When the PlayStation 3 first appeared to the world a mere two years ago, it didn’t exactly march onto the scene with the strongest line-up of games. Of course, that’s usually commonplace for hardware launches, as long as you have one solid title to back it all up you’ll be fine for the initial pick up. For Sony, that title was Resistance: Fall of Man, which gathered significant critical praise and solid sales for a system that started out slowly. From the creators of Ratchet & Clank came this FPS based around an alternate reality where WWII was interrupted by a disease outbreak / alien invasion from beyond the Iron Curtain. You took the role of an army grunt in Europe, overcome by infection but surviving, and completing your mission of wiping out as many of the enemy as you could. It was a solid experience, if not a bit overrated, and brought in Insomniac’s unique flair from their work with Ratchet to a much different genre.

Now, almost two years to the day, the sequel has appeared for excited PS3 owners to put players back into the boots of Nathan Hale as he struggles with the Chimeran disease and battles the onslaught of destruction the creatures have wrought unto humanity. Considering the magnitude associated with the post-apocalyptic, alien-invasion universe that the game falls within, the style and presentation of the game is expected to follow suit, and it was certainly something that the company promised. And after spending quite a lot of time with the game, it certainly does deliver on the presentation of a ruined world, with a magnificent art style and design that demonstrates the power of the hardware. There are certain elements of the game that are lacking, and it’s a big let down to know that one of them is why I set off to play the game in the first place: the campaign.

The presentation of the game is astounding. While many of the “wow” moments act mostly as set pieces, walking out into an open world to see alien ships soaring over head, it really sets the stage for just how desperate the situation you have been thrust into really is. The universe is shaped very strongly by the images that are displayed in the backgrounds and environment design, desolate underground caves and ruined suburban landscapes show off the Earth as a battlefield where our race has almost been completely wiped out. It’s beautiful and shocking at many points, and the mixture of futuristic weaponry and WWII-time artillery and style give that same interesting atmosphere that was prominent in the first game. The look and feel of the universe is very engrossing, and the music and enemy design (while very similar) give a good juxtapose between a score that sets a very classic war-time scene, with weird alien monsters popping out and attacking.

Unfortunately, the gameplay in the campaign doesn’t set the scene all too well. As open and expansive as the world seems, the levels and environments you explore feel very closed in and linear, almost on rails, as you move from chapter to chapter with a cutscene in between to keep the story moving. Even on a variety of different environments and continents, the gameplay and style of the game rarely falters, setting up very predictable encounters based on finding ammo drops and cover spots that usually results in the same kind of firefights throughout. The design comes off a bit differently in some areas, like in a swamp in Louisiana where you do a raid on a small mansion in the middle of the environment, only to be swarmed by powerful enemies and even a giant monster once you’ve successfully cleared it out. There are flaws in the weapon system, as well, with ammo becoming a strange commodity within the game. A new weapon dropped by any enemy will always have full ammo, but if you are carrying the weapon already you will only notice a minor increase in what you already have if you walk over it. In fact, some weapons will appear to have no ammo at all, but when you drop the weapon and pick up the new one it will have given you a full clip. You are also limited to just two weapons, which is fine and increases the amount of strategy you apply to conservation and tactics, but it always feels like you could use just one more slot, and game often force feeds you the exact combination you’ll need through trial and error.

Oh, yes, you will die. In fact, you’ll probably die quite a few times. While often times it can feel like a matter of tactics and improper play, you will get the feeling that perhaps you have to cheat the game just to pass through some particularly tasking rooms. The enemies will avoid your invincible AI pals, and go right after you. The AI actually seems surprisingly competent, which is aided by the fact that most of them can’t die, but still will not do much to help you rid yourself of a swarm of enemies. The effectiveness of a weapon on a particular creature is often a matter of practice, with snipers being very effective on most, and others being more easily taken down through shotgun shells or blind automatic fire. The actual play through the campaign feels very vanilla, and while the base mechanics that they’ve built into the game make it very smooth and well adjusted for a console shooter, the pacing just feels rushed along, moving from room to room where you often die and progress the story along.

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