Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Insomniac Games
Genre: FPS
Release date: Available now

Popular wisdom has it that all stories in books, movies, even videogames, can trace their roots to a handful of basic plots. For games, one of the most popular of these is the “what if” scenario. What if the Germans had beaten the U.S. to the atom bomb? What if Abraham Lincoln had contracted H1N1 and decided to skip his trip to see “My American Cousin”? What if the Romans had had 21st-century weapons to use against the Mongol hordes? In 2006, developer Insomniac explored the idea of the Russians unleashing an alien virus that turns soldiers into horribly mutated creatures bent on world domination at the beginning of the Cold War in Resistance: Fall of Man. Two years later, hybrid soldier Nathan Hale returns to battle the Chimera in Resistance 2, which brings the fight to American soil.

The story picks up where Fall of Man left off, with Hale being detained by American special-ops soldiers following the Chimeran defeat in London. Hale soon becomes a part of the Sentinel program, an effort to create human-Chimeran hybrid supersoldiers headed by Russian scientist Fydor Malikov. Hale, who has been able to control his infected half for some time, becomes Malikov’s most successful test subject. But, like all of the other Sentinels, Hale has to have regular injections of a virus inhibitor or the Chimeran disease will eventually take total control of him.

Having been defeated in the United Kingdom, the Chimera take the fight across the pond to America, launching an all-out assault across the country. After a vicious fight in San Francisco, Hale learns that Malikov has been taken captive by the Chimera, and that the alien leader, Daedalus, is the mutated remains of a soldier with whom Hale served years before. So Hale and the Sentinels set out on a cross-country journey to rescue Malikov and destroy Daedalus before the defeat of the human race is completed.

Resistance 2 is a first-person shooter in which you guide Hale through a wide variety of settings, from a base in Iceland to the woodlands of northern California and Utah, from suburban picket-fence neighborhoods to the streets and buildings of Chicago, and finally to the Louisiana bayou and a massive alien spacecraft hovering over a crater in Mexico. You can carry up to two alien or human weapons at a time, so choosing which guns to hold and which to drop is an important strategic factor. Gameplay is pretty much cut and dried (find enemy, kill enemy, move to next objective), although the locations for these battles are much more varied than in Fall of Man, which spent much of its time indoors in corridors and tunnels. Visually, Resistance 2 is good but not great; its maximum HD resolution is 720p, resulting in graphics that lack the detail and richness that could’ve been achieved at 1080i. But if you’re playing this game without a 5.1 digital audio setup, you’re missing an amazing experience in gaming sound effects. There are some Chimera that you can hear before you can see them; several times my surround speakers spared me from being Chameleon fodder because I could hear from which direction they were coming. Also, several times during the campaign, the game shifts into Left 4 Dead/Resident Evil mode, in which you wander dark hallways in buildings filled with cocoons from which emerge Grims, zombie-like Chimera with amazing speed and claws that can rip you up in just a few swipes. Multiplayer is also a highlight, featuring four competitive modes supporting up to 60 players at a time, and a 2 to 8-player co-op mode that is lots of fun (and a good way to level up your player to take advantage of extra weapons and other goodies).

Unfortunately, Resistance 2 fails to shed the baggage that usually comes with shooters. There are quite a few different types of enemies to fight, but for the bulk of the game you only end up battling a few of them, making combat repetitive and almost boring in spots. Fighting can also be strangely predictable; if you find a sniper rifle on the ground, you can be sure that soon there will be a need for some long-distance weapons fire. There’s nothing really remarkable or imaginative about the objectives you are sent to complete; it’s basically the same combat sequences in each locality. The writers dropped the ball when they failed to exploit the need for the Sentinels to get their inhibitor injections; this would’ve added an urgency to the plot that was sorely needed. And the boss battles, especially the climactic fight with Daedalus, are very disappointing.

Resistance 2 is fun if you’re looking for seemingly endless sequences of blood and carnage. The survival horror aspects of the game are very scary and effective, composer Boris Salchow’s orchestral score lends the right dramatic push to the proceedings, the co-op multiplayer mode is very satisfying, the sound design is amazing, and the balance between hallway-crawl and outdoor battles is most welcome. But the story lacks ingenuity and depth, the graphics are not as good as they could’ve been, and the boss fights are less than memorable. Resistance 2 is fun to play, but you’re not likely to want to play it again.

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