Resistance 2

Resistance: Fall of Man was the Rodney Dangerfield of gaming: it’s up there with its competition but can’t get no respect. When it helped launch the PS3, it was saddled with best-of-the-bunch faint praise and outgunned by Microsoft’s flashier Gears of War. Now the sequel comes out, just as the PS3 is hitting full-tilt boogie, but has to deal with Gears 2, Fallout 3 and Sony’s new signature game, LittleBigPlanet. It continues the cliff-hung story of the first game, an alternate history timeline where World War II never happened. But instead of Nazis, alien invaders known as the Chimera touched down in Russia, released a virus that turned humans into hybrids, and moved westward across Europe. You’re Sgt Nathan Hale, infected but not yet an evil alien. In the first game, set in 1951, you liberated Britain. Now, the aliens have made it to America and you’ll have to fight them off amongst Chicago’s skyscrapers and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. It’s an intriguing sci-fi set-up, though the plot soon takes a backseat to mowing down wave after wave of grotesque aliens and their badass, building-sized bosses. As the PS3’s primary shooter, Insomniac doesn’t skimp with the multiplayer, which includes not just a 60-person competitive arena but also several eight-player co-op side-missions that help flesh out the main story and feature even more dastardly aliens, since you’re not fighting them alone. Resistance 2’s production values are high, with impeccably paced set pieces, exciting fire fights, jaw-dropping creatures of increasing diversity, densely detailed settings and atmospheric art direction. Still, the single-player campaign is missing that special something that would make it a classic. Maybe it’s just too much like a summer action sequel — all flash-bang-whiz in the popcorn-fed moment but a little less memorable in the light of day.