Resistance: Fall of Man (2006)

The first Resistance is definitely a PS3 launch title but it’s a pretty damn good launch title. It feels like a PS2 game but better looking. Not that this is a bad thing, there’s nothing wrong with PS2 games at all, I love them. But the way it is designed, controls, feels to play and the checkpoints make it feel older than I remembered.

I think plenty of people may have just dismissed this as another generic first person shooter but I actually really like a lot about Resistance: Fall of Man. It was a great looking launch game and was one of the first PS3 games I picked up when I eventually got mine. In particular I remember just shooting glass and watching how it broke apart. It’s really quick and fluid to play, although there is the occasional bit of frustration here and there too. The weapons are enjoyable, with a mix of traditional and alien, and each one has an alternate fire. I don’t know if you’re meant to play this game using more cover but I was running about blasting away and just ducking and hiding when things got really dire. It was pretty fun for the most part and provided a good challenge even on the standard difficulty. They kept things fresh throughout even though the game runs longer than expected. It just doesn’t fuck around – shooting, grenade tossing, vehicle sections, exploding barrels, guns smacking Chimeran faces, dodging traps and lots of enemies and bullets that’s only interrupted for very brief cut scenes or the occasional document to read. There’s co op as well and multiplayer too.

I like the alternate history setting and the look of the game and how they picked a theme and stuck with it. The grey, brown, yellow, military green and dried blood red colours combined with the alternate early 50s England works well. Then there’s the journal and how things in the game look hand written/drawn or done on a type writer. The old photo or film look is everywhere and things go black and white when you die. This is carried right through to include the game’s box and manual too. It all gels together well with the narration on top to create a historical documentary feel. This style is juxtaposed with the colder, darker Sci-fi of the Chimera technology and locations. Then towards the end of the game, rain comes, followed by snow and ice. Not only is it visually refreshing but adds to the tone and building dread of trying to stop an overwhelming force. It’s a cool, good looking, bleak game that at times can have an eerie atmosphere. The Chimera enemies are great too and they did a good job with the lore but you may lose interest in the story and characters.

Everything nice I’ve just said can be quickly rebutted with – it is a little bit simple now though and runs a little too long. And yeah I get that, but I like it and it was the first in the series and a launch title. I enjoyed it back when I first played it and I enjoyed it again now and I wouldn’t skip it if you’re going to give this series a crack, which I would recommend doing.

8.2/10

Outside of a few really strange button-mapping choices, this is a pretty timeless shooter. Some of the scenarios are still genuinely exciting, the enemy AI is competent, and the campaign is longer than I remember.

I absolutely cannot stand the way the reload works when you're aiming down the sights, though. The extra second it takes to automatically snap back into the zoomed-in view leaves me open to so much additional gunfire, I just stopped using it altogether. I forget if the second game is the same way, but I certainly hope not.

Got in the mood to play this for whatever reason, and it hooked me again. The graphics are nothing to brag about anymore like they were when it first came out, but the enemy designs and AI hold up really well. I just played through the section where you're going through the streets, and suddenly the Hybrid comes crashing through the shop window. It may not have been intentional, but it took me right back to that moment in the original Resident Evil when the dog comes crashing through the mansion window. Good stuff.

To HELL with those pulse mines though.

Resistance: Fall of Man definitely shows its age. The control mapping is very reminiscent of the PS2 and Killzone days. Switching to iron sights triggers a clunky camera snap and there's no toggle crouch. But hey, it's 17 years old!

I love that this game is from a generation where games had that no nonsense kind of attitude and instead of giving you copious amounts of back story and build up through various missions, it throws you straight into the heat of the action right from the get go. What's going on? who knows... I'm sure we'll find out at some point.

What really impressed me were the physics - meleeing objects can cause crates to break open, bodies move around, and can we please talk about the glass shattering? Shooting a window makes it crack and chip off in places , meleeing the window pits a hole in the glass with cracks running throughout the rest of the window... I don't know why but the glass stole the show for me haha

When Resistance: Fall of Man came out as a launch title for the PlayStation 3 that I bought, I was blown away. It looked like a game from the far future and the term “next generation” felt like an understatement.

