Resistance 2
- Thread starter ManuVlad3.0
- Start date
Whether you buy both or just R2 wont ruin your experience with R2.
Split screen (SP campaign) coop will not happen and I personally enjoy coop in R2 more than R1 (coop).
They can rework current coop for 2 player offline if the demand is high, but I doubt that too. I saw a lot of split screen coopers online yesterday.
So I finished the campaign. Gfx are way underrated, and I blame the kitty guy. I watched gamersyde videos before playing, and I too thought the indoors were lame, outdoors were OK.
Now that I played the game, while there are a couple of really lame stuff indoors (like monitors and switches), the graphics are consistently great save maybe the Canyon. Water animation and interaction is best, although looks a little muddy time to time. Streaming is excellent, so are checkpoint restarts (with at most a couple seconds of blank screen).
As for gameplay, weapons are greatest ever. I have never seen a game with so many fun weapons. The last champion was R1 naturally. It's unfortunate that two out of three of my fav weapons from R1 didn't make it.
Bullseye tagging is now almost useless. Likewise for Laark altfire, which is only useful for a swarm of drones. To be fair, that was really an awesome show, but no excuse for removal of original heatseakers. Bullock was fun in MP, unnecessary in SP.
Fortunately the remaining of the three, Auger, is back and even better. Magnum is the best pistol, maybe even the best weapon ever, and Marksman, to my surprise, is a lot of fun for shooting at running hybrids. Wraith, Splicer, and Fareye are also welcome, though the last one took a little hit compared to the original for some reason.
The wheel is greatly missed. It's really painful to throw out so many fun weapons. I don't buy the balancing shit bit. Two weapon system is for "other" games, not Resistance.
Minibosses of the original all took a hit, partially thanks to slightly misplaced obsession with scale. Titans and Stalker encounters were much more fun in the first one. Now totally gimped Laark is forced to you to take a large number of them on a single encounter.
Which brings me to my biggest problem with the game. It's all about taking damage. The new health system, while most natural for Hale, totally ruined some great aspects of R1. There is little you can do to avoid bullets at medium range. Chimera bullets are fast, accurate and powerful. I don't really mind dying (and felt like R2 difficulty was just right), so powerful is fine, but playing while screen is constantly flashing red and Hale making "Agh, Ugh" noises is not fun. As if the upgrade of Hybrid Bullseye was not enough, they added enemies carrying laser turrets and increased number of minibosses. On the plus side, large number of minibosses indeed often makes you feel cornered and hopeless, but the way you end up getting out of the situation is far from satisfactory.
Another side effect the new health system is lack of scary moments. In R1, you don't carry healthpacks (naturally) and quite often continue with one or two bars, at which point even the smallest enemy can be deadly. If it was up to me, I would reduce the health regen speed significantly, halve the Chameleon damage, but increase the number of them. Water encounter was great.
Humor also was absent because of the depressing mood they were after. Insomniac said they had been trying hard not to insert jokes in the first one, luckily a couple of them had slipped by. No such luck this time. The English soldiers are greatly missed.
Anyway, while medium range combat fails short of what R1 did, short and long range combat makes up for it. All in all, anything that involves large number of Chimera totally delivers. That's the right notion of scale.
As for story and storytelling, I totally loved them. Gameplay to cutscene transitions are greatest. I guess some may be bothered by lack of control in FP camera, but for me it's much more convenient than Half Life's storytelling. Characters are totally unmemorable (including the new Hale) which is considerable worse than what R1 did. But I'm totally OK with that, considering the direction they took. Make no mistake I do miss the English, I'm just OK with those particular characters being unmemorable.
I don't agree with the comments that the game needs a little more polish. All the problems I have with the game are because of fundamental design choices they made. Besides that, their production workflow is clearly working, and they still managed to produce a huge game withing short amount of time. It's really unbelievable.
What I do feel is that Insomniac don't play to their strengths, except for weapons. All the gameplay changes seem to be influenced by other popular games. They have a scifi setting, awesome tech and greater freedom compared to a game like CoD or Killzone. They are not doing what they did with Ratchet 2/3.
In short, it's still the best shooter I have played in a long time, but it's not the game I was hoping for after R1.
They can rework current coop for 2 player offline if the demand is high, but I doubt that too. I saw a lot of split screen coopers online yesterday.
So I finished the campaign. Gfx are way underrated, and I blame the kitty guy. I watched gamersyde videos before playing, and I too thought the indoors were lame, outdoors were OK.
Now that I played the game, while there are a couple of really lame stuff indoors (like monitors and switches), the graphics are consistently great save maybe the Canyon. Water animation and interaction is best, although looks a little muddy time to time. Streaming is excellent, so are checkpoint restarts (with at most a couple seconds of blank screen).
