Resistance 2

Resistance 2 is a science fiction first person shooter video game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. The game was released in North America on November 4, 2008, Japan on November 13, 2008, and in Europe on November 28, 2008. Resistance 2 is the sequel to the best-selling PlayStation 3 launch title Resistance Fall of Man.
Resistance 2 sees protagonist Nathan Hale travel to the United States in order to once again battle the Chimera, who have launched a full scale invasion of both the east and west coasts. In this game, Hale is part of an elite force of soldiers called "The Sentinels", who, like him, are infected with the Chimeran virus, and must keep it under control through regular application of inhibitors.
==Gameplay==
Resistance 2 is a single-player campaign, with the player controlling protagonist Nathan Hale. The game includes many of the weapons from Resistance: Fall of Man, as well as new weapons such as the "Marksman" and a mini gun called the "HVAP (High Velocity Armor Piercing) Wraith". The weapons are a mix of 1950s human technology and more advanced alien technology. Unlike the first game, where there was no limit on the number of weapons carried, Resistance 2 limited the player to two weapons, as well as a more limited number of grenades. Resistance 2 also does not use a health bar in the single player campaign as it did in the first, but instead it uses an automatic regenerative health system, whereby players must keep out of the line of fire in order to recover health.
===Multipayer===
Resistance 2 features multiplayer in two variations. Both multiplayer modes track the player's performance, gaining experience and leading to benefits and rewards, as well as assigning the player a skill ranking.
Resistance 2 does not offer co-op for the single player campaign. Cooperative mode features a separate campaign mode set in 1952-53 in the gap in the time line of the single-player campaign. The cooperative campaign supports anything from two to eight players, taking the role of a special forces group called "Spectre Team". Players are tasked with many randomized objectives around the map, while defeating hordes of Chimera in the process. The strength of the enemy forces is altered based on the number of players and their skill levels. There are three classes to choose from: Special Ops — long-distance damage dealers, who also provide ammunition; Soldiers — the "tanks" who endure the most damage; and Medics — who drain life from enemies and impart to teammates.
Competitive mode features support for up to 60 players during the Skirmish mode; which allowed for the greatest amount of players in an online PlayStation 3 game at the time of release, but was last surpassed by MAG. Five games modes are available: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Core Control (Capture the Flag), Skirmish, and released via update, Meltdown. Skirmish has players getting split up into squads of five and take part in objective-based proxy-battles. Players can play as either the Humans or the Chimerans (but due to updates, the player can now be a Cloven, a Female Ranger, or a Ravager), and get to choose their weapon loadout before and during a game while respawning.
Many weapons make a return from the original, most notably the Carbine, Bullseye, Fareye, Auger, Rossmore and LAARK (although this can be only accessed through a berserk). However, the Arc Charger and Dragon did not return, and were instead replaced with the Bellock, Wraith, Splicer and Pulse Cannon. The addition of berserks is a new feature, and can only be accessed if the player reaches a required XP during a game through kills. The berserks give players an additional advantage such as a new weapon or added health but only for a short period of time.
There are a variety of campaign based maps featuring maps of different sizes (10p, 20p, 40p, 60p) with the player choosing their preference. Custom games also made a return, although unlike Resistance: Fall of Man, players cannot receive XP in custom games. The ranking system is also identical to that of Resistance: Fall of Man, with players progressing through 20 ranks with three tiers each from private up to supreme commander (making a total of 60 ranks). As some ranks are gained, players receive unlockables such as different berserks and skins.
==Plot==
After destroying the Chimera Tower in London in 1951, Nathan Hale is extracted by Special Research Projects Administration (SRPA) soldiers in a VTOL aircraft, and sedated. Upon arrival at the SRPA "Igloo" Base in Iceland, they find it under attack by Chimera forces. Their VTOL is shot down by a Chimera Goliath and only Hale and Major Richard Blake of the SRPA survive. As the two make their way to safety, they encounter and unknowingly unleash Daedalus, an incredibly powerful Chimeran creature that is apparently controlling the Chimera Army. Hale and Blake find Russian scientist Fyodor Malikov who has been working with the SRPA investigating the Chimeran virus, and are able to safely extract him to America before the Chimera overrun the base. Hale is introduced to the Sentinels, others like Hale who have been exposed to the Chimeran virus, giving them superhuman strength and regenerative abilities, but take regular injections of an inhibitor to prevent them from fully succumbing to its effects. Over the next two years, Hale is promoted to Lieutenant and becomes a part of the Sentinel special force in charge of Echo Squad in the place of the KIA Lt. Hank Leavitt (revealed in Intel during the Cooperative campaign) - comprising Sergeant Ben Warner, Specialist Aaron Hawthorne and Corporal Joseph Capelli - and put on the same regimen of inhibitors to prevent the virus from changing him further.
