| Originally Posted by Tom Chick 11) Lots of civilians
Although the main character in Resistance 3 is a Sentinel -- that's the game's term for "uber-soldiers" -- the game isn't about the military struggle against the invading Chimera aliens. It's a survival story about a guy who has decided to go underground to live as normal a life as possible with his family and a handful of survivors. As he travels across the country, instead of hooking up with other squads on the front line of the battle, he'll encounter other pockets of survivors.
Click the image above to check out all Resistance 3 screens.
10) An unscripted A.I.
The A.I. in the previous Resistance games was essentially built around the map layouts. If you reloaded a certain area, you'd learn when enemies appeared and where they would go. React accordingly and you'll power through the level. But designer Drew Murray says the Resistance 3 A.I. was completely rebuilt. Now they work according to a "job" system, where any given enemy decides whether to adopt aggressive, defensive, or flanking behaviors. "Even the level designers have been caught off guard by what the enemies do," he says.
9) Down time
While plotting out the story for Resistance 3, Insomniac devoted a wall to charting out the story and breaking it up into varied beats -- each tailored to make the player feel a certain way. The intent was to avoid the standard one-note action movie pacing that drives most shooters (including, I'd argue, both Resistance games). So there are levels in Resistance 3 when you're sort of along for the ride, while the game tells a story. For instance, a boat ride through a flooded town has its share of shooting bits, but it also has some of Half-Life's tram ride dynamic.
8) Simplicity
Insomniac frequently refers to Resistance 3 as a buddy road trip from Oklahoma to New York. Writer Jon Paquette says this focus on a journey was a foundation for how he approached Resistance 3. "One of my earliest goals was to keep the story simple. A lot of games have really complicated stories. If you can follow them, some of them are awesome. But if you're a normal guy like me, you play a little bit, but then you have to walk the dog or do your laundry or whatever, so you stop playing. And when you come back after a while, you're going, 'What was I doing? Where am I? What's going on?' We didn't want that to happen in Resistance 3, so you're just trying to get to New York."
7) Invisible snipers
How is that fair? Well, it might not be. During a demo of the sequence in which you have to get through a forest guarded by cloaked Chimera with sniper rifles, the developer doing the demo died a couple of times. He eventually turned on invincibility. However, the cloaking is balanced by the fact that once a sniper takes his position, he activates a laser sight that will help you find him. Gamey? Sure. But considering the alternative -- completely invisible snipers -- I'll gladly accept gamey.
6) Multiple paths through a level
Insomniac freely grants that the previous Resistance games were almost entirely linear. So they're happy to point out that at least a few levels in Resistance 3 have multiple paths. For instance, there are two different paths through the previously mentioned woods with invisible snipers.
5) Weather
In one battle, you'll see some dramatic tornado-like effects caused by a massive terraformer. Insomniac says that weather is something new they're bringing to the environments in Resistance 3.
4) More detailed storytelling
Audio diaries are nothing new, although they're new in Resistance 3. But there are also bits of storytelling coming through radio broadcasts. These will give you bits of information about how people around the world are faring against the alien invasion. Insomniac also points out bits of what they call "environmental storytelling". These visual vignettes hint at side stories without making them explicit. For instance, a motel parking lot with a station wagon that still has a Christmas tree lashed to the roof, a child in a survivor's camp drawing a picture of grims attacking humans, or a hanged man next to the corpse of a woman. Bioshock did these wonderfully, and it seems like Resistance 3 is taking that to heart.
3) Shield drones
These are a bit like the engineers in Halo, but more personal. Some Chimera now come with small flying drones that project personal shields. Free hint: shoot the drones down before you take on the Chimera.
2) Killstreaks
Call of Duty players will recognize a lot of the elements in Resistance 3's multiplayer. And while some die-hard Resistance fans might chafe at this, you can't deny that Call of Duty is an effective way to make a multiplayer game. As you level up in Resistance 3, you unlock weapons, weapon upgrades, active powers, passive powers, and even power upgrades. Then you spend your points to unlock the things you want to include in your configurations. Every configuration has a weapon, a grenade, two active powers, and two passive powers. Furthermore, there are separate berserk powers for the human and Chimera teams. You earn these by getting a certain number of kills in a row, but you'll notice that Insomniac carefully avoids calling them killsteaks. They're berserk powers. That you earn by racking up killstreaks. But who's counting?
1) Two ways to play instead of three
Marketing director Ryan Schneider says that Resistance 2 was like three separate games: the story mode, the competitive multiplayer, and the co-op mode. The co-op was a bit like Hellgate: London done right, or Borderlands, or maybe even Diablo as a shooter. And it certainly did feel like a separate game. I spent more time playing that mode than either of the other two. There was nothing else quite like it in a shooter. You and the other players took down insane swarms of monsters and crazy tough enormous bosses, collecting rudimentary loot and leveling up your abilities. But Resistance 3 will only be like two separate games, because it won't have the co-op mode. However, Schneider hopes the leveling up in Resistance 3's multiplayer will appeal to fans of the axed co-op mode. Furthermore, he promises Insomniac will reveal more information soon about the co-op features in the single player campaign. |
04-15-2011, 06:02 PM 
