|
dkirschner's Resistance 3 (PS3)
|
| [March 24, 2014 11:10:28 PM]
|
Resistance 3, semi-real-time gamelog…
There are already a bunch of really dumb story bits going on. The setting is cool, and I accept that there are hidden human communities living in fear of the Chimera, who have wiped out ~90% of Earth’s population and occupy most of the planet. The game has a distinctly different feel than Resistance 1 and 2. This one is post-apocalyptic moreso than sci-fi. Some of the buttons have been changed around, the weapons now have levels. It feels more like Fallout. Firing the Chimeran pulse rifle no longer feels like futuristic pew pew pew but like rugged, parts-hardly-working clanka clanka clanka with the sight swerving around because of kickback.
Okok, I wanted to talk about the story. You play as the guy who killed Hale in Resistance 2. He’s married and had a kid. The kid is sick. In the middle of a Chimeran invasion, he seems predominantly worried about his kid, and his wife, although she is in charge of communications for the whole town, also seems predominantly concerned with her kid. Honestly, the Chimera are invading, your kid is sickly and like 3 years old, you really need to be worrying about staying alive and defending the town more than “Susan! Has Jack’s fever gotten better?” “Susan! How’s Jack? Did he sleep?” There are more important things afoot…
I found a terrible incongruency. Malikov, the Russian scientist from Resistance 2, who I am 99% sure killed himself, just appeared in this hidden community one day. Seriously, you find his suicide note in Resistance 2 and he’s never heard from again. He definitely killed himself. Why is he here? How is he here? How did a 60-something year old man survive in a Chimera-infested wasteland traveling from like New York or Chicago or wherever all the way to Oklahoma? How did he know where I am and to come here?
So Malikov shows up and has this crazy story about how the Chimeran tower in New York opened a wormhole and now the earth is freezing and I have to go with him to NEW YORK from OKLAHOMA in 1957 when the Chimera have annihilated every city on Earth and 90% of the population is dead because he is the “only person who knows how to stop the Chimera” and presumably I am the “only hero alive who can help him.” WHAT?! How does he know about this tower, or that the earth is freezing? Was he in New York? I doubt it because New York was annihilated. Do you really think there are any humans in the center of the Chimeran invasion? No.
Rightly, my character calls Malikov crazy and tells him to go away. But not my wife! No! She says something idiotic and relates it to their child. “If there’s any chance Jack can have a better life...” She wants me, her husband, to travel 2000 miles with an old man through Chimera-infested USA to the center of the invasion to the super tower that is supposedly freezing the earth so that maybe…just maybe…my sick 3-year-old can have a better life. She wants me to go! Who would do that!? How is this a good idea?! This isn’t even like video game crazy type of good idea. It’s just stupid!
My favorite part so far is when my character does what his wife says and goes with Malikov. As he is telling his son he loves him, I started wondering why his son Jack never said anything. He looks like he’s 3 or 4 years old, but he doesn’t talk. Then in this moment that is supposed to be super emotional and dramatic (many of these moments feel really contrived) as Susan is carrying him away, he reaches over her shoulder at my character and cries “Daddyyyyyyyy!” in this hilarious deep 60-year-old woman smoker voice. What?!?!? Who okayed that voice for a child? Seriously, old woman smoker voice. “Daddddyyyyy!” I laughed my ass off.
My thoughts after an hour and a half: At least the gameplay is good.
My thoughts after four hours: Okay, the story is throwaway. At least there haven’t been any bad new parts. I’ll focus on gameplay then, which is quite fun. As usual, and this is something I really enjoy about the Resistance series, there are more new enemies, and modified versions of old enemies. My favorite so far are the stealth snipers. You can spot them with the auger vision and either use that gun or then snipe them. If they hit you though, it’s like 25% of your health, so watch out! There are also new drones that hover over enemies granting them a protective shield. Take out the drones, then hit the enemies.
The guns leveling up is pretty sweet. Of course my Chimeran pulse rifle hit level 3 (max) almost immediately because it’s the most versatile gun. Now it shoots exploding rounds and tags 3 targets at a time. My sniper rifle and marksman can now zoom. The sniper rifle also highlights enemies’ heads. The augur now fires a 3-round burst. Pretty handy stuff!
