Resistance 2 review

I played the first half of the game a few months back, and then came back and finished a few days ago. Due to this, I can't really recall the storyline too well (sorry). It's got something to do with the Chimera invading the U.S. after Britain from the first game. Your character, Nathan Hale, is infected with something and goes thru some changes as the game progresses. I think he's slowly changing into one of the bad guys and needs a serum to keep the transformation at bay. Nothing really groundbreaking in terms of story - pretty standard for a first person shooter.

Like

-The weapons in the game are a ton of fun, with the exception of the Carbine, the standard machine gun with a grenade launcher attachment....not too special. But then there's the Magnum, with remotely triggered explosive rounds. The Bullseye fires 'tags' into a guy which serve as a homing point for your bullets. Tag a guy, then hide around a corner and shoot. Your bullets will go around the corner and home in on the guy. Sweet. The Fareye is the sniper rifle with a controllable zoom and the ability to enter a sort of "bullet time" where you have some extra time to snipe. The Auger can shoot through walls and can deploy its own barrier, which you can also shoot through. The Pulse Cannon is sort of a BFG wannabe. Rocket launcher is pretty standard. Mini-gun with a 300 round clip and deployable shield can do some damage. The Spinner shoots saw blades that bounce all over the place. Spike grenades and spider grenades (they create an expanding hot zone under guys where you throw it) round out the list. Lots of variety and lots of fun.

-Coop mode with up to 8 players is fun. Different classes work together to play shortened versions of some of the maps from the single player campaign.

-Bosses are huge, loud, and scary. Unfortunately they're all a little bit too easy, too. The Leviathan is a huge Godzilla-looking creature walking around in a city knocking down buildings but it only takes a few rockets to put him down. There's also a boss that looks like a swarm of bees that keeps picking off your teammates as you progress through one stage.


Dislike

-Worst NPCs ever. There's one point in the game where you get dropped off at the bottom of a ramp that leads into an enemy stronghold. This is towards the end of the game and it's a HUGE firefight with literally about 75 bad guys pouring out of this place in waves....and you have to kill every single one of them. Your AI teammates will do nothing except sit at the bottom of the ramp. They don't shoot, they don't throw grenades, they don't advance until you do. Ridiculous.

-Finicky checkpoints. Sometimes I would pick up a gun, get a checkpoint, die, and then would not have that gun, so I'd have to go pick it up again. Also, if your flashlight is on when you get a checkpoint, it won't be on if you have to reload, so you'll have to keep turning it on. A small gripe, but annoying.

-Objectives are sometimes unclear. There's one point where you clear out a house and then a big T-Rex lookin' thing starts stalking around outside. There's a guy talking into your ear through a headset and he says something like, "Hide....don't let it see you." So I figured this beast would check out the house and then move on. I thought they were mixing up the gameplay a little with a stealth section, because it keeps moving around to different windows. After a couple of minutes and a few deaths later it was still out there and I was wondering what was going on. I paused and the objective said to "Kill the Marauder." Weird. Why didn't the guy just tell me to kill it?

-Multiplayer. I only played one game but it was awful.



Bottom line: A good shooter elevated slightly by its varied weaponry and huge bosses.