Review: Resistance Burning Skies

The day I picked up the controller and played Resistance Fall of Man for the PlayStation 3, I knew that the series had some serious potential. Due to Insomniac’s amazing past history with video games, I had a lot of faith that they would do this series of games justice. After the Resistance trilogy came to a graceful end, Sony hired Nihilistic Games to create Resistance Burning Skies. Last E3 Sony promised the world a good game, and because of that Resistance Burning Skies truly broke my heart.

Resistance Burning Skies is about a New Jersey firefighter named Tom Riley. While Riley is on one of his routine sweeps, a group of monsters named the Chimera attack his town and he is consequently separated from his wife and child. Throughout the course of the campaign, he and a resistance fighter named Ellie must stick together to defeat the onslaught of Chimera and locate Riley’s family.

In theory, the story is a gut-wrenching tale about a man who puts his life on the line to track down the love of his life and his little girl.  In actuality the story fails on every level possible. During the course of the campaign, the game puts more emphasis on the U.S.’ struggle and tosses Tom’s epic quest to the side. Therefore it feels like the two stories are competing with one another and nothing is being accomplished.

Cut-scenes are told through comic-like pictures that act as 1950’s radiobroadcasts. The broadcasts give little insight when it comes to the story and it seems like they were only placed in the game to act as loading screens. Another problem with the story is that certain dramatic moments are cast aside. For example: near the end of the campaign, Riley has to commit an atrocious act that would make any normal human being cry for hours. After the deed is done, Riley leans up against a wall for half a second and keeps on going as though it never happened.

The voice acting for Resistance Burning Skies is passable when it is at its best. Most of it came across as awkward and unrealistic. Out of the entire cast, the worst acting came from the protagonist. Sound effect wise, Resistance Burning Skies is almost on par with the Resistance Trilogy. The gunfire sounds a bit clangy at times, but it gets the job done. Unfortunately, it’s nothing that Resistance fans have not heard before.

The gameplay for Resistance Burning Skies is no better than the voice acting or story. Pacing is marred by the horrible checkpoint system and the AI enemies are dumb as rain. There are times when I was making serious progress and had to start from the beginning due to the lack of checkpoints. It was not only frustrating but took away from the sense of immersion as well. I really wanted the gunfights to be fun, but they were extremely undermining and annoying instead.

The Resistance series has always been famous for its creative firearms and Burning Skies is no exception. Riley has eight weapons in his arsenal: The Bullseye, Mauler, Sw.A.R.M., Sixeye, Hunter, Mule and M5A2 Folsom Carbine. Each gun has two firing modes and six upgrades. The special enhancements can only be unlocked by acquiring little cubes called grey tech. Even though the upgrades were cool, they didn’t add any magic to the game. In other words, the perks felt kind of useless.

Graphically Resistance Burning Skies has its ups and downs. The main characters look good but the environments are bland and uninspired. During the story whenever a character’s mouth is supposed to move it does not. The levels are non interactive and create a sense that the game is one giant tech demo.

As for the multiplayer, I did not get to play it due to my restricted NAT settings. Others have suffered the same fate as I due to their wireless router’s unchangeable settings. Hopefully Nihilistic will change the requirements for entering its servers in the future.

Resistance Burning Skies had an amazing premise that was ruined by its cheesy voice acting, horribly told story, maddening checkpoint system and barely adequate gameplay.  It clefts my heart in twain to see such a good concept fall to pieces. Maybe one day Nihilistic will create a jaw dropping action experience that the world will never forget.

(2/10)