The PS3 didn’t launch with a fantastic set of games. For most who bought it, Resistance: Fall of Man was about the only game worth buying at the time and even at that, it probably wasn’t much of a system seller. Years later, the only thing I remember about the game is there was a scene that was set in a church that a English bishop gave out about in real life. Negative press is good press! For a while it felt like Resistance was going to become a flagship IP for Sony, but then it vanished. There are still three great games in the series, what’s holding back a Resistance Fall of Man Trilogy?
The story of the Resistance franchise seems like such a strange one. They were good games, people liked them, Sony supported it with a lot of advertising, but it just never really broke out. It is hard to pinpoint what it was. The first game had lots of untapped potential. Surely the follow up should have been the “Halo killer” that PlayStation gamers wanted during the height of the system wars.
The second Resistance game was actually a really good game. It wasn’t perfect but it was a huge leap forward from the first. The scale of the game went into overdrive with massive boss fights and huge levels. It also had trophies, which was a big win for me considering the first did not get patched to support them. The coop multiplayer was cool and the 10’000 kill competitive multiplayer trophy was a massive pain in the ass that I greatly regret wasting my time on. Still, the game was just nuts. That skyscraper boss and the big spider robots, the games scale was incredible.
We should all forget that a Resistance game on the Vita ever happened. The only people who played it did so for the trophies, which required one of those damn online passes. That multiplayer kill was a nightmare since the servers that powered the game were running pentium 2 processors on a dial up connection. It needs to stay a Resistance Fall of Man Trilogy not quadrilogy.
The third and FINAL Resistance game was definitely one of the most solid. Most of the madness that we had in the second game was gone. The aimed to impress by making a decent shooter instead of getting attention by going over the top with the madness. It was a solid shooter that allowed coop for the entire campaign, something that was very uncommon on the PlayStation 3. You and a friend could play through the entire story mode, just like you could in Halo and Gears. I don’t remember people making much of a fuss about this when it really was a big deal. It also supported 3D and did so very well, but who gives a shit about 3D these days?
It doesn’t look like Insomniac have any interest in making another Resistance Fall of Man game, especially now that they blew everyone’s balls off with Spiderman. There probably isn’t much left to explore with the franchise anyway, at least not based on Earth. Doesn’t mean the franchise has to die off though. The three games from the PlayStation 3 were great. A HD remaster of the Resistance Fall of Man Trilogy would be pretty hot right now. It worked wonders from Bioshock!
It’s probably a bit late in the PS4 lifecycle now, but with PS5 backward compatibility rumored to be enabled for PS4 games, it wouldn’t be a huge waste. Probably best to make it a PS5 release if it’s gonna happen though…I say this like I am calling the shots or something.
I am half tempted just to go back and play the first game again. It will probably look like pure garbage. It definitely won’t age well considering it wasn’t all that pretty when it was brand new. I really am kicking the can down the road when it comes to playing Red Dead 2. I really do want to put on those cowboy boots. I am just getting too nostalgic lately.