Right from the start, I was sucked into its story, it’s beauty and the intense action that greeted me in the first stage. This is one of those games that lasted an impression on me and showed me the power of the next generation of gaming. It was a unique experience at the time.

The story in Resistance: Fall of Man is simple but strong. You are Nathan Hale a soldier in the era of WWII. The second world war never happened and after the first world war, only the tensions in Russia with their Tsar and the revolution of Lenin remained. Monsters called Chimera are created by the Russians as some sort of twisted genetic experiment. After years of isolation from the rest of the world and strange events happening in Russia, a wall is constructed along the border to keep everyone out and/or in. After a while, the walls are breached, and countless Chimera invade Europe. Humans are kidnapped and infected with the Chimera virus or simply killed off where they stand.

It is your responsibility to stop the attackers and wipe out the core of the invasion. This is easier said than done and the struggle is real. Nathan has fallen victim to the virus and is slowly transforming from within. He is able to suppress it while fighting and progressing, but his eyes start to glow yellow, and the symptoms cannot be denied anymore. In the end however, you succeed in destroying the breed facility of the Chimera, giving the human race a fighting chance once again. It was this sprinkle of hope that mankind needed to repel the invaders.

I really liked the setting in which you feel that your efforts are hopeless and the chance for success is minimal. Yet you push on, never giving up, booking some small successes along the way. Every battle you see your squad mates die and more times than not, you are on your own.

The graphics are really beautiful. Back then, I was flabbergasted, and it felt like the best thing I had ever seen on screen. Nowadays, it is certainly not that impressive anymore but still, they are more than fine to look at. The environments are detailed and full of action, objects, Chimera factories and soldiers that interact with it. Almost every building, street and road is destroyed, and it really shows the effects of war. It remains a work of art.

The sound design was also a completely new experience for me back then, that still holds up today. Firing the Carbine rifle or the alien Bullseye gun felt great when the bullets just blasted trough your speakers. The grunts and screams of the Chimera’s are also really well implemented and actually make you feel that you are killing their asses. The music on the other hand is a little standard and generic, but in this game, I did not mind it that much.

The controls are easy and simple to understand. You aim, you shoot, can change grenade types with D-pad buttons and just walk forward, to war. I also really liked that this game features a health bar instead of waiting for a few seconds to be healthy again. Finding health pickups can be tricky and even then, when you get flanked by a Chimera, it can be over soon.

I really like the different weapons in Resistance: Fall of Man. You got your standard “human” weapons like the Carbine, a reliable weapon with excellent rate of fire, a shotgun that blast enemies away, a very accurate sniper rifle and a rocket launcher. Then you can find all kinds of alien weapons like the Auger, the Bullseye and the Hailstorm. Experimenting with them and finding out which weapon works best in which scenario keeps the game fresh and challenging.

Enemies are really well created too. You fight the standard Chimera infantry, a hideous monster with eight eyes, razor sharp teeth and a bony, half cyborg body. Then you got workers, who creep up on you, arms at the ready to lunge at you. Then you got all manners of foul alien beasts and critters that hinder you in the most inconvenient places. And my personal favorites, the Auger Chimera’s, big chunky boys with armor and a devastating Auger gun that can shoot through walls.

I cannot stress enough how much I loved this game. It can become a little repetitive over time, but just when you got enough of a certain area of facility, the game changes the environment again to a glorious open world battle, before sending you to some dump of a place again afterwards. My only complaint were the last levels, which all took place in some kind of facility that kind of looked the same all throughout.

In the end, I really enjoyed my experience with Resistance: Fall of Man. It was fresh, it was new, and it lasted an impression on me back then that I will always cherish.

Definitely recommend this (in present times) blast from the past.

PROS

* Fun old-school action

* Good mix of weapons and enemies

CONS

* Old school gameplay may feel dated to some

* Graphics don't quite hold up today in some places

"If Gears of War gave the original Call of Duty a cheap blowjob in a dark alley, whilst Halo watched and jerked off to it... it would look a bit like Resistance. That's not necessarily a bad thing either"