Resistance: Fall of Man hype

Not to sound too critical, but a lot of of what IGN talks about in their upcoming Playstation 3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man, preview sounds like the same sound bites we hear for every single FPS...ever. Seriously, there's this:

This plays into the somewhat unique fact that unlike many other games with specialized weapons like Resistance features, your enemies have access to the exact same arsenal that you do. As a direct result of the design, any given weapon is likely not ideal when faced against an opponent with the same weapon as you won't have any sort of advantage. Switching to a differently-enabled weapon that can take advantage of another's weakness is the key to victory. Again, this is a thinking man's arsenal.

I highly doubt that my "thinking" while playing this game will ever consists of, "Oh wait, he has the same weapon as I. I shall change my weapon to gain the upper hand. I'll be right back you evil fiend, ta ta!". I think that my train of thought will be something akin to "kill'em all and let god sort'em out". Here's another gold one:

Perhaps one of the most impressive yet non-hyped things about the game thus far is its AI. Enemies range in intelligence depending upon who/what they are, so animalistic creatures will still be single-minded, but the soldiers are a different story. They'll use cover whenever possible, fire off blind shots just to keep you guessing and even try to flank you when given the chance. In one case, we came into a room and spotted a Chimera on the other side, standing in an opposite doorway. It fired off a handful of shots and stepped behind the wall. Thinking that we'd flank him, we set off to the right and attempted to surprise him by going around the room. Not so fast, it seems, as the Chimera had exactly the same idea. Clever girl... err, alien.

Everytime a new FPS is about to come out, in any review or preview, there will be a little blurb about how the AI is actually smart. Then something happens in the transition from preview to finished product, and it seems like the AI the consumers are left with, isn't as half as smart as the reviews or previews have made it out to be. Sure, the initial AI may start out pretty keen to your moves but somewhere, it breaks. Maybe it's that 5th level boss who can be defeated by simply attacking it from a certain location. Or maybe it's that one section where the enimie nevers seems to notive you're there and you can walk right up to them and do what you wish.

Despite my cynicisim, the story sounds pretty cool even if it is just a variation on the whole "the earth is doomed and it's up to you to save it" theme. The variation being that Insomniac wants this game to be first in a series of many, meaning that you probably won't get to actually save earth in this one. Or maybe you will and you'll take the fight to them in the next one. Here's a breakdown of the storyline:

Though the game's events take place in 1951, the story stretches back much further than that. As early as the 1930's, Russia became closed off to the rest of continent, presumably to restructure itself internally. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, an alien race set up shop inside of the country and began preparing itself for world domination. Skip ahead to 1951 and practically all of Europe has been decimated, the Chimera washing over that half of the world with a wave of death. With the Chimera on the verge of making its way into Great Britain, England mounts up its forces in preparation for the onslaught.


Resistance's story follows the player's character of Nathan Hale, an American soldier, as told through the research of Rachel Parker. Hale's regiment had been hit by a group of Chimeran soldiers and left for "dead", infected with an alien virus. For some reason, Hale was the only soldier that actually awoke from the attack and managed to do so unscathed, immediately requesting to be sent back into action. Parker's research follows the events just after this, from July 11th through July 14th, the last day that Hale was seen alive.

The screenshots are killer too.