Resistance 2

[Acert93]

We've played 1/4 SD resolution games before with Mario Kart and Hired Guns (Amiga game). Now we have the capability to offer each player own SD screen at the same time.

And TV's are bigger as well. I remember playing Mario Kart DD on a 15" CRT with 4 players (480p) and before that Mario Kart 64 on 27" CRTs (480i... if that, probably more likely 320x240). We now have a 28" widescreen 1080p monitor so that is 14" widescreen @ solid resolutions.

I guess we are kind of lucky on the 360 side with 4 player MP in Halo 3 and ODST (2 player coop same console). PGR4 and FM3 offer splitscreen with AI. Sure, only 2 player, but that is a looot better than most racers that don't have any splitscreen, let alone with AI. Btw, Up! and Baja Edge of Control are 4 player splitscreen (although Baja stinks on the PS3, bit better on the 360).

Can you network PS3's to play R2 with 4 player coop? Even if you could, that's a fair bit of faf to require a 2nd PS3 and 2nd TV.

Crazy, I know. Then again with Monitor support (and having spare monitors) when I can snag a couple 360's cheap ($100) I would like to setup a "Daytona-Arcade-Booth-Clone" with Forza. Instead of jumping on a $400 new console in 2013 setting up our own little LAN party on the cheap would be pretty fun. Sure, the new consoles will look great but it will be a while before they introduce "must have" gameplay.

So maybe you can console yourself with the LAN element of a lot of this gens games--soon you will be able to just throw down an extra console for party games.

 

[patsu]

My first reaction to this thread was: "Who dug up my heartache of this gen ?"

So... if R3 haz RFOM pacing + weapon wheel + R2 co-op, I'll be back in a heartbeat.

R2 is solid. Done a lot of things right. Looks good. But it threw away R1's unique gameplay unnecessarily. It was what made the series, hence fans revolted. I guess it's a little like CoD becoming third person shooter overnight.

[EDIT: I could stop posting here but because I really like Insomniac, I have to also flag out the following]

R1 was a launch title and a new IP. Expectation was non-existant. The developers probably did not have time to spend on fluff. They concentrated on the core gameplay and it shows. The multiplayer was phenomenal and the SP was well-paced. The visual also improved noticeably as the game progressed.

R2 has like... an order of magnitude more goodies than R1. Many locations, many boss fights, more enemies, more polygons, huge maps, large number of players, etc. But as a casual observer, I could sense that the game's scope was too big, and they didn't have time to wrap everything up properly.

e.g., R2 added about 7-8 boss battles but 1-2 bosses didn't really "connect" with me. It's like shooting at a monster on TV with a toy pistol; the monster simply carry on acting. There was no health bar too, so I didn't know what's going on. In one case, I test fired my Auger and it killed the boss in 3 shots. I had to run downstairs to double-check if there was indeed a loud, fierce, 2-storey tall monster standing there a moment ago. >_<

[EDIT: For those who have not played Resistance, the Auger increases its damage every time its shots penetrate a wall. I fired an Auger from the far end of a mansion while the boss was standing outside the mansion, at the opposite end]

Granted this was the worst case I encountered. The rest of the game were intense and generally fun. Unfortunately, the "tiny" lack of polish in some areas can be felt.


As for why the media gave R2 a higher score than R1, it's a different matter altogether. If they rush through the game, and look for "salient features" to write up their reviews. They may have missed some of the edge cases (Experienced R1 players probably experimented with weapons more). There were many R2 goodies to write about anyway.

Or may be they concentrate on innovative new features (e.g., R2 co-op *is* fantastic). However it does not necessarily mean R2 is a better game than R1.

R2 is a different game from R1.

Freak out some people did. [Point in Kittonwy and m3freak direction]

 

[Cornsnake]

My first reaction to this thread was: "Who dug up my heartache of this gen ?"

Was it worth it? I know it's something I've been waiting to hear for a very long time. I always felt that they should have seen it coming when they changed the very things the fans of Rfom loved about the game.

Insomniac likes to listen to it's fans. So it should be interesting to see what they are going to do with R3 now that they have fans asking them for 2 different games.

 

[Kittonwy]

My first reaction to this thread was: "Who dug up my heartache of this gen ?"

So... if R3 haz RFOM pacing + weapon wheel + R2 co-op, I'll be back in a heartbeat.

R2 is solid. Done a lot of things right. Looks good. But it threw away R1's unique gameplay unnecessarily. It was what made the series, hence fans revolted. I guess it's a little like CoD becoming third person shooter overnight.

