PS3 Hands-On: Resistance: Fall of Man

Our first hands-on impressions fresh from the recent playable build of Insomniac's FPS formerly known as I-8.

Something strange happened at the end of Sony's pre-E3 briefing. After Ken & Co. had done their show and tell they opened up a dozen or so demo areas where attendees could sample some of the playable fare that had just been presented to them. Not long after, all of the areas were packed as the masses, stumbling as they recovered from the overly cold air conditioning, raced to get their first hands-on time with the first of Sony's next-gen games. Resistance: Fall of Man, however, stood there largely forlorn.

Come show time, things weren't much different. Perhaps the generic look of the game had something to do with it. Ratchet & Clank creator Insomniac has constructed a 1950s world in which World War II never happened. Instead, an alien race invaded Earth for whatever nefarious means and mankind is, of course, not going to sit down and take it. The result is bedlam on the streets as the Starship Trooper-esque aliens come for us with their high-tech weaponry and disregard for human welfare.

Mankind has learnt a few tricks in the armoury department; you're equipped with a standard foursome of good-looking weapon types and, in the demo at least, getting hold of ammo for them isn't a problem at all. Switching between weapons is a bit tricky, depending as it does on yet another crossbar of death mapped to the analog stick. But I'm sure getting used to isn't impossible.

The most striking thing about Resistance: Fall of Man is how unfun the whole experience is, which is especially dismaying considering the library of grin-inducing destruction Insomniac is responsible fun. The setting is depressing, controls are loose and enemies seem needlessly hard to take down. During my brief stint with the game, it didn't seem like they took limb-specific damage either, and they sure weren't smart, so I'm not certain what Insomniac is doing with all those clock cycles at the moment.

Many of the first generation of PlayStation 3 games are choosing to show off their newfound horsepower through various particle effects and dynamic lighting. While Resistance: Fall of Man seems light on the latter, it does satisfy the former criterion with puffs of dust kicked up whenever possible. There's also a healthy amount of visual flare associated with weapons, whether it's the animations of you reloading or the muzzle flashes as you fling hot justice at the intruders.

The lack of wow factor wouldn't be as much of a problem if it the game weren't labelled as being around 70 percent done. By the time this game comes out in November - presuming it's being groomed for launch - the Xbox 360 is going to have some killer second-generation shooters out and Halo 3 will be in the wings too. In the past Sony has been able to tick off the necessary genres with general disregard, but things are going to be very different in this generation.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo.com