Okay everyone, first I would like to welcome you to the premier of GameXtract’s “Epic Duel”.  In these articles, we will be comparing games that are either of similar genre, released on the same day, or pit against each other by the media and the gaming community.  For our first Epic Duel, we’ve decided to put Resistance: Fall of Man against Halo 3.  Reason? Well, they are both first-person shooters, and they were pit against each other by the gaming community.  So if you’re ready, let this Epic Duel COMMENCE.

First, just so you all know, I do own both of these games.  I have played through both of their campaigns many times, as well as spent more than a fair share of time playing online.  Let’s start with the big point, gameplay.

Gameplay:

Sony fanboys everywhere were very excited for this game (Resistance), it was destined to be “Sony’s Halo”, however, not to say the gameplay was a disappointment, but it fell short of being “Sony’s Halo”.  Halo gameplay required little tactical decision making the easier difficulties a cake walk, which is the way it’s meant to be.  Halo is all about running and gunning, throwing grenades in the air, firing a rocket launched at an enemy miles away from you, and especially sticking those damned brutes with plasma grenades.  Resistance doesn’t feel that way, at all.  Tactics are required, and if you lose a whole bar of health, it’s gone until you find a health kit.  In that sense, Resistance is more or less Call of Duty, or Medal of Honor…with a massive alien attack happening instead of Nazi’s killing innocent jews.  Halo may feel better, but what about the weapons?

Resistance was made by Insomniac, the creators of the infamous Rachet and Clank series of games.  They couldn’t resist adding some of their crazy cartoon ideas to the guns in this game.  The Auger?  Whole new invention, being able to shoot through walls, and create walls to shoot through!  It was fantastic, and added a whole new style of gameplay to the game.  The auger wasn’t the only gun that caught my attention though, just about all of the Chimera (alien) guns and grenades pleased me in ways I never thought a virtual weapon could.  The handling of guns in Resistance was an amazing experience, and I look forward to seeing these return, among other creations.  Halo however, made some major changes on their old guns, as well as adding a couple new ones.  Although the guns in Halo were great, and the gravity hammer entertained me for hours alone, I’d still have to say the Resistance guns top it.  One more point to make, and that would be vehicles.

Vehicles…do I really have to?  Halo wins, ‘nuf said.  Resistance really didn’t have vehicles, you got to drive a tank in one level, and a walker in another.  Even with the occasional turret, I’d still say the vehicle aspect of Resistance is nothing more than lacking.  Halo however, tops this section with a great selection of vehicles.  With the addition of the Chopper, Hornet, Mongoose, and Elephant, this game really does have its animal groove on, and has some of the best vehicles we have seen yet for this generation of consoles.

Graphics:

This section is a bit unfair, but I’ll do it anyways.  Halo 3 was released almost a whole year later, and obviously developers became more familiar with the consoles.  I still think Resistance looks almost as good as Halo.  Halo has an amazing use of color, and the scenery is always beautiful to look at (maybe not in the level “Cortana”, but we’ll leave that one aside for now). On the other hand Resistance always looked the same.  If you were outisde in resistance, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between it and a previous outdoor level.  I do love the graphics in Resistance, I just don’t think they’re being used well enough for them to show their full potential.  Halo 3, used it’s graphics to the MAX, making everything very colorful and bright.  It looks better, it feels better to be in, and it’s better to kick alien ass in.

Characters:

In Halo 3, they’re very few main character, there’s the Master Cheif, Cortana, Arbiter (which nobody wanted to play as), Sgt. Johnson, and the Oracle.  That’s really about it.  As small of a list as that might be, Resistance’s is smaller.  We have Sgt. Nathan Hale, Some yankee-hating British Sarge and Parker.  The list is smaller than a tic-tak.  So Halo definitely gives us more characters to become attached to.

Enemies, Resistance definitely has more variety here, meaning more strategies which in this case, is not a bad thing.  There are plenty of different aliens to run into while playing a resistance level, each with a different way of fighting.  This keeps you absorbed in the game, and focused on the enemies ahead.  Halo, I’m afraid has lackluster enemies.  There are Grunts, Flood (a couple types), Elites, Brutes, little flying buggers, and Hunters.  You could include marines if you’re dumb enough to kill enough of them.  This list doesn’t raise a match against Resistances list of enemies, it’s simply too long to include in this article.

Story:

Alot of conflict here, I can feel your brains ready to explode when I say something that you’re bound to disagree with.  I thought the Halo 3 story was an absolute let down.  It was meant to be a conclusion to everything that happened in Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3.  It didn’t feel that way.  The story led me to believe it was just another ring, which needed to be destroyed.  If there was more, it was not emphasised enough for me to catch on.  Resistances story wasn’t amazing, however it does top Halo’s.  We learn that Nathan Hale isn’t entirely human, which leads to a cliffhanger for the upcoming sequel.  There are many questions we gain from the first, and we beg to find the answers.  Insomniac did this…exceptionally well, I would buy the sequel, just to find out what happens.  It’s like a season of 24, you can’t just watch one, and say “I’m done, no more”, and be satisfied…it’s simply not possible.  It’s incredible how well they’ve pulled us into the second game.  So I’ll have to say Resistance wins story wise.

Online:

This is a big topic, and hopefully we can settle this with as little conflict as possible.  Resistance brought the feature of variations of each map depending on the number of players.  Which was a great feature, because if I liked an environment, I could play it no matter how many people I was playing with.  The Ranking system, and player customization was fantastic, and the non-ranked mayhem was too fun to turn down.  Halo however, having experienced a huge success with the Halo 2 online, decided to take that, and turn that amp to 11.  Bringing back the very popular party scheme, players could now do just about anything together, even build maps together in Forge.  The Matchmaking was very good, and quick to bring us to other players our level.  I consider myself to be in the top tier of halo online players.  I measured this not only by my rank, but my skill levels.  Having two “ranking systems” showed us how long a player has been playing (rank), and how good they have been doing in a particular game (skill level).

Recap:

Gamplay: Resistance threw some great punches with the weapons, however Halo still comes out on top gameplay wise.

Graphics: An unfair trial I’m afraid, but yes, Halo Wins.

Characters: With the amazing selection of enemies, Resistance leaves their mark.

Story: The in-depth and attractive storyline of Resistance definitely beats the pile of manure known as the Halo 3 story

Online: Bungie has done it again! Creating an amazingly fun online takes the win here.

-=Winner=-