[EDIT: I could stop posting here but because I really like Insomniac, I have to also flag out the following]

R1 was a launch title and a new IP. Expectation was non-existant. The developers probably did not have time to spend on fluff. They concentrated on the core gameplay and it shows. The multiplayer was phenomenal and the SP was well-paced. The visual also improved noticeably as the game progressed.

R2 has like... an order of magnitude more goodies than R1. Many locations, many boss fights, more enemies, more polygons, huge maps, large number of players, etc. But as a casual observer, I could sense that the game's scope was too big, and they didn't have time to wrap everything up properly.

e.g., R2 added about 7-8 boss battles but 1-2 bosses didn't really "connect" with me. It's like shooting at a monster on TV with a toy pistol; the monster simply carry on acting. There was no health bar too, so I didn't know what's going on. In one case, I test fired my Auger and it killed the boss in 3 shots. I had to run downstairs to double-check if there was indeed a loud, fierce, 2-storey tall monster standing there a moment ago. >_<

Granted this was the worst case I encountered. The rest of the game were intense and generally fun. Unfortunately, the "tiny" lack of polish in some areas can be felt.


As for why the media gave R2 a higher score than R1, it's a different matter altogether. If they rush through the game, and look for "salient features" to write up their reviews. They may have missed some of the edge cases (Experienced R1 players probably experimented with weapons more). There were many R2 goodies to write about anyway.

Or may be they concentrate on innovative new features (e.g., R2 co-op *is* fantastic). However it does not necessarily mean R2 is a better game than R1.

R2 is a different game from R1.

Freak out some people did. [Point in Kittonwy and m3freak direction]

We didn't "freak out", we just gave legitimate criticisms, they didn't address any of them, and the entire GAF clan upped and abandoned R2, at its peak the GAF clan in RFOM had 200 players averaging 15-20 players every single night for almost two years.

And clearly Insomniac, at least James Stevenson, has figured out that some of the things they did with the game caused them to lose enough fans that he would give a statement like that.

As much as some people liked the co-op, instead of making co-op a challenge with lots of tension, it was basically an exp grind, enemies were brain-dead, they were bullet sponges, and what of the character growth? Player characters, whether they were human or chimera, looked horrible, you level up, power up the weapons, the enemies take more damage, they don't act smarter.

The SP boss fights were like shooting giant cardboards, they lacked creative patterns, the leviathan fight was so completely scripted that it didn't matter that they used a giant polygon model, because unlike the scarab fight in HALO 3 where the player can jump on and actually fight on, the leviathan's size in R2 had absolutely no relevance, same with just about every boss in R2, the final boss was completely lame, I don't think anyone was expecting MGS3-style epic boss fights, but R2 didn't deliver a single decent, dynamic boss fight.

They also made some weapon adjustment that didn't work, the marksman was a ripoff of the battle rifle in HALO 3 but it didn't feel as powerful, as a result they tuned back the range of both the carbine and the bullseye, basically killing the medium range effectiveness of both weapons in SP and MP, basically we go from having two go-to-weapons in RFOM to having no go-to-weapon in R2, with so many weapons they should have went the default weapon/spawn route instead of the load-out option. They tried to force the player to go scope but ironsights wasn't even real ironsights. If they were to change things, MAKE IT WORK, most of us play different shooters with vastly different styles, if they're doing the COD4 thing, the health bar has to go down MUCH FASTER, people and enemies must go down in fewer shots, weapon accuracy must be much higher, if they're going RFOM or HALO style, shooting from the hip must be much more effective than it was in R2 instead of forcing the player to go scope. You can play around with it, but you HAVE to tune it right, and they did NOT tune it right, the fact that they had such a short development cycle did not allow them to spend the necessary time play-testing the MP and ESPECIALLY the SP, some of the SP levels were so linear often the player wasn't allow to use the environment to flank enemies, it was just a sloppy effort all around.

R2 had a fair share of problems, perhaps reviewers saw the ambition, but they obviously missed the lack of execution.

They need to take their time and get R3 right, give the engine an overhaul to shift their priority to better lighting/shadowing and water shader quality instead of just unplayable scale, reduce player cap in MP, hire some good designers, hire some good tech artists, spend more than 6 months polishing the game instead rushing it through.

 

[Iron Tiger]

With the way R2 ended, a return to the RFoM play-style would be justified.

 

[tha_con]

I disagree about the weapons. What didn't work for you, worked for others. Vocal minority, etc etc yada yada.

Granted, the crazies who screamed and shouted were the ones who kept R: FoM alive so long, but they also went way overboard when they complained about R2, which is essentially why Insomniac cut off all communication with the fan base with regards to the game. So thank you for that, vocal minority. You killed R2 very early for the rest of us.

 

[Cornsnake]

I disagree about the weapons. What didn't work for you, worked for others. Vocal minority, etc etc yada yada.