As for gameplay, weapons are greatest ever. I have never seen a game with so many fun weapons. The last champion was R1 naturally. It's unfortunate that two out of three of my fav weapons from R1 didn't make it.
Bullseye tagging is now almost useless. Likewise for Laark altfire, which is only useful for a swarm of drones. To be fair, that was really an awesome show, but no excuse for removal of original heatseakers. Bullock was fun in MP, unnecessary in SP.
Fortunately the remaining of the three, Auger, is back and even better. Magnum is the best pistol, maybe even the best weapon ever, and Marksman, to my surprise, is a lot of fun for shooting at running hybrids. Wraith, Splicer, and Fareye are also welcome, though the last one took a little hit compared to the original for some reason.
The wheel is greatly missed. It's really painful to throw out so many fun weapons. I don't buy the balancing shit bit. Two weapon system is for "other" games, not Resistance.
Minibosses of the original all took a hit, partially thanks to slightly misplaced obsession with scale. Titans and Stalker encounters were much more fun in the first one. Now totally gimped Laark is forced to you to take a large number of them on a single encounter.
Which brings me to my biggest problem with the game. It's all about taking damage. The new health system, while most natural for Hale, totally ruined some great aspects of R1. There is little you can do to avoid bullets at medium range. Chimera bullets are fast, accurate and powerful. I don't really mind dying (and felt like R2 difficulty was just right), so powerful is fine, but playing while screen is constantly flashing red and Hale making "Agh, Ugh" noises is not fun. As if the upgrade of Hybrid Bullseye was not enough, they added enemies carrying laser turrets and increased number of minibosses. On the plus side, large number of minibosses indeed often makes you feel cornered and hopeless, but the way you end up getting out of the situation is far from satisfactory.
Another side effect the new health system is lack of scary moments. In R1, you don't carry healthpacks (naturally) and quite often continue with one or two bars, at which point even the smallest enemy can be deadly. If it was up to me, I would reduce the health regen speed significantly, halve the Chameleon damage, but increase the number of them. Water encounter was great.
Humor also was absent because of the depressing mood they were after. Insomniac said they had been trying hard not to insert jokes in the first one, luckily a couple of them had slipped by. No such luck this time. The English soldiers are greatly missed.
Anyway, while medium range combat fails short of what R1 did, short and long range combat makes up for it. All in all, anything that involves large number of Chimera totally delivers. That's the right notion of scale.
As for story and storytelling, I totally loved them. Gameplay to cutscene transitions are greatest. I guess some may be bothered by lack of control in FP camera, but for me it's much more convenient than Half Life's storytelling. Characters are totally unmemorable (including the new Hale) which is considerable worse than what R1 did. But I'm totally OK with that, considering the direction they took. Make no mistake I do miss the English, I'm just OK with those particular characters being unmemorable.
I don't agree with the comments that the game needs a little more polish. All the problems I have with the game are because of fundamental design choices they made. Besides that, their production workflow is clearly working, and they still managed to produce a huge game withing short amount of time. It's really unbelievable.
What I do feel is that Insomniac don't play to their strengths, except for weapons. All the gameplay changes seem to be influenced by other popular games. They have a scifi setting, awesome tech and greater freedom compared to a game like CoD or Killzone. They are not doing what they did with Ratchet 2/3.
In short, it's still the best shooter I have played in a long time, but it's not the game I was hoping for after R1.
Pretty much spot on...
except that I rate Auger higher than Magnum ^_^
Nope, but I'd imagine if they only focused on the negative points, then that score is possible.
There were just too many flaws for a mag like Edge to pick on, so much of that were due to design decisions which to this day I still don't understand, frankly the game could have used more design muscle from the Q4B team instead of having the Q4B team crank out a downloadable episode.
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Yes, if one only looks at the negative points, then it's certainly a depressing picture. The game is entertaining and impressive in many ways, but lacks polish.
I completed "Difficult" last night. Hopping back into co-op again.
A lot of the story flaws existed in R1 as well (That's why some rated R1 as "generic"). Gameplay-wise, like Sony, they decided to abandon their success and went in a new direction. It doesn't always pan out.
I am curious now that you have tried KZ2. How would you rate R1 against KZ2 ?
Also is there anywhere online to check out the R2 concept art ? You mentioned in GAF that the art direction in the R2 art book is good but the technical realization failed. I would be interested to have a look.
I completed "Difficult" last night. Hopping back into co-op again.
