The follow up game to the popular launch title for the PS3, Resistance: Fall of Man. The game continues the story of Nathan Hale after his defense of England in the first game. This time around he's back in the USA defend his homeland against the alien invaders. While battling the Chimera in the states, he's battling the virus inside himself as he fights to maintain his humanity and protect the rest of humanity at the same time.
This is a game that comes in 3 parts. There's the single player campaign that follows Hales fight against the Chimera with his squad or by himself. Thankfully this game doesn't feature the ever spawning enemies that over squad games have had in the past so you can rely on your allies to assist you in progressing through the game but not to the point where you're unneccesary. The game features a number of different locations and opponents and really pushes the story along well, seems like a logical progression from the first story. It is by no means perfect though. If you look around at any given encounter you can normally find an appropriate weapon eg LAARK for titans and the boss battles feel a little too scripted, with no real variation to how to deal with them. On reflection the game on the whole feels a little to linear, but this isn't any different to other contemporaries in the genre such as Halo. The final gripe is the lack of coop throughout the main story, but don't quit here, keep reading though!
Next up we have the online competitive mode. Seems well balanced in my limited play, with both races being equal. I think my only real gripe so far is that the carbine (I don't like the bullseye too much personally so don't use it on Chimera) seems to lack stopping power, of course this could simply be a lack of skill on my part. The levels are a decent size to not give the feeling of claustraphobia but not so large that you can avoid the enemy. I think my main concern is this mode is that respawn timer is randomly selected between 5 and 10 seconds, as this can drag on too long when you get the 10 second respawn, really the 5 seconds would have been a good length. Its also worth noting that a second player can jump on and play online off a single PS3, moving into split screen, the graphics do take a noticable drop, but that was all. We had 3 people playing online at once (on 2 PS3s) and had no lag at all.
The final piece of this game is also my personal favourite, online co-operative mode. This mode pits up to 8 players against the AI in various scenarios. Like the competitive mode two people can play off a single playstation. Players take on the role of one of three classes, the Medic who can heal, the Spec Ops who uses precision shots and provides ammo packs, and the Soldier who can take the damage and has a shield. Each class plays very differently and relies on each other to succeed. This mode is insanely fun though, especially when you get good players across all classes. The game scales based on number of players and levels, so the more high levels you have the harder it gets. The AI gets better and the enemies gain more health. There is some strategy involved though, as several situations cannot be solved by simply running in guns blazing, unless you want to die. I cannot say enough good things about this mode though, its some of the most fun I've had in a game in a long time, It would be worth buying and playing even if this was the only mode included.
Overall this game is fantastic value for money, you get 3 different game modes, each of which contains additional sub-modes and variations. The game also contains trophies to get, which are well done in my opinion, with a mix across all 3 game modes. They lack a little in skill based achievements as most of them are x number trophies but these are very minor things. I can recommend this game to anyone who played the first game, or anyone who likes FPS, or anyone who enjoys co-operative games.