Granted, the crazies who screamed and shouted were the ones who kept R: FoM alive so long, but they also went way overboard when they complained about R2, which is essentially why Insomniac cut off all communication with the fan base with regards to the game. So thank you for that, vocal minority. You killed R2 very early for the rest of us.

Do you have any numbers to back that minority claim up? And how can anyone of us possibly kill R2? Only Insomniac can do that.

 

[.Melchiah.]

if I remember correctly, there is the possibility for 2 player split screen coop, which is better than nothing.

If you mean RFoM, yes, but if you're talking about R2, no.

R2 has a two player split screen co-op mode, but the thing is, you can't play it with only two players as you need all the three co-op characters; a Soldier for his fire power and shield, Spec. Ops to feed ammo for Soldier, and a Medic to heal both of them.

 

[Asher]

Do you have any numbers to back that minority claim up? And how can anyone of us possibly kill R2? Only Insomniac can do that.

Yeah, I'm not sure it's a minority.

I played the game when it came out and was completely underwhelmed. RFOM was a much better game. I didn't even care at all for the implementation of the co-op mode.

I think it's pretty clear that the minority are the people who thought the game was comparable to RFOM. I'd give it a ho-hum score (maybe 7/10). That's not the end of the world, but given the studio's pedigree it was a massive disappointment for a lot of people.

 

[obonicus]

Worst part, is I don't know if Insomniac can win, at this point. If they go back to R1, you'll get people who liked R2 complaining. If they stay with R2, well, same complaints at R1. There's really no middle ground (semi-regenerating health! 4-weapon weapon wheel).

 

[betan]

If you mean RFoM, yes, but if you're talking about R2, no.

R2 has a two player split screen co-op mode, but the thing is, you can't play it with only two players as you need all the three co-op characters; a Soldier for his fire power and shield, Spec. Ops to feed ammo for Soldier, and a Medic to heal both of them.

you can play it and I finished a couple of coop missions with only two players. Soldier can pick up dropped ammo and at higher levels, it can regen shield with berserk. Specops can simply hide and use alternate fire.

Though it's not much suitable, playing medic in a small party is not much fun, even less after the gimping update.

 

[patsu]

Worst part, is I don't know if Insomniac can win, at this point. If they go back to R1, you'll get people who liked R2 complaining. If they stay with R2, well, same complaints at R1. There's really no middle ground (semi-regenerating health! 4-weapon weapon wheel).

I only need Insomniac to play-test more in the SP campaign. I don't think they will offend R1 and R2 players if they get it right. There are some really interesting elements in R2, the designers can keep them if they so desire.

Regarding health bar, the one in R2 was too short, so I couldn't go out and rush the enemies. If they want to keep the simpler R2 health bar, make it longer. They don't have to follow R1 strictly.

In R2, they took the weapon wheel away, but the need for extra ammo is still there. So the designer(s) sprinkled the weapons conveniently in specific places. The problem is a new player has to know where those weapons are. In one stage, I couldn't find them in time. I spent the entire time running for my life until the NPCs took out the monsters. There were exploding cars everywhere. I couldn't stop to find the weapons, I couldn't run to the next stage either. First time in my life to clear an FPS stage with zero ammo. ^_^

The second issue is the weapons they left in the levels were rather artificial and hinted to us what to use best. I didn't quite like that. I prefer to fool around myself.

For MP, after the initial tuning (1-2 weeks ?)... no major complains. R2 co-op is a great addition. The MP alone is worth the game price. The first 2 weeks were not so smooth sailing though. I remember they were trying to fix bugs and tune the gun feel.

Do I like R2 ? Yes. Do I think Insomniac can do better than R2 ? YES ! (They can do better by doing less)

you can play it and I finished a couple of coop missions with only two players. Soldier can pick up dropped ammo and at higher levels, it can regen shield with berserk. Specops can simply hide and use alternate fire.

Though it's not much suitable, playing medic in a small party is not much fun, even less after the gimping update.

I think you/we can finish co-op with 2 low level players (No berserk or other perks) but it is difficult. I like the challenge and intensity though. Almost complete it with another stranger.

We started out with 1 Spec-op and 1 Soldier. Then switched to Medic on-demand. As long as one of us was alive, the co-op session would last. The enemies were fierce, but we held our ground and inched forward systematically. Unfortunately, both of us died in the final battle accidentally.

 

[Kittonwy]

Worst part, is I don't know if Insomniac can win, at this point. If they go back to R1, you'll get people who liked R2 complaining. If they stay with R2, well, same complaints at R1. There's really no middle ground (semi-regenerating health! 4-weapon weapon wheel).

