Review: Resistance 2

Resistance 2 is every bit the product of Resistance: Fall of Man’s mentality: it’s OK to do things by the numbers so long as those numbers are bigger than everyone else’s.

That means more players in multiplayer (60, up from 40), more weapons in the arsenal, more storeys on the bosses, more enemies on the screen, and more options on the menus. More, more, more. Has any thought been given to why, beyond the obvious marketing cachet? Yes, but only in retrospect. “We have these numbers, now what do we do with them?”

For the most part, attempts to justify them feel equally like damage limitation. Multiplayer Skirmish matches split teams into smaller squads before assigning micro-objectives within the battle, promoting intimacy, role and a vital modicum of clarity. A revised co-op mode forgoes a retread of the singleplayer campaign for eightplayer communal grinding, its maps doling out enemies and waypoints apace, awarding XP for every followed instruction and accurate shot. Those big numbers again.

It’s partially successful, though often in the rather cynical capacity you’d expect of a token-harvest like Phantasy Star Online or Bounty Hounds. The real object of the mission is seldom found within, but in the statistical handouts that occur afterwards. And while the first game’s maps deserved the benefit of the doubt – going from Ratchet & Clank to an FPS wasn’t as neat a transition for Insomniac as many seemed to think – the failure to improve them is telling.

Read Full Review