Alright, first thing's first: that is some good fucking cover art. When I first saw Resistance in 2006 I was desperate for even half a PS3 just to play this, THIS is a launch title. Like Deadrising, the vast amount of carnage and intensity being rendered was unreal. This game is loud, intense, and honestly, pretty fuckin' good still.

This feels like a game stuck in time, in a good way. It's a war shooter set in an alternate history, battling alien bugmen called Chimeras. Except it's NOT a passive shooter, it's an incredibly vicious boomer shooter in disguise, requiring circle strafing and dodging projectiles, enemies NOT using any hitscans in favor of creating what is almost like a first-person bullet hell experience. This game is genuinely pretty visceral.

A lot of it is down to Insomniac's elite sound design team. The 2 machine guns you are going to be using for the majority of the game sound amazing, the bullseye in particular being not only the game's reliable workhorse, but also one of the best machine guns I've ever used in a game.

The rest of the arsenal feels a little bit more hit-or-miss to me. The sniper rifle is rotten, as nothing short of headshots will do anything to the chimera, and while the slowdown feature is explicitly to help you line up those headshots, the cooldown between shots when you miss is just so punishing. The shotgun is very nice, but combat is so engulfing that you almost never need close quarters weaponry. The auger can shoot through walls, but to balance it out they made it tickle enemies rather than kill them.

The more specialized weapons though, like the trusty rocket launcher, a chain gun that can launch a miniturret, and a bizarre blob mine gun that is actually incredibly handy near the end game. These enigmatic weapons that have come to define Insomniac are really where Resistance becomes something special.

But what is a weapon without an enemy? Insomniac struck gold with the Chimera. They are an underrated shooter enemy, as fun to fight as the Replicas in F.E.A.R and just as brutal to fight. They are incredibly efficient at killing you, if you're running low on health they will just outright rush you, will flank you, flush you out, all of the general behaviors of fun A.I to fight. It's the kind of intensity where even taking out a couple guys is rewarding as, oh thank god, I have given myself more breathing room. It's INCREDIBLE action.

Their design has also stuck with me since I first saw them. The large glowing spines, the insectoid heads, their freaky spindly legs. I have no idea why we don't talk about these guys more, they are stellar. None of the other enemies are even half as interesting and it doesn't even matter, because they nailed the most important enemy in the game.

My biggest complaint though is the downright nightmarish difficulty. Halfway through I had to drop it down to Easy as there was a level that was just kicking my fucking ass so hard that I had to call uncle. In classic Insomniac fashion, the checkpoints fucking stink. Your allies are terrible and will do anything they can to get in your way. Your health is the same little four bars the entire length of the game, no way to upgrade or reinforce it. Even on Easy some of the endgame levels were using me like a speedbag, I can't imagine this on Hard mode. It might as well spawn you into a game over the second you pick it.

The plot is also really confusing. I tried to pay attention but there are so few cutscenes and actual plot events rarely ever happen in them. It'll usually be in the History Channel slide shows that any plot happens, and it never becomes clear exactly what you're doing and why. I'm guessing they didn't have the budget for too many cutscenes, because the plot clearly has stuff going on. The intel you collect showcases a rather interesting lore, but there is just no character to latch onto, no major goal to drive you forward. It's just you and the living firework show Sergent Nathan Hale to just shoot stuff until the game is over.

I also find the premise a little troubling, as humanity is just so fucked it's hard to ever feel like you are making any ground. Halo made this work as you played AS the last hope personified. In Resistance we are just a Guy who is Resistant to the Chimeran virus. That's pretty interesting, but the game doesn't seem to really care about it, so why should I?

Also, bit of a moot point as the servers are gone, but the multiplayer, which hosted FORTY player matches, was unbelievable. The PS3 was absolutely worth buying for this game, no joke. It's definitely still worth buying today...OR if you want to play it with enhanced FOV and unlocked FPS, I'm sure SOME way exists to do that, and I'm SURE it looks amazing to do so. But it's a mystery to me!