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

Perhaps it’s a product of recent economic uncertainty, but the entertainment media seems to be infatuated with the idea of global catastrophe. Whether it’s alien invasion (TV’s Falling Skies; Hollywood’s Skyline or Battle: Los Angeles), viral pandemic (Contagion), zombie apocalypse (Dead Island) or nuclear holocaust (the Fallout series), we seem to be more and more interested in “what if” scenarios these days. But most times, these stories are told in stark terms without a real human component. Insomniac’s Resistance 3 is one of the few entries in the end-of-the-world genre that takes time to tell a human story amidst the universal carnage that surrounds it.

A quick recap for the uninitiated: In 1908, a meteor impact in Siberia released an alien virus known as Chimera. The virus transformed almost every victim into a hideous, murderous creature. Some of the infected managed to fight off the transformation, such as American soldier Nathan Hale (the hero of the first two Resistance games). Humanity tried to hold it’s ground against Chimera, but eventually it conquered Europe and spread to North America. Hale dealt it a serious blow at the end of Resistance 2, but the alien scourge recovered, either killing or converting 90 percent of the human population.

You play former soldier Joseph Capelli, dishonorably discharged in 1953 for killing Hale, who was in the final stages of total conversion to Chimera. Capelli moved to Oklahoma, started a family and tried to put the war behind him. But four years later, the war has found him. The Chimera are in the process of transforming Earth into a more hospitable planet for their race. A doctor arrives in town saying that he knows how to stop the terraforming process and defeat the Chimera, but he must be safely escorted to New York City. Thus begins your perilous cross-country journey to put an end to the Chimeran invasion and return Earth to its rightful inhabitants.

At first glance, you notice how amazingly detailed the environments are. There are very few structures anywhere in the game that haven’t been practically decimated by violence and the rapidly changing climate. Families hide in underground warrens, trying to eek out a normal life despite the violence and death that surrounds them. Many of them have stories to tell if you pause long enough to hear them. Once topside, you have a full compliment of both human and alien weapons to select once you’ve discovered them. You can equip two weapons at a time, with the others accessible in a rotary menu. One of the best things about the combat in Resistance 3 is that you’re a human being, not a superhero. There’s no regenerating health or shields, and you don’t have any mutant powers or magic spells. If you’re hit, you lose health, which you have to replenish with one of the game’s few modern shooter conceits: the health powerup. Most of the maps are large outdoor locations, but progress is still fairly linear, and the marker that points you in the direction of the next objective isn’t on the screen all the time, allowing you to explore once a firefight is done. Also, composer Boris Salchow’s score is a symphonic masterpiece of game music writing, effectively enhancing the on-screen action without becoming intrusive. But the strength of Resistance 3 is its story. There are moments of moving human drama mixed into the mayhem of the combat. Some is perhaps a bit too manipulative (such as the mitten Capelli’s child drops just before his mother takes him to safety near the beginning), but the writers at Insomniac have taken great care to make the characters endearing and the cutscenes more than just connecting material between battle scenes. Anyone who really cares about narrative in video games is going to appreciate the effort.

My only real serious complaint about Resistance 3 is the erratic pace. You start out fast with battles involving many NPC companions, but as the story progresses, you find yourself alone in vast spaces against a large group of enemies, all of which have to be defeated before the next save checkpoint. Health becomes scarce, so you find yourself crouched behind cover, desperately searching for the one or two remaining enemies standing between you and the next area. This turns the fast early pace into a slow crawl with lots of reloads; expect to spend anywhere from 10 to 15 hours on the single-player campaign. The game also features two-player co-op, which is only open to players on your friends list online, and eight competitive multiplayer modes that are not particularly noob-friendly, since the matchmaking system doesn’t seem to make an attempt to match you with other players of comparable character level. So noobs, be prepared to be pwned until you learn the maps. Resistance 3 also supports Playstation Move. I tried the first few levels using Sony’s snow-cone wand. The navigation controller, which is the PS3 version of the Wii nunchuk, is the better choice than the standard controller, especially if you have small hands; you move the character with the left stick, with the wand controlling the camera. It took me some time to get used to the layout (after tweaking sensitivity settings in the options menu), and the Move reticule is considerably thicker and more prominent than the one used for the dual-shock. The early moments of the game are fairly easy to play with Move, but the later stages would be frightfully tough to survive, so the gamepad is your better choice. You can also play the game in 3D if you have the appropriate TV or monitor, which I don’t, so I can’t offer an opinion of that. Hopefully the 3D fad won’t die out before the price of the hardware decreases; there are parts of this game I’d love to try out in 3D.

Resistance 3 is an easy sell for me; apocalyptic stories are right in my wheelhouse. But even if they weren’t, I’d have to give Insomniac full marks for taking the time and creative energy to craft not just a game, but a compelling, human story to go with it. There’s always a place for a mindless shooter in my game collection, but sometimes I want a good tale of right and wrong, good and evil, sacrifice and reward, and that’s what I love the most about Resistance 3. Hopefully other developers and publishers will see the value in this and follow in Insomniac’s footsteps.

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