Chimera, Grayson, Guns, Oh my! Here\'s a sneak peak at the upcoming Resistance title for the PSP shown off at this year\'s E3.
Published: July 20, 2008
The announcement of Resistance: Retribution was a shocking one, to say the least, and after getting some hands on time with the game it's hard to imagine how Sony managed to wait until E3 to reveal it.
The game has been designed with portable gaming in mind, and as a PSP title, one would hope so. The checkpoint system is robust, so you won't have to trudge through a level over and over again if you get torn to shreds by the Chimera. Loading times have also been taken into consideration, with streaming techniques being employed to speed up loading. During my hands-on time I noticed that after passing a certain point in the level, a door sealed and I couldn't go back -- likely a way to free up memory and keep the game running fast and looking great. Speaking of looks, visual prowess is certainly a strong point of the Resistance: Retribution engine. It boasts high res maps and specular lighting, owing to the fact that Resistance: Retribution is one of the first games to utilize a third generation engine on the PSP. There's also a new skeleton and animation system combined with motion captured characters to keep everything looking just as good in motion as it does in a screenshot.
Taking place between the original Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2, the team at SCEA Bend can take advantage of newer story elements while answering questions from the first game, all while bridging the gap between the two console heavy-hitters. The team promises to answer questions such as "What are the Cloven?", "Why are there no female Chimera?", and "What did the Chimera do after occupying Western Europe?". Several questions about Resistance 2 will also be answered, all of which are undisclosed except for the answer to where the Chimera fleets seen attacking the city were built.
The story is centered around a man names James Grayson who is an expert on Chimera conversion centers due to his extensive expertise in destroying so many over the years. He discovers that his brother has been infected by the Chimera, forcing Grayson to kill his brother. After this takes place, he wears his brothers jacket in remembrance for the remainder of the game. Raine Bouchard, a member of the Maquis (a French resistance group), seeks out Grayson for his knowledge on conversion centers, hoping to use his help to build a serum against the Chimera infection.
Because it's pretty much impossible to pull off a perfect clone of a console first person shooter on the PSP, the team at SCEA Bend has made some concessions and devised a surprisingly acceptable aiming system. The solution they came up with consists of an aim assist window which makes any enemy in the box fair game. It automatically targets them (except while they are running away), allowing players to switch between multiple targets with quick taps of the face buttons. The analog nub controls movement while face buttons change the direction that Grayson is facing. We're told that they ended up with this system after a lot of trial and error, because they completely scrapped the Syphon Filter style before beginning development. It may sound a little awkward, but when you're actually playing the game, it's a very natural setup. If you want, you can use manual aim on most of the guns. If you're crazy, that is.
During our time with Resistance: Retribution we saw the Sturmgewehr .303 Carbine, the BM001 Razor (the spiritual successor of the Bullseye), the L209 LAARK, the Longbow 1S-1K, and the Auger. The alternate fire of the Longbow slows down enemies, almost like the sniper rifle in R:FoM but executed in a different fashion. The BM001 Razor's alternate fire charges a ricochet shot that bounces around the room in a manner reminiscent of the combine gun in Half-Life 2. The Auger performs exactly as it does in R:FoM, with all of the wall cutting and transparent shield action you could hope for. A little birdie tells us that he wouldn't be surprised if hand grenades found their way into the game at some point, but don't consider this an official declaration just yet.
You can quickly switch between guns by tapping right on the d-pad, but if you've got a second to catch a breather, holding it will bring up the weapon ring. The up button on the d-pad is the action button, allowing you to open doors and flip switches and make equipment emit bleeps and bloops and all of that jazz. If you get stuck, pausing the game will bring up a sort of cleverly disguised hint system (though now I'm about to blow its cover), where players can read Grayson's journal containing tips on how to kill upcoming enemies and things of that nature.
The boss battle we saw featured a bipedal mech which was stunned by activating a switch in the environment, triggering a particle beam. Here the player can unload on it with LAARK rockets, making short work of an otherwise intimidating challenge.
