Resistance: Fall of Man is a real gem of the game. It probably shouldn’t be ranked as one of the greatest FPSes ever, but it certainly has a lot of heart and is full of ideas. It does lots of interesting things that shooters no longer do so much ever since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (released the next year) became the definitive kill-the-dudes game of the PS3 and Xbox 360 era.
Take the wonderful compromise between cover-shooter and more aggressive circle-strafe shooter that Resistance chooses. There is a cover system, but at least on the moderate difficulty, using it is more of its own playstyle than a requirement. Since most of the enemies’ weapons do not cause hitscan damage, you can strafe out of the way and aim for headshots.
And the weapons! The Auger is the real star of the show. It’s a gun that creates a temporary shield you can shoot through with its ammunition. Essentially it creates temporary cover for you even out in the open, and helps bridge the line between cover and circle-strafe shooter that Resistance straddles. It’s brilliant, and I wish more games had something like it. Also Resistance’s health system is an idea that more games need to take up. Your health is segmented into four parts, each one which will recharge like a shield unless it is completely drained. Once it’s drained, that segment of health is gone until you find a health pickup. In theory Resistance creates a recharging “shield” system where taking damage has real consequences. Take too much damage and significant chunks of your health bar are drained and leave you more vulnerable. In practice health pickups are so frequent on moderate difficulty it doesn’t matter. It would be interesting to play the game on hard to see how it changes.
The levels are solid, but I think the somewhat stale level design keeps it from heights of greatness. I did enjoy how each level erred on the side of being shorter rather than longer- it gave a nice “just one more stage” feel to the game. The other problem with the game is that it doesn’t mix up the various enemy types well (at least on moderate difficulty). It seems to throw just one type of enemy at you at once, and the big question is what weapon you should use against this enemy type. I wish I had to deal with the chaos of juggling weapons between different enemy types simultaneously.
The plot really doesn’t go anywhere, but that’s OK. The game has enough cool weapons to compensate.
