[In collaboration with November_Recon]         

          I have to say, it was lucky that the original Resistance: Fall of Man was a launch title, or the series may not have had such a good forecast, but it shifted a lot of units and proved popular, hence why a second was obviously brewing at Insomniac Studios. A whole year later, and Nathan Hale returns to our PlayStation 3s to feebly fight toe-to-toe with Activitions' Call of Duty: World at War.

          The story follows directly from the previous game, Hale is walking around in the middle of nowhere after slaying the Chimera Angel, when suddenly a VTOL aircraft drops from the sky and men in modern armored suits grapple him and sedate him. All is explained, as Nathan is told that he is resistant to the Chimeran virus, and he is then enlisted within a team of “Sentinels”, humans who have also grown resistant to the disease. Now a lieutenant of the Sentinels, Hale leads a small band of them into a vicious campaign against the Chimera, raging from Orrick to Chicago where he hunts the mysterious Daedylus.

          In all fairness, the game starts very well. The mechanics are nice, well thought out, and well executed. The weapons are unique, and fun to play around with as well, and quite frankly, there's nothing quite like pushing forward your controller to bash in an aliens skull (if that's what they are, I'm still mildly confused).

          While Resistance 2 pulls of everything nicely, with a nice layer of polish, it suffers from something I like to call "MMORPG Syndrome". This is pretty much when what the developers seem to have done, is make a bunch of bland area maps, and throw mobs of enemies in them. Enemies I might add, that seem to be always focused on JUST you, not the rest of your group. You'll spend most of your time looking at the same enemies, and the difficulty of the game comes down to "before you had to fight 1, and now you have to fight 2". Mechanics which work great in an MMORPG, due to loot, and fun co-op, and frankly the ability for us to dismiss it because well.. its an MMORPG.

          The online isn't any better either. Half the time you have no idea whats going on, spawn points seem to be changing constantly, and weapons feel underpowered and almost useless. Then you hop onto the co-op, and it literally feels like I'm running and dungeon with a couple of people on World of Warcraft. Not that World of Warcraft is bad, but it just doesn't work for a shooter, there's not enough mechanics to make it fun.

          Graphics are good in most cases along with music, but I witnessed a few tears and BGM loops which were annoying, especially as they were interrupting the last level of play. The layout is commendable but it’s easy to predict how many of what branch of Chimera will be waiting around the corner. Along with the new Chimera such as the Chameleons and Furies, the game hosts many boss creatures which you will encounter at the end of each level. Each boss is huge in size and makes some of the most memorable set pieces in 2008 gaming.

          There are no doubts that the Resistance series will carry on, a decision loyal fans will vouch for, but Insomniac might want to go away and rethink how they want the series to progress in the future. You could say that the kick start novelty of the Resistance saga has all but worn off, but little perks like the co-operative online play should prolong Resistance 2's lifespan before the 2009 lineup crash lands later in the year.