My weekend in gaming – cooperative is king

 

Well I didn’t expect Resistance 2 to hook me as deep as it has, and I certainly didn’t expect Cooperative to be the reason why.

I’m (usually) a social being, and quiet often have friends over. Sometimes we play Playstation, which explains my initial infatuation with Warhawk – four players online equals instant awesome. But even that has its limitations. The issue has mostly resolved itself now, but apparently playing competitive online when you don’t own the game, or even the console isn’t real fun; It’s not fun to listen to your friends bitch about being owned either.

Okay, I can see your pessimistic internet mind ticking, I know what your thinking; but my friends aren’t noobs, they’re all skilled enough to enjoy their gametime.

 Well that’s valid; but what usually happens when friends come around? Drinking and other activities that may slow your reaction times, skew your perception and basically fuck up your form. 

It’s not da vinci code shit, but R2 and it’s cooperative mode is an elegant solution to this, I’m sure, widespread problem.

My Weekend in Gaming – Resistance 2 Impressions

 

Lets not waste anymore time, I’m already late to the party – Resistance 2 has been released for almost a month in the US, but European and Australian gamers have only managed to get their copies a handful of days ago.

Resistance 2 isn’t a single player game with online multiplayer tacked on, nor a multiplayer game with a single player campaign added for good measure. I wont make the distinction, because Insomniac haven’t either – Resistance 2 is a game; and in this day and age a game consists of both online and offline content. We’ve past the point where online functionality is an offshoot hidden in it’s own menu, it’s just taken Resistance to tell everyone. In fact, launching R2 initially displays three menu options; Campaign, Cooperative and Competitive – with only the campaign confined to a single player experience.

I was with a friend when I made my purchase and took it home, we decided to cut our teeth in co-op; we’d get a grip on the game before taking it online. While our time in co-op lasted longer than initially planned, our time offline did not – hitting that ‘Play’ button had us kicking ass as part of an eight man team. It doesn’t sound that exciting when put in words, but it was pretty amazing to be thrown online without even realising.

I had to force myself to stop the addictive multiplayer to play the single player campaign, it was the fact that I would be writing this that motivated me to do it. I’m glad I did.

As the campaign starts, a quick intro about Hale and his involvement in Fall of Man runs and as the screen fades the cliché text this is his story is displayed. It took me a moment, but I understand why Insomniac put that there – everything from Campaign, Cooperative and to a lesser extent Competitive is part of the Resistance narrative; cooperative tells the story of Specter Team, and the campaign tells the story of a single individual, Nathan Hale.

I wasn’t expecting any real ‘wow’ moments from Resistance 2 – I’ve seen the trailers, I know to expect some big enemies. In that regard, I haven’t been disappointed. But it was my introduction and first encounter with the Chameleon that really blew me away.

Resistance 2 public beta – opening this friday?

A fortnight ago the kind folks at Insomniac opened up the R2 beta site, allowing the public to enlist. Nothing has been heard since, and personally I’ve been very eager to find out more details about the beta – namely, when will it start?

Play.com‘s R2 order page lays claim that users who preorder a copy of the game are ensured access to the public beta, and “Instructions will be emailed Thursday 16th October for customers who have already preordered”. Of course this is in no way the definitive word, game retailers are notorious for throwing up inaccurate and outright incorrect information – but as of today, visiting the official Beta signup page requests username and password credentials, ones that PSN account details (or email, or anything else I could frantically attempt) will not satisfy.

What does this mean exactly? Well nothing really, except that something has finally changed (the website had been displaying the same information since it launched) and maybe something exciting is about to happen.

Is it just a coincidence this has happened in line with play.com’s predictions, or are we really staring down the barrel of an R2 weekend?