Resistance 3

Unlike other first party franchises like Uncharted or God of War that are unanimously loved, Sony’s Resistance series has always divided the crowd. While one part loves the war torn Chimera invaded world created by Insomniac Games, the others feel the game lacks a certain spark to distinguish it from the sea of other shooters. I tend to agree with the latter. Now before you nail me to a cross calling me a hater you need to understand I don’t hate the game. It’s just that the game never really captivated my interest and if you take a seat, I’ll tell you why.

Bring it

Resistance 3 (R3) takes place a few years after the events of the second game. You play as Joseph Capelli, a dishonoured war veteran who just so happens to be the dude who put a bullet in Nathan Hale, the protagonist from previous Resistance games. Even if you haven’t played previous iterations, the game does a good job of summing it all up at the start. So anyway, after popping Hale off, Capelli decides to call it a day chilling somewhere in Oklahoma with his wife and child. For a while things are going just fine but when your world’s being overrun by bloodthirsty aliens, can you really just sit down and live the good life? Pretty soon duty calls, and Joseph along with an old Russian scientist must travel to New York city to end the Chimerian menace once and for all.

Sting like a bee

As you can see the plot’s nothing to write home about populated by clichéd twists you’ll probably see coming a mile away. Still my problem’s not so much with the story as it is with the campaign’s pacing. At times R3 finds the sweet spot between difficulty, intensity and satisfaction while at times it oscillates strongly between the boredom of just killing wave after wave of spawning enemies and frustration brought on by constant ambushes. Making matters worse is the game’s navigation system that is probably the worst I’ve seen in a game till date. For the longest time your objective marker just won't pop up on screen leaving you running around a level in circles. And then you’re supposed to open a door but without any sort of denotation, it becomes highly annoying to find an exit, especially if you're in the dark fighting a billion enemies.

In R3 you surprisingly spend a lot of time in the dark as the game tries dabbling in survival horror territory with some rather interesting results. There’s a level in there highly reminiscent of the excellent Ravenholm level from Half-Life 2 but it doesn’t achieve such brilliance once again due to issues with pacing. And the stupid issue I mentioned with the navigation goes from being a minor annoyance to a full-fledged irritation in such levels.

Can you guys keep it down a bit

Unlike most action games on the block, Resistance 3 does not feature a regenerating health system which means you have to hunt around for health packs across the battlefield if you're fond of living. Enemies randomly will drop health packs and they do so at regular intervals but there were times during my play though when they just refused to drop one. This isn't a deal breaker per say but it's a mechanic that may not gel with players who're used to healing themselves.