Vehicle inclusion is still yet to be determined, or at least that's what we're being told right now. There's also a "robust" multiplayer in the works, but we weren't given any details about that.
Look for Resistance: Retribution in Spring 2009.
The game has been designed with portable gaming in mind, and as a PSP title, one would hope so. The checkpoint system is robust, so you won't have to trudge through a level over and over again if you get torn to shreds by the Chimera. Loading times have also been taken into consideration, with streaming techniques being employed to speed up loading. During my hands-on time I noticed that after passing a certain point in the level, a door sealed and I couldn't go back -- likely a way to free up memory and keep the game running fast and looking great. Speaking of looks, visual prowess is certainly a strong point of the Resistance: Retribution engine. It boasts high res maps and specular lighting, owing to the fact that Resistance: Retribution is one of the first games to utilize a third generation engine on the PSP. There's also a new skeleton and animation system combined with motion captured characters to keep everything looking just as good in motion as it does in a screenshot.
Taking place between the original Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2, the team at SCEA Bend can take advantage of newer story elements while answering questions from the first game, all while bridging the gap between the two console heavy-hitters. The team promises to answer questions such as "What are the Cloven?", "Why are there no female Chimera?", and "What did the Chimera do after occupying Western Europe?". Several questions about Resistance 2 will also be answered, all of which are undisclosed except for the answer to where the Chimera fleets seen attacking the city were built.
The story is centered around a man names James Grayson who is an expert on Chimera conversion centers due to his extensive expertise in destroying so many over the years. He discovers that his brother has been infected by the Chimera, forcing Grayson to kill his brother. After this takes place, he wears his brothers jacket in remembrance for the remainder of the game. Raine Bouchard, a member of the Maquis (a French resistance group), seeks out Grayson for his knowledge on conversion centers, hoping to use his help to build a serum against the Chimera infection.
Because it's pretty much impossible to pull off a perfect clone of a console first person shooter on the PSP, the team at SCEA Bend has made some concessions and devised a surprisingly acceptable aiming system. The solution they came up with consists of an aim assist window which makes any enemy in the box fair game. It automatically targets them (except while they are running away), allowing players to switch between multiple targets with quick taps of the face buttons. The analog nub controls movement while face buttons change the direction that Grayson is facing. We're told that they ended up with this system after a lot of trial and error, because they completely scrapped the Syphon Filter style before beginning development. It may sound a little awkward, but when you're actually playing the game, it's a very natural setup. If you want, you can use manual aim on most of the guns. If you're crazy, that is.
During our time with Resistance: Retribution we saw the Sturmgewehr .303 Carbine, the BM001 Razor (the spiritual successor of the Bullseye), the L209 LAARK, the Longbow 1S-1K, and the Auger. The alternate fire of the Longbow slows down enemies, almost like the sniper rifle in R:FoM but executed in a different fashion. The BM001 Razor's alternate fire charges a ricochet shot that bounces around the room in a manner reminiscent of the combine gun in Half-Life 2. The Auger performs exactly as it does in R:FoM, with all of the wall cutting and transparent shield action you could hope for. A little birdie tells us that he wouldn't be surprised if hand grenades found their way into the game at some point, but don't consider this an official declaration just yet.
You can quickly switch between guns by tapping right on the d-pad, but if you've got a second to catch a breather, holding it will bring up the weapon ring. The up button on the d-pad is the action button, allowing you to open doors and flip switches and make equipment emit bleeps and bloops and all of that jazz. If you get stuck, pausing the game will bring up a sort of cleverly disguised hint system (though now I'm about to blow its cover), where players can read Grayson's journal containing tips on how to kill upcoming enemies and things of that nature.
The boss battle we saw featured a bipedal mech which was stunned by activating a switch in the environment, triggering a particle beam. Here the player can unload on it with LAARK rockets, making short work of an otherwise intimidating challenge.
Vehicle inclusion is still yet to be determined, or at least that's what we're being told right now. There's also a "robust" multiplayer in the works, but we weren't given any details about that.
Look for Resistance: Retribution in Spring 2009.