The James Logan Courier

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

For all who thought "Resistance 2" was a case of a game losing its nerve and simply fitting in, "Resistance 3" has good news: It agrees.

That carry-two-weapon-at-a-time limit from "R2?" It's gone. Outside of one story-mandated occurrence, when you find a weapon, it's yours to keep — to the eventual tune of a 12-weapon cache that's easy to manage and so much more fun to maneuver than the convenient but boring two-weapon maximum.
If you're familiar with developer Insomniac — masterminds of "Ratchet and Clank" as well as "Resistance" — you also know weapon design is their forte. "R3's" magnum isn't just a pistol: Its bullets also explode when you pull a secondary trigger. The stock rifle can tag enemies and pelt them from around corners with homing bullets, and the already-dangerous Atomizer's secondary function creates what is, by any other name, a black hole. Every firearm in "R3" has some bonus ingenuity in its standard or alternate fire modes, and you can upgrade each twice — simply by using them — to do even more outlandishly useful things.




That, to understate things, is why it's nice not to have to choose only two. "R3" takes returning "R2" semi-hero Joseph Capelli from Oklahoma to New York, and the clashes that await veer seamlessly between close-quarters combat and immense shootouts in wide-open battlefields. "R3's" gun selection runs a similar gamut, and the ability to freely swap between a sniper rifle and a shotgun means the game is similarly free to change scope whenever it pleases. You'll always have the best weapon for the job.

But it's another callback — a reliance on finding healthpacks instead of waiting for health to magically recharge after a period of inactivity — that gives these shootouts a real sense of danger.

"R3" isn't stingy when it comes to distributing healthpacks. But their availability is limited, and when you're pinned down in poor health and a school of Chimera is advancing on you, you have to find a way to outwit them instead of simply hide out, regenerate your health, shoot indiscriminately and repeat. This direction is so much more fun that it's a wonder so many shooters went the regenerating health route over these last few years.

Those factors, in concert with the flexible scope and the Chimeran A.I. — slightly smart, mostly bullheaded but dangerous enough that being bullheaded works in their favor — make "R3" an exciting mix of tactical and run-and-gun gameplay that doesn't sell either approach short. The preceding two games laid the foundation for a big blowout this time around, and this game delivers exactly that.

"R3's" multiplayer ambitions, meanwhile, have taken a step back. Competitive multiplayer supports 16 players instead of 60, and instead of a separate eight-player co-op mode, you get the option to play the campaign with a second player in tow.

The co-op isn't recommended due to the way it mitigates the aforementioned danger effect and awkwardly wedges into the storyline, but "R3's" competitive multiplayer doesn't suffer from the reduced player count. The gametypes are your standard match types with a tweak or two to accommodate the "Resistance" universe, but the ability to wield one-of-a-kind weapons on one side and Chimeran powers on the other is all the game needs to be a blast.

A note about "R3's" Playstation Move compatibility: It works without incident. You'll likely prefer the familiarity of the controller on harder difficulties and during multiplayer, but the fact that it's debatable speaks volumes about the Move's ability to accommodate first-person shooter controls.

(c) 2011, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Distributed by MCT Information Services