Conspicuously missing from Sony’s PlayStation 3 offerings at E3 was the sequel to Killzone. This was conspicuous for two reasons: first, because the original Killzone was Sony’s first first-party first-person shooter, so you’d think they’d have shown a sequel two years after its release; and second, because the Killzone PS3 video shown at E3 2005 was the one video that got people talking the most (for better or for worse), so to have the game absent from the playable PS3 games at E3 2006 was a mite surprising.
What Sony did show in terms of PS3 first-person shooters was a completely new franchise. Resistance: Fall of Man, developed by the same team at Insomniac responsible for the Ratchet & Clank series, is Sony’s launch-day answer for FPS fans. Set in an alternate universe, Resistance: Fall of Man essentially looks, feels and plays like Call of Duty 2 with aliens, which if done right could be a fantastic combination.
The alternate-history WWII setting has players taking the role of U.S. Army Ranger Sgt. Nathan Hale as he teams with British soldiers in a last-ditch effort to save Europe and Asia from an invasive species. The species isn’t of the normal garden-plant variety, though; the Chimera, as it’s called, is a virus that converts other life forms into more Chimera, sort of like an organic Borg or otherworldly zombie. With Russia and Europe completely overrun, it’s up to players to act like an Orkin man of galactic proportions.
Gameplay-wise, Resistance: Fall of Man feels immediately familiar, with buttons for crouch, jump, shoot, grenades, melee attack and weapon-swapping. Its frantic pace also feels familiar, as it’s reminiscent of Call of Duty 2 minus the immersive battle-chatter audio. In more of a Halo-like move, though, Resistance: Fall of Man includes alien technology, from guns to vehicles to grenades, which provides a decidedly “this ain’t Call of Duty 2” element in spite of its war-torn European environments.
The alien weapons aren’t the only thing separating Resistance: Fall of Man from its other WWII kin; the PS3-exclusive game also includes a two-player cooperative mode and 32-player multiplayer matches online. Its graphics, too, support much larger environments than the relatively on-rails worlds in Call of Duty 2. For example, in the outdoor city level Sony had playable at E3, the desired path was readily apparent, but the game gave more freedom of movement than Activision’s WWII shooter. The graphical integrity stayed intact the entire time too, with smoke billowing from hollowed-out buildings and highly detailed textures on every possible surface.
As a preview build, the game wasn’t without its faults. The AI, for instance, is one element Sony is touting as truly next-gen, but enemies in the E3 build would frequently stand there waiting to be shot, or miss the main character from point-blank range. There was also a complete lack of flanking maneuvers or pack behavior. To be fair, E3 games are generally toned-down so it’s easier for journalists to just pick up the controller and play, but we still expected more from the AI considering it was one of the highlighted pieces during the demonstration.
Resistance: Fall of Man looks, feels and plays an awful lot like Call of Duty 2 with aliens. Undoubtedly the game will come into its own during the next few months, particularly as the team incorporates the advanced AI and can divulge more of the story, but for now, that’s really the best way to describe the PS3 launch-day shooter. That’s certainly not a bad title to be aligned with, but considering the deluge of WWII first-person shooters, Insomniac definitely has its work cut out for it to make Resistance: Fall of Man stand out from the pack.
— Jonas Allen