On May 15, 1953 the Chimera launched a full-scale invasion of the United States, attacking the country from both the east and west, and overwhelming their defenses. Due to the attack, the United States declared war against the chimera. Hale, Malikov, and most of the surviving SRPA soldiers escape from the destruction of their base at SRPA 3 in San Francisco after Hale kills a Chimeran sea monster, referred to as a Kraken as the Chimera lay waste to the city. The SRPA units pursue a damaged Chimera battleship to Orick, California, where they manage to board the battleship and destroy it using explosive charges. Following their escape, they are shot down and crash near Twin Falls, Idaho which lies on the Liberty Defense Perimeter. Hale and other Sentinels successfully reactivate two defensive towers to repel the Chimera fleet, which was about to breach the perimeter, after Hale knocks a giant leaper-like Chimera known as "The Mother Spinner" off one of the towers, sending it falling to its doom. Hale refuses to return to base for his inhibitor treatment, disregarding the fact that he is long overdue, and instead takes a black ops squad to 'Station Genesis' in Bryce Canyon, Utah in order to extract Malikov from the base before a Chimera attack force wipes out SRPA troops there. Hale is able to successfully retrieve Malikov from the base but not before encountering Daedalus again. Malikov explains to Hale that Daedalus used to be a human known as Private Jordan Adam Shepherd who, along with Hale, was part of "Project Abraham", a military program designed to try to create Chimera-human hybrids such as the Cloven to use as super-soldiers. Shepherd was part of Malikov's tests, one of two (the other being Hale himself) who were injected with pure Chimeran DNA to actually survive. Unlike Hale, who had the DNA become dormant until his re-infection in York re-activated it, Shepherd's injection mutated his body into the barely human form of Daedalus, and gave him knowledge of the Chimera's origins and goals, and the ability to control their armies.
After recovering Malikov and escaping Station Genesis, Hale and Echo Squad head to Chicago, against the orders of command, in order to deactivate one of several activated Chimera towers that are slowly powering up, since these towers are key to the Chimera's plans for Earth. After a vicious battle through the city, in which Hale kills a 300 ft tall Chimeran monster, known as the "Leviathan", Malikov is able to deactivate it, only to find the tower reactivated remotely immediately afterwards by Daedalus from Iceland, and the only way to shut it down is to travel there. The Sentinels and the other SRPA soldiers launch a heavy assault against the Iceland tower (Holar Tower map in multiplayer), but find it to be a trap, with many of the forces being lost. Hale and Echo Squad are able to enter the tower, only to find Daedalus waiting for them. During their time in the tower Hawthorne is ripped in half by Daedalus, then Warner is stabbed and killed. Hale is stabbed in the stomach by Daedalus and passes out from his injuries. Corporal Capelli finds his body and saves his life. Hale wakes up from a medically-induced coma in a field camp in Cocodrie, Louisiana and finds that it is six weeks later; the Chimera have overwhelmed the American Liberty Defense lines, killing over 80 million people, and forcing the 3 million remaining survivors to America's last stronghold in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Even worse, Hale also discovers that because he went so long without the inhibitor, his body has succumbed to the virus, and he has only 3 hours, at most, before it fully consumes him. Hale decides to use this time to take part in an attack on the majority of the Chimera fleet currently hovering above the Gulf of Mexico around the Chicxulub Crater on the Yucatan Peninsula, waiting for some unknown purpose. Hale and Capelli are able to recover a nuclear warhead and deliver it onto Daedalus' flagship, but Major Richard Blake and his squad are killed taking the warhead to the ship's central reactor. It is taken by Chimeran forces and brought to Daedalus. Hale makes his own way to Daedalus and kills him; though upon touching his corpse, Hale is suddenly overwhelmed by strong psychokinetic abilities. After re-activating the bomb, Hale escapes with Capelli. The resulting explosion destroys the Chimeran fleet and an electromagnetic pulse forces Hale and Capelli's ship to crash land.
When Capelli regains consciousness, he notices that Hale is missing. Heading outside he sees that the sky has turned red with a number of destroyed planet-like spheres clearly visible in space, with Hale looking in awe at them. Hale recalls Daedalus' words: "Can you hear them? They are calling to us...It's beautiful!" finishing with, "This is just the beginning." Capelli sees that Hale has nearly become fully engulfed by the virus. In contrast to his previously disrespectful attitude towards Hale, Capelli replies "Forgive me, sir. It was an honor." then shoots Hale at point blank range in the head, killing him.
