Resistance: Retribution Member Review for the PSP

The Good: Amazing visuals, voice acting, good story for Resistance fans, solid mechanics that work, fun boss fights, great weapons, addictive multiplayer

The Bad: Long winded campaign that's stretched thin, can be so difficult you'll want to quit, gets boring and repetitive about halfway through, a few broken mechanics

Well before you read this review I've NEVER played any of the PS3 Resistance games. With that said RR is a great game, but is extremely hard and has a few flaws that bring it down quite a bit. While I can say RR is slightly overrated, it's really only for Resistance fans (well and newcomers...kind of). You play as John Grayson who is part of the Marquis (a French resistance army fighting against the alien Chimera horde). While Chimera aren't as cool as Helghast, Locusts, or even Covenant they are pretty damn creepy.

One of the first things I have to get out of the way is that RR uses the Syphon Filter engine and, unfortunately, feels a lot like said games. RR plays similar to the SF games, but with tweaked controls and the engine is, of course, updated. You have a new 'snap" cover system which means Grayson will duck behind, or snap against, cover and this is both useful and annoying. Sometimes when you wanna quickly get out of cover Grayson will "stick" to the cover exposing you to certain enemies. There is no blind fire so this makes it hard to shoot enemies when you don't have some type of shield (more on those later) since you're completely exposed. Switching weapons is fairly simple since holding down the right D-pad button pauses the game briefly so you can choose your weapon. This allows a tactical advantage and gives you a minute to think.

There are a lot of useful weapons in the game, but my favorite is the BM00001 which is a Chimeran weapon that shoots plasma rounds, but secondary fire charges these and they can be bounced around and kill multiple enemies (they home in on the enemy). Charging all 45 rounds can make a super powerful shot and kills up to 3 enemies at once. Another useful weapon is he sniper rifle which slows down time when you zoom in. Another great (and probably the most fun) is the Auger which has a non-movable deployable shield and can shoot through infinite amounts of solid objects AND even shows you enemies through objects. While ammo for the latter two are scarce...that's the downfall of having fun weapons. While the 7-8 weapons are fun  you never feel they're enough and you tend to run out of ammo in the wrong situations.

Playing on normal I always had too much ammo when enemies were scarce, but the later levels (trust me there's a LOT of later levels) when you have the most powerful of enemies coming after you in swarms you pinching rounds and that's a no-no in shooters. I felt like I was playing a survival horror than a TPS. I never even bothered finishing the whole since 1. The game got to damned frustrating since late in the game too many enemies are thrown at you at once with scarce health and ammo. 2. The game seemed to never end since I was 6 hours into the game and had no idea where the end was. I know the Syphon Filter games were a bit short, but c'mon this is a PORTABLE game; especially when it's as repetitive as it is. You feel you're just wiping out enemy after enemy and this gets boring about half way through. Sure there are some FPS mech sections (they're pretty fun), but a lot of the game is just repetition. Don't get me wrong the game is completely playable, but the last half feels tacked on and stretched thin.

The game has great boss fights, cool weapons, good mechanics, and amazing visuals. These are some of the best on the PSP and if you've played SF: Logan's Shadow you'll know what I'm talking about. The game's story is really only for Resistance fans and I know I would have had to have played previous Resistance games to have understood this. The multiplayer however is what keeps you coming back.

If you played SF multiplayer you'll know what I'm talking about. The maps are pretty big, there's little lag, and everything's easy to navigate so you can jump right in. Of course you can collect intel like in the SF games, and there's skill points (Ratchet & Clank fans know what these are), but they are really hard to get since you have to just be lucky and do something right. Think of these as Xbox 360 achievements or PS3 Trophies, but without knowing how to get them...yeah kind of dumb. To be honest this whole game is for Resistance fans only, but this is also some of the best portable action you're going to get.

Oh by the way: YOU CAN CHANGE THE CONTROL SCHEME!!! Stop whining that the face buttons don't make up for a second analog nub. Switch the scheme so the face buttons allow you to strafe. Ok all done? Yeeesssss now enjoy....