A lot of the story flaws existed in R1 as well (That's why some rated R1 as "generic"). Gameplay-wise, like Sony, they decided to abandon their success and went in a new direction. It doesn't always pan out.
I am curious now that you have tried KZ2. How would you rate R1 against KZ2 ?
Also is there anywhere online to check out the R2 concept art ? You mentioned in GAF that the art direction in the R2 art book is good but the technical realization failed. I would be interested to have a look.
Can we redirect R2 versus KZ2 talk to a new thread please? I appreciate the choice gamers have, but the overlap shouldn't be spread across both threads.
It's NOT Sony's fault Insomniac decided to completely change the way the game plays, things like poor ironsights implementation and the way the MP maps were designed, the poor way the boss fights were designed really can't be blamed on Sony. Visually it's COMPLETELY Insomniac's fault that the lighting and shadowing was not up to par because Sony's own edge tools supports HDR and self-shadowing and it would have made a HUGE difference. I think it's just a problem of setting the wrong priorities when deciding which features the rendering engine can support in R2 because a good lighting model should have been at the top of that list after R1 and R&CFTOD.
As far as the KZ2 beta is concerned I like it better than R1, with R1 it's all hip shooting with the carbine or tagging with the bullseye and then gaf clan group sniping, here you can do long range kills with the standard rifle and hip shoot all you want and while there are sniper spots, it's never safe in one spot, it's set up in such a way that it's always possible for one to get flanked, it really teaches the player to play smart, and the maps while more intricate than R1 maps (and WAY better than R2 maps), are relatively easy to memorize.
Not sure if anyone has posted the concept art online, I think some of them like the kraken boss in the concept art looks HUGE and epic compared to the actual boss in the game. The giant tower climber boss I thought was pretty good but it doesn't really have weakspots per se and having the leapers in the fight as well was definitely annoying. The problem with some of these bosses was that it's hard for the player to get the sense that the player is hurting the boss, more visual feedback was seriously needed.
This aint GAF...
You could have fooled me. All I read is ridiculous complaints about things that are really miniscule.
Seems like it is exactly what GAF is. A bunch of people who only play high profile games, and talk tech like they 'know' what they are talking about, spitting out acronyms and what not.
The game plays well, looks great, runs well, and has great replay value.
It's just tiresome, I *thought* I had found a community where I could get away from all the tiresome nit picking and elitist attitudes...I guess I may have been wrong.
Aside from the gameplay (which I can't critique yet, only about 45 mins in), I'm very disappointed by the graphics. The flickering shadows are all I ever notice -- it'd be better if they just weren't there at all. It doesn't help I've played some other games recently (which I will not name to prevent this from being a "versus" thread) which look far more impressive.
The level designs also could use more polish so far...
Edit: The San Francisco-invasion part was just awesome. Why couldn't the rest of the game look like this?
The level designs also could use more polish so far...
Edit: The San Francisco-invasion part was just awesome. Why couldn't the rest of the game look like this?
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Yeah I'm still going to get this game. Looking at other reviews, it seems hard to see how Edge could give this score, though tradionally they are quite tough.
Still more interested in this than Far Cry 2 and COD 5. Really dont think its a 6 if its better than the first game.
Sometimes is does seem that nobody actually plays games anymore. They just gather in corners of the internet and talk about screenshots. And with this gen is seems to have become especially prevalent.
I will be buying R2 no matter what, I bought R1 and loved it. I'll buy R2 and make up my own mind. Just the same way I followed Halo through to the last instalment (which turned out to be a big let down in the end). I'm still waiting for Serious Sam III and hold a torch for Duke Nuke'em.
As for the Edge review, they seem to have been particularly tough on PS3 exclusives. Maybe they just have too high a set of expectations?
In the mean time I enjoy watching folks gather and mass debate over a load of meaningless drivel. It's far more fun than playing the game in real life.
Oh no, I am not saying Sony caused this at all. Sony sometimes "abandoned" an existing successful formula and then got distracted with other new ideas. ^_^
Okay, that means Insomniac's judgement isn't off. They needed to evolve R1. The R2 online co-op is a major leap forward. The MP headed in a different direction (follow market leader) but ended up disappointing existing fans despite quantitative improvement. The SP lacks polish in many areas, most likely due to resource issues.
I agree with you that some of these challenges are at the design level (They had to rework from scratch since R1 formula was thrown out).
Agreed !
I fault the art direction because I think they are operating at the artistic level but not enough at the "macro" level. It's hard to describe, but after seeing their concept art, I may be able to express myself better.
Not that I'm better of course, but I just want to point out what's missing from my point of view.
