Been there, repulsed that. Review

Been there, repulsed that.

It’s amazing how quickly gamers become jaded and elitist, but it’s also a cold,

hard fact that a couple of months alone with a PS2 can just ruin a guy.

If you’re one of those PS2-owning gamers out there who would sooner subject yourself

to a vigorous body-cavity search than willingly regress to playing most PSOne

titles, then consider C-12: Final Resistance your One-Stop Procto-Shop

of ‘nostalgic’ gaming.

Don’t let the staggeringly dull, generic name fool you: C-12 has mood,

challenge and even something of a personality, but with the dated gameplay and

visuals, it just takes some time to see it…perhaps longer than many gamers

will be willing to wait.

Final

Resistance gives it the old earnest, college try: Dark, desolate streets, ambient

sounds of wind and unknown alien, uh, throbbings abound. Evil and Incredibly

Rude Aliens ™ have invaded Earth, kicked collective carbon-based ass, and

left a big, cloven, three-toed alien boot-print. As an elite member of the Final

Resistance (C-12 is your parking space, I think), it’s your job to roam the

post-apocalyptic urban wastes and dispatch the invaders with whatever weaponry

comes to hand while looking as much like an eye-laser-sportin’ Borg with a Soldier

of Fortune subscription as possible.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the aliens have the gall to implant our own

people with alien hardware in order to turn them into cybernetic supersoliders.

Through a process not adequately explored, one lone human warrior has “accepted”

such an implant, only to find himself able to use it against the alien invaders,

and nobody knows why. Clearly, C-12 was also the bingo number used to

pay the guy who wrote the backstory here. Onward.

If you loved the Syphon Filter games, you’ll

appreciate what C-12 is going for…and if you loathed ’em, you’re screwed,

because it’s pretty much the same thing. Think removed-camera action/puzzle-solving

elements, presented here in a warren of blighted cityscapes that makes the game

seem free-roaming while still pretty much shuttling you along the intended gameplay

path. You’re physically cut off from the remaining resistance forces but are

with them in spirit via radio updates which provide new objectives (like supplying

energy to unpowered devices, rescuing trapped comrades and pushing around large

crate-like objects, you big hunk of man, you).

The majority of your combat and movement is in third-person, with occasional

snaps to first-person for the fine tuning required to dispatch the E.T.s with

head-shots, man a mounted cannon to mow down the enemy in droves, and the like.

It’s all strung together with cinematic cues, audio go-tos, and lovely-brumbly

downtrodden Scottish accents.

While you’ll begin the game armed only with a sort of alien scythe or energy

blade, you’ll collect a more powerful and varied arsenal including grenade launchers,

rocket launchers, and a couple of man-portable energy cannons. All the elements

of a fairly sophisticated action/adventure game are here, and Final Resistance

really does wring all the oomph it can out of the PSOne. It’s perhaps unfair

but true that a game like this is going to look unforgivably crunchy and old

compared to the PS2 titles it’s forced to share space-time with, but there are

a lot of nice touches here. Transitions from running to climbing a ladder, say,

is seamless; your guy slings his machine gun across his back and starts to climb

with a simple upward motion on the left stick, just as he should (no annoying

‘climb’ commands). The R2 button allows our hero’s Borg-Eye ™ to act as

both first-person viewpoint and information terminal, giving useful data about

the environments, enemies and pick-ups laying about the place. Meanwhile, the

right stick allows for realignment of the camera that helps…some of the time.

And

of course, the game is priced accordingly. It won’t make you flock to this title

should you already be a hard-core PS2 gamer, nor should it, but it’s good to

know that gamers still relying on the PSOne are still foremost in the thoughts

of at least a few developers.

While most of the alien foot soldiers you’ll encounter aren’t even smart enough

to scatter while their buddies are getting picked off with head-shots, Final

Resistance is nevertheless not an easy game. Indeed, this difficulty is

the saving grace of an otherwise been-there, done-that title. The game really

requires players to think about the physical options open to them, and it’s

possible than even an experienced gamer might wander around a particular area

in frustration, wondering what game-bug is preventing them from proceeding…only

to suddenly realize in a flash that they haven’t considered a clue that was

openly handed to them at the beginning of the mission. Additionally, some physical

manipulation of the surrounding environs is often required, long after (or regardless

of that fact that) you have systematically slaughtered all non-human entities

within a three-block radius.

In other words, Final Resistance may be a budget title, but it doesn’t

act like one, and it’s fairly unforgiving to gamers who don’t look around themselves

and play it smart, even as they’re itching to pump a grenade into the first

thing that ought not to move and moves anyway. Not all PSOne title still clinging

to the scene with their white, desperate fingernails have to be movie-license

retreads and cutie-pie kiddie games. If you think yourself patient and hard-assed

enough for Final Resistance‘s crunchy stoicism, I can guarantee you this

much: You will be challenged.

And if you can come up with a less-generic premise or game title, Sony will

gladly offer you parking space C-12.