Resistance: Fall of Man Member Review for the PS3

The Good: Interesting alternate fire modes, interesting story, great setup and creature design, 30 players online

The Bad: Poorly balanced, stiff dated game play, dated visuals, online is a ghost town, frustratingly difficult to the point of no completion

Being a launch title is tough for some games because people want to know what the system is capable of. Of course consoles don't see their full capabilities until 5-10 years down it's life cycle. When the PS3 launched everyone wanted to see something that would be worth a $600 purchase, but I don't think Resistance was it.

You play as an infected soldier named Nathan Hale who is fighting alongside the British to rid of the Chimera infestation and save humanity. The game has a WWII setting that feels familiar yet not enough to be labeled as "Oh, one of those again".

The main problem with Resistance: The difficulty. Oh my god is this game hard, so hard in fact that I couldn't even finish the game. There are about 30 levels, but the game is just so damned impossible to beat even on the easy setting. The game uses the ancient art of health packs and the game mechanics just feel dated and stiff.

The only neat thing about the game are the weapons. You have regular fire modes, but interesting alternate fire modes such as the Bullseye's tag mode. You can tag an enemy and shoot around corners and the bullets will home in on the target. The sniper rifle lets you slow down time, one weapon even shoots up temporary shields. This, however, is not enough to save this frustratingly hard and linear game from getting sent right back to the store.

The story may seem interesting, but it's slow and doesn't pick up much. The graphics, compared to games now, are ugly and dated and don't seem fully HD. Every weapon, no matter how powerful, all feel like they do the same amount of damage. Each Chimera creature takes forever to kill almost two whole clips some times, even on the weak ones! The game throws way to many enemies at you at once, and your health goes to zero in about five seconds. There's not lean button, so this means the game is poorly balanced and not much play testing went on.

If you think the multiplayer saves the game it doesn't. You can have up to 30 players on one map, but no one is playing this online anymore, and the firefights are boring and a huge mess thanks to the dated stiff game play. I love the creature designs and the way levels are setup, but this game just feel out of it's time frame. One last thing that makes the game almost unplayable is the lack of ammo. This isn't a survivor horror is it? Then give me more ammo it's a war! I'm sorry Insomniac, but please stick with Ratchet & Clank because I don't think shooters are your forte.