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PREVIEW: Resistance 2
By Edge
What it did do was build sturdy foundations for a sequel. Resistance 2 (a working title) is set two years after the original’s unsuccessful defense of Britain, with the Chimera beginning a pincered air assault on the east and west coasts of America: the game once again puts you in the mutated shoes of Sergeant Nathan Hale, points you in the direction of some toothy foes, and says ‘get cracking’.
The singleplayer mode will try to create huge set-pieces around the air invasion of the USA, and the emphasis in the little that has been revealed thus far has been on scale, one of the original’s better achievements. Enemy-wise, there will be a greater emphasis on larger foes, including Goliaths in much larger numbers, while basic Chimera have undergone an amour and fierceness upgrade. Among the new recruits, the Chameleon stands out, an invisible and ferocious close-combat specialist that will move behind your position and only decloak when just about to attack.
Insomniac has also offered hints about what it calls a ‘scalable AI system’ that will be used to manage the large numbers of enemies present onscreen at any one time. In essence, the enemies closest to the player will use coordinated attacks and clever dodging behavior, while those further away will follow slightly more basic modes of offence. As well as this AI system, there will also be a limited amount of randomised content in the game’s levels. How this will be incorporated into the larger picture, to be more than a novelty but less than a potential game-breaker, is yet to be shown, however.
In what is fast becoming de rigueur for any serious FPS, Resistance 2 will also feature a separate co-op campaign that can be played through with anything up to eight players. This will have a separate story that interweaves with the singleplayer mode, and will concentrate on squads working through objective-driven levels: take out that bridge, repel this assault, get that man out of the power station.
The straight-up multiplayer is simpler, and goes straight for the jugular: it will support up to 60 players at any one time, all divided into smaller squads fighting on the same map – each with their own objective and balance of character classes. Given the original’s maximum support was for 40 players, this could be a powerful boast as Sony looks to convince gamers of PSN’s ability to rival Xbox Live – though achieving a multiplayer balance to rival the likes of COD4 and Halo 3 with those numbers will be a significant challenge. Clearly we’ll need to spend a little more time with Resistance 2 before forming a firm opinion, but in terms of ambition it’s one of the PS3’s strongest titles of the year.