Their target COD crowd has long since moved on to other games, they were never going to be long-term hardcore fans. The people who think Insomniac can do no wrong aren't going to complain, they need to win back their RFOM hardcore fanbase to keep the community alive.

They basically told their hardcore RFOM fanbase to take a hike because they had "more people enjoying Resistance 2". You don't make drastic, fundamental changes with fans finding out with 3 months to go in a private beta where it would already be too late for fans to propose fixes. How much was due to not play-testing the game enough and rushing the game for release and how much was due to Insomniac no longer caring about their RFOM fanbase? I really don't know.

It's not a matter of "going back to R1" or "sticking with R2", R2 simply wasn't a good game, so why stick with R2? They have to make a great game, it's not a matter of whether they change the franchise one way or another, but whatever changes you're making and whatever design philosophy you've decided on, IT HAS TO WORK. Visually and gameplay-wise Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 have raised the bar so much that they really need to go back to the drawing board and nail R3.

 

[Kittonwy]

Do you have any numbers to back that minority claim up? And how can anyone of us possibly kill R2? Only Insomniac can do that.

Basically it's his way of marginalizing people who disagree with the changes made to the franchise by basically calling them "vocal minority crazies". Stevenson's recent comment suggested to me that they were probably surprised by how many long-term hardcore fans they've lost after their target audience moved on to CODWAW.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

I agree with patsu and kittonwy. Together, u guys hve voiced my opinion. Boss fights in R2 felt lame and passive. I remember seeing the giant-scorpion+spider boss on top of the defence tower and saying, "Whoa ! How am I going to kill this one!" and I kept moving backwards while shooting at him and it was dead in a min !!! "What was that!" two of us said together . A stalker in R1 was a force to reckon with, you had to hide as soon as you saw one. In R2 they were reduced to little spider like robots no one cares about. Killing a Goliath was a boss fight in R1, in R2 they were passive scenery, you could shoot a rocket or 2 while you are there. The SP was bunch of areas stringed together. It was only from Chicago onwards that it felt like a campaign and it was good after that.sure the campaign had some shining levels, but shoddy areas stay longer in memory like the Bryce Canyon and that Forest where u kill that ratchet-world like monster were half attempts at making levels. Also, inside the spaceship of Chimera wasn't Chimera like at all. If Chimera can freeze entire town to suit their bodies, why don't they have a freezing interior in their ship? I felt cheated when I entered that ship . It was as if they tailor-made the ship for humans. Instead of Hale having trouble inside the ship, it was Chimera who have to wear cooling tubes inside their home ! Shows how much they were into the game. I think there was too much on their mind, every thing decided was an overview, they didn't get time to iron out the details. The good thing going for the game was the huge amount of content provided in the disc.It felt like the orange box ! The game was average,I haveplayed R1 campaign three times and could not get myself to reach halfway thru my second playthru of R2. Resistance 1 was a very well thought out game, Resistance 2 was lost in its own ambition to be bigger and better. Bigger it was, better - No !

 

[Billy Idol]

Reading all this comments about how bad R2 is, I really get a déjà vu: I remember the same discussion about Burnout Revenge (XBOX360) and its hardcore online fanbase. They really got mad about the new Burnout Paradise and how Criterion made big mistakes and how the completely changed the experience....in the same way you guys talk about R1 and R2. Incidently, both R2 and BP got great reviews and praise, but left the hardcore (online) fanbase dissapointed in the dust.

In contrast to you guys, I was able to experience a lot of fun while playing R1 and while playing R2 (the same goes with BR and BP) and I am looking forward to the next iteration(s). But, I am really curious if they are changing back to the old game style, keep the actual game style or if they evolve to something completely new (maybe filtering out the best of both and merge them).

My question to you constantly moaning smile guys: what would you prefer?
R3=R1?
or
R3=R1 + R2?

 

[nightshade]

......

Word !!
R2 was not a bad game but it was a good game with poor design choices in many areas

My question to you constantly moaning smile guys: what would you prefer?
R3=R1?
or
R3=R1 + R2?

I'll prefer R1 campaign/health system/gameplay with R2's pacing & controls

 

[Shifty Geezer]

R3=r1^r2 ?

 

[Arwin]

I'll prefer R1 campaign/health system/gameplay with R2's pacing & controls

I think I can agree on this. I played the R1 single player campaign and loved it, but the R2 (which I bought recently) campaign I just can't get into. I'm stuck at some place very early on where there is an all powerful drone patrolling, and additionally just playing the game makes me physically ill. Weird.

EDIT: but I really liked the multi-player modes in the beta. (haven't played them in the final game yet, too many other games atm)

 

[nightshade]

R3=r1^r2 ?

haha...indeed