Resistance Retribution
I picked up Resistance Retribution because I'd played it briefly in the past and recalled liking it. Normally I hate shooters, but they're usually first-person shooters. Although Resistance is a first-person series on the Playstation 3, they chose to make it a third-person shooter on the PSP so that it would work better with the handheld's limited controls. I'm glad they did because I played Resistance for the PS3 and hated it. Retribution, however, I love.
The game contains a story mode and a multiplayer mode. The singleplayer story spans about 6 chapters, but each chapter contain around 4 missions. Each mission takes aroun a half an hour, so the game should run you about 12 hours. The locations are diverse, so you won't get bored doing the same things in the same places. If you don't already know the story from Resistance 1, it's a "what if" scenario where we see what the world would have been like if aliens began invading during World War II. Strange thought but it works well for what it is.
In retribution you find that these aliens are being "created" or turned from normal people. Upon seeing his brother suffer this fate, our hero James Grayson gets pissed off and begins blowing up alien bases left and right. Although this is a good thing, he doesn't do it the way the army wants him to (they probably want to study this shit to make weapons) so he's considered a traitor and put on death row. At the last minute though, the aliens, called Chimera, begin to win the war and Grayson is called out as a last resort.
As I said the game is a third-person shooter. You walk around using the d-pad and turn the camera (and therefore your weapon) up and down or side to side using the Square, Triangle, Circle, and X buttons. This is also how Syphon Filter controlled on the PSP, and it works even better here. To make things simpler, you don't have to spend minutes trying to aim exactly onto an enemy like you would on a console fps. Depending on the weapon, you either get an auto snap-to lock-on feature, or simply get a large box which is your approximate range. As long as you're facing the right way and are within that box, your shots will hit. This way it's not so automatic that you're not doing any work and can just stand there and mash the R button to shoot. You still need to keep an eye on your surroundings and constantly be on your toes to aim wherever the enemies are attacking you from.
The story in this game actually kept my attention. The overall story we already know. You're fighting the Chimera. But the specific little things that happen in each chapter are different and interesting. Sometimes you need to rescue someone. Sometimes you get separated from your group and need to find an alternate route. Sometimes you steal the enemies weapons or machines and use them against them. Sometimes you're scaling broken-down building and sometimes you're swimming. Many times you'll be fighting swarms of smaller enemies, and other times you'll be getting a hold of a powerful weapon to take out a larger boss. There's just lots of different things to do in this game and there's always interesting reasons for doing it.
Also the fact that Grayson is considered a traitor by the army is interesting because they need his help now. So you get to see Grayson get away with alot of stunts because he knows he doesn't really have to follow orders. What are they going to do, court-martial him again? They need him. He takes advantage of this fact by never doing quite exactly what he's told and always being slightly smug.
I haven't tried the multiplayer mode yet because I'm not really into multiplayer gaming, at least not with shooters. But the single-player campaign alone is worth the price of admission. This is definitely up there with some of the other must-have PSP games.
The game contains a story mode and a multiplayer mode. The singleplayer story spans about 6 chapters, but each chapter contain around 4 missions. Each mission takes aroun a half an hour, so the game should run you about 12 hours. The locations are diverse, so you won't get bored doing the same things in the same places. If you don't already know the story from Resistance 1, it's a "what if" scenario where we see what the world would have been like if aliens began invading during World War II. Strange thought but it works well for what it is.
In retribution you find that these aliens are being "created" or turned from normal people. Upon seeing his brother suffer this fate, our hero James Grayson gets pissed off and begins blowing up alien bases left and right. Although this is a good thing, he doesn't do it the way the army wants him to (they probably want to study this shit to make weapons) so he's considered a traitor and put on death row. At the last minute though, the aliens, called Chimera, begin to win the war and Grayson is called out as a last resort.
As I said the game is a third-person shooter. You walk around using the d-pad and turn the camera (and therefore your weapon) up and down or side to side using the Square, Triangle, Circle, and X buttons. This is also how Syphon Filter controlled on the PSP, and it works even better here. To make things simpler, you don't have to spend minutes trying to aim exactly onto an enemy like you would on a console fps. Depending on the weapon, you either get an auto snap-to lock-on feature, or simply get a large box which is your approximate range. As long as you're facing the right way and are within that box, your shots will hit. This way it's not so automatic that you're not doing any work and can just stand there and mash the R button to shoot. You still need to keep an eye on your surroundings and constantly be on your toes to aim wherever the enemies are attacking you from.
The story in this game actually kept my attention. The overall story we already know. You're fighting the Chimera. But the specific little things that happen in each chapter are different and interesting. Sometimes you need to rescue someone. Sometimes you get separated from your group and need to find an alternate route. Sometimes you steal the enemies weapons or machines and use them against them. Sometimes you're scaling broken-down building and sometimes you're swimming. Many times you'll be fighting swarms of smaller enemies, and other times you'll be getting a hold of a powerful weapon to take out a larger boss. There's just lots of different things to do in this game and there's always interesting reasons for doing it.
Also the fact that Grayson is considered a traitor by the army is interesting because they need his help now. So you get to see Grayson get away with alot of stunts because he knows he doesn't really have to follow orders. What are they going to do, court-martial him again? They need him. He takes advantage of this fact by never doing quite exactly what he's told and always being slightly smug.
I haven't tried the multiplayer mode yet because I'm not really into multiplayer gaming, at least not with shooters. But the single-player campaign alone is worth the price of admission. This is definitely up there with some of the other must-have PSP games.