty much all of the PS3's functions and enjoy them, but I know that the general public will not see these options and will wonder why there are fools out there who'll pay $600 for a game machine. I just hope that the future holds a library of games and a price drop for the PS3 to make it more accessible to the public.
Well, there was going to be something more that I was gonna write, but I've completely forgotten it now. Back to watching Ergo Proxy...
Resistance is an all-around solid first-person shooter with great sound, a great story, excellent visuals, and more. The team at Insomniac have captured everything that I like about the genre in to one package that delivers exactly what I expect from all games: fun. For far too long the industry's been shipping out "innovative" tripe like Gears of War that is highly praised because if impressive visuals and some gimmicky aspect that gets old 10 minutes in to the game, but lacks anything that even remotely resembles fun. Resistance bucks that trend by going back to the FPS roots and making a single-player game that's fun to play not just once, but multiple times and multiplayer that's actually worth getting online for.
In Resistance: Fall of Man you play Sgt. Nathan Hale, sole survivor of an American landing in Britain attempting to repel the horrible hordes of the Chimera. The Chimera are an alien threat that originated from somewhere in Russia (with a nod and a wink towards Tunguska) and has spread devastation and chaos throughout Russia and Europe. The game takes place in the 1950's on an alternate history Earth where WWII never happened. The technology of the age is roughly what was seen in the late 40's, but with something of a sci-fi influence thanks to the Chimera. See, the Chimera infect human bodies which then mutate in to the bad guys you fight. They don't tell you much more than that, perhaps paving the way for sequels...
The gameplay in resistance is pretty standard for FPSes, you can run, crouch, jump, shoot, and smack foes with a melee attack, so if you've played one FPS, you'll pick up on this really quickly. The game does, however, take advantage of the power of the PS3 and puts a lot of action on the screen. There was one level where it was me and about 10 or so AI allies rushing down a hill and attacking a large number of Chimeran forces with no hardware-related slowdown. In addition to this, the maps are large, with diverse terrain and optional paths that can lead to handy rewards. You never need to duck to get around the terrain, but ducking does come in handy if you wish to avoid enemy fire. And speaking of, the AI in this game is quite smart. They'll stick together, move to cover, and fire from advantageous positions. They'll even throw grenades if they're having hitting you behind cover. However, cover doesn't always stay as cover. In some cases, it's destroyable, but the enemy and their advanced technology allows them to field a weapon that actually penetrates cover. Fortunately, you get an indication that you're just about to get blasted wich allows you to move. Unfortunately, often times the enemy will try to herd you out from behind said cover where you're easier to hit. However, this weapon does make multiplayer a whole lot more interesting.
Multiplayer in Resistance: Fall of Man comes in two forms. In one form, you can buddy up with an amigo to plow through the single player, which kind of makes the whole "sole survivor" thing a bit silly, but the story doesn't seem to care and I don't think you will either. In the other form, you can play online in free-for-all or team-based games using all of the weapons from the single-player campaign. Getting online is both easy and fast, allowing you to join up with your friends, manage a clan, or just hop on to the first available server.
Dave's Arbitrary Rating: Die Hard and a bag of chips out of Die Hard - Oh yeah, it's all that and then some.
So, now the question arises, is this one game worth spending $600 on a PS3. The answer, quite plainly is no. While Resistance is a solid and fun game, no single game is possibly worth spending that much money on a system. Fortunately for me, and probably unfortunately for less-techy humans, the PS3 is loaded to the gills with fun features that the average user will probably never play with. The most noteworthy of these features is the ability to install Linux on the system without having to hack or otherwise void the warranty of the system.
As the system itself uses USB ports (along with having SD, CF and memory stick pro ports built in) it is capable of accepting any USB keyboard and mouse. No need to buy expensive peripherals or adapters, you can just grab any old USB hardware and plug it in. You can also use the ports to plug in external drives or flash memory devices. But since the built-in Game OS does not interface with these devices, you'll need another OS, which is where PS3-specific builds come in to play. As the PS3 uses the crazy-ass cell processor (which is also known as PPC64) special linux builds are necessary to get the system running. Fortunately, Yellow Dog Linux has a build all ready, complete with step-by-step instructions on how to get it running. I put Yellow Dog on my PS3 and, while I'm still getting used to Linux as an OS (I'm lookin' at you Chad...), I have to say that it makes for a fine media center PC. I've got a build of mplayer running on the box now, which allows for playing media of most standard formats.
For me, at least, having this as a media center PC and a Linux option makes the system worthwhile. I use pretty much all of the PS3's functions and enjoy them, but I know that the general public will not see these options and will wonder why there are fools out there who'll pay $600 for a game machine. I just hope that the future holds a library of games and a price drop for the PS3 to make it more accessible to the public.
Well, there was going to be something more that I was gonna write, but I've completely forgotten it now. Back to watching Ergo Proxy...