Of all of the assorted kiosks that were available to play after the Sony E3 press briefing, there was just something about the Resistance 3 multiplayer preview that seemed to be calling out to me. This was particularly odd to me, especially considering how middling my opinions have been about prior installations in the franchise. I don’t know whether it was morbid curiosity or the admitted presence of alcohol in my bloodstream that made me think that this was a good idea, but regardless this was a hands-on experience that I just couldn’t bring myself to pass up.
Consisting of what will most likely be the demo that is included in the June 14th release of Battle: Los Angeles on Blu-Ray, a sixteen player multiplayer map was playable at the event. All of your standard first person shooter fare seems to be present, with the very welcome re-appearance of the weapon wheel that was neglectfully absent in the franchise’s second installment. Taking place in the bombed out husk of a city, players and fifteen of their closest surviving friends will be thrown into an area against everyone’s favorite invading force: the Chimera.
In what seems to be following the trend of fast and frenetic first person shooters, Resistance 3 looks to be a happy middle-ground for those looking to experience the immersive and addictive leveling system found in the ever-popular Call of Duty franchise, while still having a slightly over-the-top presentation that has a bit more of a Halo style vibe. On the other side of the coin, however, all of the environments seemed to share far too much of the dark and grimy feel of any stereotypical Unreal Engine game. Mind you, these are merely observations on a single multiplayer stage, but lets hope that they can find a way to better expand the color palette in some of the other maps, otherwise the audience may have some some emotionless and drably depressing upcoming matches on their hands.
As mentioned earlier, there is a persistent leveling system that can be found and upgraded in-between waves of enemies, but when the action hits fever pitch and players start racking up the kill count, this is where the awesome new killstreak modifiers will be coming into play. There are any number of different levels of perks that are at your disposal, that will also be further modified based upon your performance, ala killstreaks, headshots, and the like.
Probably what stood out most from this gameplay session was the repetitive nature of all of the enemy AI behaviors. As much as I would love to say that they were just like real life, this was anything but the case. Pathing and decision making seemed scripted, their weapon usage seemed limited and as seemed to be the theme in this session. Very little was brought to the table that we haven’t seen as gamers a million times before.
Again, these impressions may not be indicative of the final product, which is very much still a work in progress, but needless to say that my apprehensive thoughts on the multiplayer of the Resistance franchise still remain very much unchanged. Let’s hope that this can change before the game’s final release this September.
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