RESISTANCE 3 (PS3)

And here comes another PS3 game I didn´t really cared much, but got so cheap I thought "well, I´ll have to play it :)". I tried the first Resistance a bit as part of some game design research (I was working at Pyro at the time) and liked the concept but never felt it was distinctive enough from other shooters to make it truly unique

Resistance 3 creates the same reaction in the user. It is by all means a solid work of experienced developers, but from a high level perspective its unique selling points are not that special. This is mitigated by the superb weapon design, which eventually leads to a contradictory feeling of "I like what I´m doing, eventhough I don´t care much in the long term"

On the plus side, as mentioned, the weapons are extremely solid and satisfying. Seriously, Insomniac makes great weapon designs and this is no exception. Enemy abilities are interlinked with your own, creating a matrix of options for the player to be particularly effective against some enemies if certain weapon is used. When you nail this (and R3 does) the gameplay is always fun. On top of that the weapon progression system makes failure rewarding: You don´t feel you wasted time when dying, since the gun you were using leveled a bit in the process

On the so-so front, the story is a good-enough vehicle for you to move across the US chasing down baddies, and the graphics are acceptable but not particularly ground-breaking. The level design is ok as well, but I could have used more wow moments. The setting (an alternative 1950 US invaded by aliens) is distinctive enough to make you feel a bit curious, but I don´t think they exploited all possibilities it offers

On the minus side the game does a poor job of making you feel you´re doing something special. Everything is adecuate but not "oh my god I´ve never seen anything like this". The story creates the minimum motivation for you to move forward, but that´s all, and the whole game becomes a bit predictable in general

I had fun playing, though. A shooter with good weapon systems is always satisfying, and if for some reason you´re into the game fantasy it´ll probably double the fun!