Resistance 3 | 9.0

I am not one for horror movies, scary movies, FPS shooters that feature zombies in game after game (I'm looking at you Call of Duty) or that sort of thing, so after I got my PS3 I never found myself that compelled to pick up either Resistance FoM or Resistance 2. However, reading the previews and watching the trailers for Resistance 3, I found myself very much interested. Having played a great amount of Resistance 3 single and multiplayer I can report that I am very glad I picked this one up.

Graphics
This game is not as beautiful or graphically amazing as Killzone 3. However it does look quite good. The textures, the lighting especially make this game look incredible. From an artistic standpoint, this game looks just simply incredible. The guns look detailed, the textures are deep, the character models are quite good but the environments are what will capture your attention the most.

Presentation:
Because the environments are so beautiful and captivating, the game does a phenomenal job putting you into a role as one of the last survivors on earth. You can really buy into the idea that you're at the end of a war that has gone terrible. The music, the graphics, the sound effects all effectively present what happens.

Gameplay:
Most notable about this game is that it gives a shout-out to older FPS games by allowing you to hold more than 2 weapons, in fact you can hold as many as you like on your weapon wheel. You also must gather health packs to revive. It reminds me of the first FPS I played which was Star Wars: Dark Forces. This is a good thing. I hate having to drop weapons on the ground to pick up a new one, the simple weapon wheel system (like Assassins Creed) works well. It is a pleasure to switch weapons to make the tactics you need available to get the upper hand. A shotgun is an excellent weapon when you're being surrounded by zombie alien hordes, but a sniper rifle is most effective at distance. The bulls-eye allows you to hone in on enemies even when they're moving and you're firing elsewhere, which is helpful for grasshopper aliens. The augment (shooting through walls) gun is effective particularly to find out where enemies are hiding.

Sound:
The music and sound effects are sensational and help add to the atmosphere and feeling of the entire game. The music is well composed and sometimes the silence is more dramatic and intense than the music itself.

Multiplayer:
The multiplayer is quite buggy particularly here within the first week, but considering the beta and two giant updates to R3, I wonder why it is so full of errors. Much like any other modern FPS, multiplayer supports a leveling up system as well as a class system. As you level up you may create your own class and you can choose your own combination of guns, power-ups, grenades and so forth. Any upgrades your purchase for one class is available to all other classes (unlike KZ3) which is good. Besides the glitches in multiplayer, the game feels a little off balanced because certain players with upgraded guns & power-ups particularly in combination really over-run other players at lower levels. However, I find this to be a similar problem to various FPS multiplayer leveling up systems. It simply takes so long to accumulate the points to purchase new abilities, guns, powers, and so forth.

Overall, this FPS is a phenomenal addition to your PS3 game collection especially if you enjoy First Person Shooters. The single player is dark, gritty and creepy and the multiplayer despite its flaws is a fun sensational experience.

UPDATE:
The more hours I put into the campaign and multiplayer the more I have come to appreciate the art design of the game. While perhaps R3 doesn't do anything that other FPS haven't done before, it does them well, it does them with a great post-apocalyptic style and great level design. One complaint I have is that there are a few levels where the game encourages you to be stealthy, but the game doesn't always give you the tools to do so. It does a good job trying to creep you out with aliens in abandoned-post alien-end of the world as we know it places all across America. Its' story is grim and though you don't know the main characters you care about what happens to them.