==Beta Phase==
Insomniac announced they were running a Public Beta in October 2008. One of the ways to give consumers access to the beta involved a pre-order program through GameStop. Gamers who reserved their copy from GameStop received a card that contained a beta registration code. Once registered through the official site, the beta voucher was emailed to the address provided. Users could then download and install their beta from the PlayStation Store. The Public Beta was available from October 24 to October 29. It included three multiplayer maps - San Francisco, Orick (California), and Chicago - and could be played in the 8-player co-op campaign and the 60-player online multiplayer.
==Marketing==
===Project Abraham===
The marketing campaign for Resistance 2 centered around an alternate reality game named Project Abraham, a top-secret military project under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of War.
Initially, specific details on the nature and purpose of the project were bare and mysterious, though additional content was added to the website (in concurrence with the project's latest developments) that reveals the purpose of the project. It was revealed to be a research initiative designed to eradicate the Chimera virus that is currently infecting Europeans by the millions. It lasts over the next two months, with a SRPA team of biochemical experts formulating several permutations of serums to be used on human volunteers in an attempt to discover the vaccine against the plague. The findings were ultimately inconclusive. Other purposes are to learn more about and better understand the virus. The next phase of the project is to collect all the immune soldiers together as an elite super-soldier task force code-named "Sentinels", dedicated to fighting off the impending Chimera invasion while the bulk of the U.S. population is safely secured in the Liberty Defense Perimeter.
The primary characters are Colonel Grant Thompson and Doctor Cassandra "Cassie" Aklin (Katee Sackhoff, and is also the protagonist; with all written and recorded content either directed towards or generated by Aklin so far), but other characters, civilian, military, or otherwise were mentioned. The other main characters are seven soldiers who volunteered for the project from different army units, all brought together at the Project Abraham Compound in Alaska (the specific location is classified). The test subjects include Captain Frank Anthony Gennaro, 1st Lieutenant Glenn Albert Khaner, Lieutenant Kenneth Danby, Sergeant Channing Brown, Sergeant Keith Todd Oster, Sergeant Nathan Hale, Private Joseph Capelli, Benjamin Warner, Chrisopher Hawthorne.
Apart from the project itself, the files and videos reveal the personal situation with the project's personnel; the soldiers, willing to endure the possibility of death, have detailed history, military careers, and personality profiles (collected by Aklin), which is often reflected in their actions towards others. More information about Hale's history, family, and military career are revealed as well, along with allusions to a romantic relationship between Hale and Cassie.
===Other Websites===
A second website named America first America only is the website of an organization called the "Alliance For American Autonomy". The Alliance is a group of radicals bent on exposing the U.S. Government and its secrets to the public. The site shows a small dark area with a printing press, and an office containing a news board, news clippings, the alliances newsletter/paper, file cabinets, and a "tip box". The Alliances newsletter/paper is published every Friday. When a new article is posted the old ones are stored in the file cabinets for reference and can be viewed at any time. The newsletter/paper gets most of its information from "agents," people who have submitted SrpaNet codes through the Tip Box. A recent update for the site has seemed to have ransacked the area and shows a letter that seems to have been written in a hurry. The latest updates show a typewriter with various American cities listed on it. When a "dead-drop" has been reported in a city, fans may go to the given location to retrieve a canvas bag containing a personal item of one of the Project Abraham participants, a compass, a SRPA t-shirt, and a card listing a serial number. This serial number is used to unlock two comic panels at the second new addition to the AFAO website, Metastasis.
A third website named Get A War Job has been discovered and can be accessed directly from Project Abraham. On the site a typewriter is shown along with pro and anti-war posters, cards, pamphlets, and a document which the player can fill out and possibly cause events to happen in the future such as a phone call or further information about the site/sites. The business card to the left may be called, toll free, to hear an inspirational recruiting message for the military. The latest update for the site seems to have burned nearly everything in view and the registration form is no longer available.
A fourth website named SrpaNet has also been discovered. It is an old computer interface used by the Project Abraham staff and the U.S. Government. So far hidden and overt serial codes, found in various places on Project Abraham, have led to hidden documents and images relating to the Chimera and what is known about them.
===Collector's Edition===
The collector's edition includes a hardcover art book, special cover art, an in-game weapon skin (a Chimeran HVAP Wraith called the Brute Minigun, the same kind Ravagers use), and an action figure of the game's "Hybrids", the Chimera. It also includes a bonus Blu-ray Disc with a behind-the-scenes featurette, a video detailing the game's alternate historical timeline, a digital copy of issue #0 of the Resistance comic book, and a preview from the upcoming Resistance novel "The Gathering Storm". The collector's edition was only sold in North America, and not in Europe due to the hassle of translating each aspect of the Collector's Edition to the various main languages in the continent, such as English, French, Spanish etc. as said by SCEE in a Press Conference prior to the game's release. The Collector's Edition Blu-ray also contains a hidden Easter Egg which can be accessed by watching the "scale" featurette, pressing Left on the arrow keys upon returning to the menu, and then pressing right.