For the most part it looks better. You basically played the wost looking part of the game, the inside of the SF facility. Chicago, Iceland, Louisiana, etc. all look great.
Indoor parts of R1 and R2 are the worst looking in general.
There's some major game design issues from what I can see.
There's WAY too many instances of "surprise deaths", or one-hit kills...I'm playing on Normal and this is just way too hard for "Normal". Little things like you turn a corner and something instantly "de-cloaks" and kills you in one shot. Over and over. Then you respawn and just know something's there to kill it. Very poor design, it's not fun at all.
Some of the boss battles are just ridiculous. Saps the fun out of it. Then when I turn it down to Easy difficulty, 90% of the baddies are way too easy...
There's WAY too many instances of "surprise deaths", or one-hit kills...I'm playing on Normal and this is just way too hard for "Normal". Little things like you turn a corner and something instantly "de-cloaks" and kills you in one shot. Over and over. Then you respawn and just know something's there to kill it. Very poor design, it's not fun at all.
Some of the boss battles are just ridiculous. Saps the fun out of it. Then when I turn it down to Easy difficulty, 90% of the baddies are way too easy...
I think the problem is playing High Profile games only turns you into a jaded gamer. That's my POV and I'm sticking to it.
Personally, I never had a problem with chameleons, you hear their moan at least 5 seconds before they attack, then they stomp toward you and the screen shakes, and then you can see their figure moving forward before they uncloak. There was one instance where I died because I expected 1 and 2 showed up (in Utah).
Honestly, my biggest grip would be the instances where you are forced to get into a shooting contest with some enemies without any cover. But, in those areas, you are fighting enemies where cover simply wouldn't make sense.
To each their own, I've played far far far worse, so those of you saying it's flawed or lacks polish...well you absolutely have to be 'jaded', basically isolated to only high profile games, and you really don't know how bad it can be.
Personally, I never had a problem with chameleons, you hear their moan at least 5 seconds before they attack, then they stomp toward you and the screen shakes, and then you can see their figure moving forward before they uncloak. There was one instance where I died because I expected 1 and 2 showed up (in Utah).
Honestly, my biggest grip would be the instances where you are forced to get into a shooting contest with some enemies without any cover. But, in those areas, you are fighting enemies where cover simply wouldn't make sense.
To each their own, I've played far far far worse, so those of you saying it's flawed or lacks polish...well you absolutely have to be 'jaded', basically isolated to only high profile games, and you really don't know how bad it can be.
I know how bad it can be, I usually avoid those titles. These games are not cheap at $60 a piece, especially considering how short the single-player campaigns are in them. I just expect more, and usually get more.
It's not a bad game, but I'm not into the multiplayer and the co-op mode for R2 is crippled...so I'm not too impressed with $60 for a short single-player campaign with some rather obvious issues from my perspective.
Re: The chameleons...maybe it's a problem with my setup but I definitely don't hear the moan 5 seconds before. I hear something but it's always under a second before only (It just happened again minutes ago). Just now, I'm in Bryce Canyon...was zooming in and sniping when all of the sudden I heard the groan and before I could even unzoom I was killed in 1 swipe. Then I respawned and as I was walking to another spot to snipe from, one came out of nowhere with less under a second's notice and i couldn't aim properly in time, so I died in one hit again.
It's not a bad game, but I'm not into the multiplayer and the co-op mode for R2 is crippled...so I'm not too impressed with $60 for a short single-player campaign with some rather obvious issues from my perspective.
Re: The chameleons...maybe it's a problem with my setup but I definitely don't hear the moan 5 seconds before. I hear something but it's always under a second before only (It just happened again minutes ago). Just now, I'm in Bryce Canyon...was zooming in and sniping when all of the sudden I heard the groan and before I could even unzoom I was killed in 1 swipe. Then I respawned and as I was walking to another spot to snipe from, one came out of nowhere with less under a second's notice and i couldn't aim properly in time, so I died in one hit again.
In Bryce canyon you don't hear the Chimera, but all of your soldiers do shout "Chameleon!". It even kills a man down at the bottom of the gully before it comes for you.
It's not a 1 hit kill though, you have to hit the Chameleon with a few shots with the bullseye or carbine before it goes down.
That said, I played the demos for Conflict: Denied Ops, and tried out Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway, R2 is not that bad. Compared to stuff like Blacksite: Area 51...yea, it's a good game.
If you REALLY want to see some bad design, play Vampire Reign. You'll puke, it's THAT bad.
I definitely did not see a Chameleon kill anyone, I didn't know they were there til I was killed instantly. And it is definitely a 1-hit kill on me, as soon as they get within striking range I am dead.
Which difficulty did you play on?