Gaming heroes- they are the super men and women that we put all our hope and faith in. Their motivations are, however, not as demanding as you would expect. Battling an alien menace often seems a chore or an assigned task for them. Take the silent protagonists of Halo and Half Life. Their stoic silence is meant as a way for you to imprint you're own reasons and logic into the game world. The way a games structure then unfolds is for these supermen to be sent around the world by other people often making them feel more like a tool than a character. What's their motivation for doing it? Saving the world usually but that's not really something that's easy to empathize with. Sure we'd all want to save the world but lets face it not many of us do it on a regular basis. I mean, I recycle as much as possible but its just not the same somehow.

Resistance 3 however is a game about heroes and their reasons. Their reasons for fighting in the world they exist in. A world that has no hope, for the humans anyway, the alines are doing pretty well. Resistance 3 tells the story of Joseph Capelli, the last remaining sentinel (a specially engineered solider developed to fight the chimera) who is hiding underground in provincial America with his wife and child. This is not a resistance movement though, they hide to survive and they hide because they have no other choice. Joe is never once labeled the leader but the reverence in which his community greets him shows that have placed that mantle upon him.

The combination of little period elements and excellent somber and subtle music help evoke a sense of desperation. For example throughout the game you hear radio bulletins as you pass through buildings. Each is a plea for someone to find their missing or report their latest casulalties, and ends with the reporter reminding everyone that they'll get through this. There is no hope of overturning the Chimera though, this outpost and all the others just the want to survive. As you can probably guess things take a turn for the worst pretty quickly, the Chimera show up and spoil the plan. An old associate of Joe appears in the form of a wizened old soviet professor (aren't they all) and explains he thinks the only way to stop the Chimera is to destroy their tower in New York. Joe refuses, like I said he has no interest in being a hero. He just wants to keep his family safe but his wife convinces him to go by reminding him the only way to be truly safe is to stop the Chimera. 

So what in other circumstances would be a fun road trip begins across the USA becomes a desperate struggle to reach New York. The resistance of the title being these two men. Fighting their way across the country the old fashion way, and this game does a lot of things the old fashion way. Remember health packs? There here. Carrying more than two weapons? Thats's here too. Carrying all the weapons available, Its not something that happens much these days but it makes this one man army much more of a one man army. All of a sudden years of well honed tactics are changed. when you're on the last sliver of health hiding behind a tree wont help. You've got to scramble round in the dirt for a health pack while praying you don't get shot. 

These now seemingly old fashioned systems do make the combat seem fresh however in a strange roundabout way. You're health is now a much more valuable commodity and cant be gambled away on stupid forays straight at the enemy. Cover is your friend and you must learn to use her well. It is possible that giving you the full arsenal of weapons to play with at any time could break the game but Insomniac have been clever. Slowly doling out weapons throughout the game and restricting you're choices at various points.Giving you what you need not what you want. Only at the end when you have a full compliment of guns do you perhaps feel overpowered. 

This developer knows it's weapons though. A good variety from standard machine guns and sniper rifles through to massive electric cattle prods and guns that can fire through walls (very Perfect Dark). Each comes with its own secondary fire as well giving you the double the options. For example your giant electric cattle prod can also rip a small hole in space that will suck all surrounding enemies in and kill them with dizziness. Add to this an upgrade system that adds extra features the more you use each gun and suddenly you have a massive variety of options to tackle each scenario.