Right now I’m in Pennsylvania in a religious town. It’s quite strange. God this and god that, and when people die, it was their time, blah blah. It’s a(n) (exaggerated?) representation of old small town church communities. Makes the town weirder.
After six-and-a-half hours:
Oooh, the prison level was cool, definitely my favorite location in the game. It’s good that I liked it because the train sequence before it was trying really hard to be neat, but it fell flat. The prisoners go Mad Max style on your train, trying to hijack it. There’s a 15-minute long battle for the train, which involved me standing on one end aiming through my scope, only moving when Malikov told me that the rear cars in turn were coming loose and I had to go detach them. Dull. It reminded me of the end of Resistance 2 where I could just sit there doing nothing and progress the fight. Anyway, the prison level is supposed to show the ugly side of human nature. It’s worse than Chimera-infested areas, and it’s up to you and another guy there to lure the Chimera to the prison so that they will destroy it and you can escape. One of my favorite things about the prison was you get the Mutator, a gun that shoots humans with the Chimera virus and infects them right there on the spot. It’s fun to use, especially the alt fire which shoots a big blob in a radius and infects lots of humans at once.
After the prison, there is more silly story. The prison is in Pennsylvania. When your character leaves, he sets off on foot. Flash forward. “Hey, I’m in New York, right under the main Chimera tower!” What? How did he travel there? I assume he walked. That would have taken him weeks. It’s like 300 miles away. Did he eat? Sleep? It’s like below freezing and snowstorms. How did he stay warm? Every other location in the game it’s been clear how he traveled there – boat, plane, train – but how is he going to walk from Pennsylvania to New York City? And the first thing Joseph does in New York City? Find a radio and whine into it to no one about missing his wife and kid. Come on, you’ve got bigger things to worry about.
I was thinking how it was more okay that Nathan Hale was doing all this action hero stuff, taking on the Chimera all by himself. He was infected and had superpowers. Joseph is just a regular dude. Why would he be able to do anything that other people can’t? Malikov on the train says something like “This is going to be dangerous assaulting the tower. Four years ago we tried and lost 1000 men.” Great! So now let’s go in with one normal military dude. Good idea.
One more note for this portion – this game has some annoying bugs. I’ve had AI allies get stuck and not advance the action forward and have had to restart areas a couple times for that. The Lurkers, little scorpion enemies, constantly (seriously like 30 times already) disappear, reappear behind you, sting you through walls and ceilings, seemingly teleport around, disappear in other objects…those things are programmed like crap. I’ve lost so much health and even died to them. Really frustrating! There have been audio bugs where Joseph’s “I’m being injured” sound gets stuck on a loop: “UH! UH! UH! UH! UH! UH! UH!” Other enemies have been stuck in various places, including a big hard one that got stuck on a car. I just stood there and killed him easily. I’ve fallen through the level and died a handful of times, especially on the bridge part where you have to kill the dropship. Lots of annoying little bugs.
While the credits are rolling:
I figured out the problem. The feel-good family story got substituted for the kill-the-bad-guy story. I don’t think this game was really about defeating the Chimera. Joseph’s goal is to reunite with his wife and child and live happily ever after. In the beginning, he and everyone else were dealing with living under the threat of the Chimera, and his big problem was that his boy was sick. His problem throughout the whole game isn’t really the Chimera. It’s that he’s worried about his family. There should have been more emphasis on Joseph’s motivations and the story around defeating the Chimera instead of on family. The family angle felt contrived to me.
There are more dumb plot points and various impossibilities toward the end of the game too. Blah. I guess I had it pegged after the first hour. At least the gameplay is solid. This series for me goes, best to worst, Resistance 2, 1, 3. I would actually suggest skipping this one unless you are a huge fan. There’s no boss. No big bad guy, nothing to direct your “yeah, I’m gonna beat the Chimera once and for all!” toward besides just the whole alien species. Not very satisfying.
On to the next Playstation exclusive series…
add a comment 
|
|
|
 |
dkirschner's Resistance 3 (PS3)
|
|
Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Monday 24 March, 2014
GameLog closed on: Monday 24 March, 2014 |
 |
| other GameLogs for this Game |
|
This is the only GameLog for Resistance 3. |
|
