Resistance Redemption
Who would've thunk all our issues with the Resistance mythos could've been fixed by... a portable game? Yep, Resistance: Retribution does all that and it's a damn fine game to boot.
Published: March 17, 2009
With the exception of perhaps Ready at Dawn, the folks at Sony's Bend studio are arguably the most consistent, technically competent developers on the PlayStation Portable today. Sure, there have been stand-alone efforts that are easily as good, if not better, then SCEA Bend's portable Syphon Filter PSP efforts, stuff like Crisis Core, but taken as a whole, their track record speaks for itself.
Which is why it was both encouraging and just a wee bit unnerving to hear that they'd be taking the reins of a game that would link the two PlayStation 3 entries into Insomniac Games' own Resistance games, bridging the gap in the timeline between the launch title and last year's sequel. It wasn't that I felt Bend wasn't up to the task, but with very few exceptions, PSP games haven't been the portable versions of the console experience that everyone was hoping for when the system was announced.
Set those fears aside, friends. In many ways, Resistance: Retribution is actually a better game than the second PS3 entry into the series, and as a canonical filler between the two games, it does more to further the mythos and lore of the Resistance universe than perhaps either of the two games. What's more, leading man James Grayson, fueled by revenge after finding his own brother in mid-conversion into a Chimera, is more interesting than Nathan Hale, the star of the two PS3 games. One-dimensional though he may be (and no, the attempts at any sort of character development aren't worth a damn, honestly), he's at least the kind of balls-out, one-liner-spitting action hero that you don't mind getting behind. When your lead character, supposedly stuck in the middle of an alternate timeline 1950s, actually utters the line "I'm James Grayson, bitch," you know the game isn't taking itself too seriously.
For the most part, that's a very, very good thing. Not only is Grayson's French-hating, impulsive and, if you happen to plug your PSP into a PS3 running a copy of Resistance 2, infected character a lot of fun, he actually ends up doing so much exploration of the Chimeran operations, literally helping to explain why things are so different in Resistance 2, that you glean more out of the story -- including who the Cloven are. There's a ton of reveal here, yet it spoils nothing if you haven't played R2 yet, and won't even detract from the stuff that was in the first-game if you haven't played that (though you're missing out). It's a rare thing to be both a complementary experience to a series yet stand alone as a solid product.
Make no mistake, this is a shooter through and through, just as the PS3 big brothers are. It's an extremely competent one, too -- especially considering the difficulty some developers have had in wrestling with the PSP's single analog stick. Helped by an auto-targeting system that will stick to enemies that fall within a fairly large bounding box on the screen, and easily switchable with a simple tap of the face buttons, the system works far better than it has any right to. If that's not "pure" enough for you, the game also supports the ability to hook up to a PS3 and use a DualShock controller (including rumble!), which beefs up the enemy count and removes the lock-on system of the straight PSP experience. It's not ideal; you'll probably want to play it on a TV if you're using a controller, and PSP games blown up on a HD look decidedly fugly, but it does work.
Which is why it was both encouraging and just a wee bit unnerving to hear that they'd be taking the reins of a game that would link the two PlayStation 3 entries into Insomniac Games' own Resistance games, bridging the gap in the timeline between the launch title and last year's sequel. It wasn't that I felt Bend wasn't up to the task, but with very few exceptions, PSP games haven't been the portable versions of the console experience that everyone was hoping for when the system was announced.
Set those fears aside, friends. In many ways, Resistance: Retribution is actually a better game than the second PS3 entry into the series, and as a canonical filler between the two games, it does more to further the mythos and lore of the Resistance universe than perhaps either of the two games. What's more, leading man James Grayson, fueled by revenge after finding his own brother in mid-conversion into a Chimera, is more interesting than Nathan Hale, the star of the two PS3 games. One-dimensional though he may be (and no, the attempts at any sort of character development aren't worth a damn, honestly), he's at least the kind of balls-out, one-liner-spitting action hero that you don't mind getting behind. When your lead character, supposedly stuck in the middle of an alternate timeline 1950s, actually utters the line "I'm James Grayson, bitch," you know the game isn't taking itself too seriously.
For the most part, that's a very, very good thing. Not only is Grayson's French-hating, impulsive and, if you happen to plug your PSP into a PS3 running a copy of Resistance 2, infected character a lot of fun, he actually ends up doing so much exploration of the Chimeran operations, literally helping to explain why things are so different in Resistance 2, that you glean more out of the story -- including who the Cloven are. There's a ton of reveal here, yet it spoils nothing if you haven't played R2 yet, and won't even detract from the stuff that was in the first-game if you haven't played that (though you're missing out). It's a rare thing to be both a complementary experience to a series yet stand alone as a solid product.
Make no mistake, this is a shooter through and through, just as the PS3 big brothers are. It's an extremely competent one, too -- especially considering the difficulty some developers have had in wrestling with the PSP's single analog stick. Helped by an auto-targeting system that will stick to enemies that fall within a fairly large bounding box on the screen, and easily switchable with a simple tap of the face buttons, the system works far better than it has any right to. If that's not "pure" enough for you, the game also supports the ability to hook up to a PS3 and use a DualShock controller (including rumble!), which beefs up the enemy count and removes the lock-on system of the straight PSP experience. It's not ideal; you'll probably want to play it on a TV if you're using a controller, and PSP games blown up on a HD look decidedly fugly, but it does work.