==Playstation Home==
On March 26, 2009, Insomniac Games released a Resistance 2 SRPA suit for the male avatars. The SRPA suit is purchasable in Home's shopping complex.
On May 21, 2009, Insomniac Games released a dedicated space for Resistance 2 in the PlayStation 3's online community-based service, PlayStation Home in the Asian, European, and North American versions. The space is called the "Resistance Station" and is modeled after the Chicago level in Resistance 2 and features a video screen showing the trailers for Resistance 2 (Asian Home) and Resistance: Retribution (North American Home) as well as a mini game titled 'Four Barrels of Fury' in which users takes control of a turret that appears as a turret version of the game's HVAP Wraith. The player must shoot down incoming Chimeran ships varying in size. The game is divided into waves. The player must shoot down ships for points. Occasionally the player must defend 2 incoming VTOL transports one carrying health the other carrying modified ammo. If the VTOLs are defended the player's turret is repaired and the damage dealt by the turret's shots will be strengthened as long as the ammo lasts. There are three different rewards for reaching a certain wave or score in the mini-game. The first reward is a male and female Resistance 2 t-shirt for beating Wave 4. If users beat Waves 1 to 4 with a score of 100% on each wave, they get a hat that is modeled after the Chimeran flagship in Wave 4 and if users obtain a score of 1,000,000, they get a male and female Resistance 2 hoodie. For a limited time in the European Home, in the place of where the video screen is in the Asian and North American versions, there was a poster with a promotional code on it. The first 3,000 users that redeemed the code received a male and female Resistance: Retribution t-shirt. The trailer for Resistance: Retribution has replaced the poster. This space was released to the Japanese version on September 10, 2009. Outso developed the Resistance 2 Game Space for Insomniac Games.
In addition to the space, users can fully game launch into Resistance 2. Game launching lets users set up a competitive or co-op game in Home, have people join the game, then launch directly from Home into the game. Users can set up a competitive game of up to 32 players and up to 8 players for co-op.
==Reception==
Resistance 2 was well received by critics, Aggregating review websites Game Rankings and Metacritic gave the game an aggregate score of 86.71% and 87/100.
It garnered a score of 9/10 from the Official UK PlayStation Magazine, who said it was, as they would have liked, "prettier and shootier", and 9.5/10 from IGN, elected there for an Editor's Choice Award. It also earned a 9/10 score from Official PlayStation Magazine Australia. IGN in particular praised the game for its single player campaign and online multiplayer, as well as the scale and detail of the level design, stating that the bosses would "make your jaw drop." GameRac gave Resistance 2 an 8/10, saying that the game had "amazing graphics and the single player was improved", also electing it for both the Editor's Choice Award and Most Anticipated Game Award. Resistance 2 sold about 409,270 copies worldwide in its debut week.
Other reviews include Gameplayer, which rated the game 9/10, NZGamer, which rated the game with a 9.2/10, Gamepro, who rated the game 4/5, proclaiming it was "bigger, bolder and better than the first" and an "improvement upon the formula set by its predecessor in almost every way", and X-Play, which rated Resistance 2 a 5/5 in high praise. Game Informer gave the game an 8.5/10, saying that it wasn't as good as the original, "the slower movement is noticeable" and "the lack of a weapon wheel limits strategy," but praising the "absolutely gorgeous" graphics and the variety of multiplayer modes.
Despite the widespread praise from critics, some fans were not as enthusiastic about the game, primarily complaining about the unnecessary changes and exclusions, as well as a not-so-appealing campaign mode, which also lacked the acclaimed local co-op. Senior community manager James Stevenson of Insomniac said that the game "was a failure" for the hardcore followers of the series and admitted that gamers's negative feedback had weighed on him. Insomniac stated that they would take this as a lesson for the development of its sequel.
===Sales===
Resistance 2 sold 598,000 units in North America through 2008, 200,000 units in the United Kingdom, also sold over 3 million copies worldwide. and 65,191 in Japan.
==Links==
*"Resistance 2 Review at GameSpot". GameSpot.
*"IGN: Resistance 2 Review". IGN.
*Resistance 2 at US.PlayStation.Com
*Resistance 2 Official Website
*Resistance 2 Official European Website
*Insomniac Games Website
Category:2008 video games
Category:Most Wanted Games