Voltage divided by Current

Another campaign completed! Late Saturday morning (2AM) I finished Resistance 2. Bottom line: This is an awesome game and I plan on playing through the campaign again. Many times I finish a game and think, “Good, but that’s enough.” For example, I have not gone back to Mirror’s Edge, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, or even Call of Duty: World at War (finished two weeks ago). I WANT to do R2 again. As of this writing, I am in the middle of the Orrick stage on the Difficult setting. I liked Resistance: Fall of Man – I played it through once. But R2 has – I feel – some improvements:

• You don’t ‘worry’ about your health level or looking for heath packs in R2, it now works similar to Call of Duty, where you recover your hit points. This makes sense, even in RFoM, Nathan (you, the main character) recovered to half health over time.
• In RFoM, you carried every weapon and only worried about ammo. In R2, you can only carry two guns. I like pressing Triangle rather than going to the Ratchet & Clank weapon selector popup. It’s funny: every time I find a Laark lying around, I know the Boss is coming.
• The color is much brighter in R2. I liked the brown/gray of RFoM – it felt like it was set in the 1950’s during war time. The color palette of R2 looks like it was borrowed from Insomniac’s R&C. More in the Scenery section below.

The story of humans versus Chimera is continued and follows Nathan Hale (I have not played Resistance: Retribution on the PSP). I never really like the core concept of the story: Aliens (either a virus or entities) arrive on earth at the Tunguska Blast of 1908. These aliens can mutate humans (or multiple humans) into humanoid (or EXTREMELY large) creatures. The Chimera, like all villains, desire to take over the world. After taking Europe in RFoM, the battle continues in North America. One of the best parts of this game is the varied scenery. I thought Orick, California was amazing. You do battle in Iceland; small city Twin Falls, Idaho; big city Chicago; the swamps of Louisiana; and inside the modern world of a Chimeran ship and facility. Great variety! The maps are creative and long.

Bosses are back! The only thing missing is the health bar. R2 often ended each of the levels with a large beast.

• Kracken: bad breath and tentacles
• Mother Spinner: a huge dragon spider The Swarm: a swirling mass of sharp metal pieces that rip it’s prey apart. No way to kill it! Or is there?
• Leviathan: Bigger than Godzilla.
• Maurader: Part elephant, part T-Rex. It remined me of a Dewback.
• Daedalus: AKA Jordan Shepherd.

The best part of the bosses is that you don’t kill them with the conventional method. Usually you have to set a trap or trick them. Fun.

My favorite moment was sniping the house at the beginning of the Louisiana level. Once you clear the house you find a Laark – uh oh. A call comes in telling you that a Maurader was seen sniffing around your area. The Maurader turns out to be a big T-Rex like creature; the darn thing scared the crap out of me! (My mother uses the word crap, so it must be OK). It peeks in the window as you hid from it trying to get a good shot. All you hear is the earth pound and the building shake. I would not say it was a surprise ending – I knew what the final 'conflict' would be. There are only about four ways out of it. No Spoiler given. I am not even close to finishing the R2 experience. I have co-operative and competitive on-line modes to complete. Buying this game – which I encourage any PS3 owner to do – is well worth the money.

Oh, I should explain the title. “Resistance” is part of Ohms law: V=IR. Solving for “Resistance” produces V/I or Voltage over Current. Geek humor; almost as bad as RDRR.