14 DAY TRIAL // 
Sony's latest entries in the PlayStation family of consoles, the PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation 3, haven't had the best of luck when it comes to games released for them. But as Insomniac developed the Resistance series for the PS3, which enjoyed a fair share of success, Sony saw fit to introduce it to the handheld brother of the big and black console.
As such, the team at the Sony's Bend Studios was tasked with developing Resistance: Retribution, based on a spin off story, spanning events that occurred between Resistance 1 and its sequel. The thought of a third person shooter on the PSP isn't new, but with the promises of high quality graphics, intriguing story and solid single and multiplayer gameplay, this title seems to have everything required to be popular. Here's our review of Resistance: Retribution.
Story
The story of the game is quite elaborate, filled with various references to the first Resistance, and offers some explanations for quite a lot of the events in the second one. Fans of the series will certainly be happy to see some old characters from the first game return, such as Major Cartwright or Colonel Parker, who is also the narrator of the story.
You play as Lieutenant James Grayson, a member of the Royal Marines, who deserted from his battalion and went on a personal vendetta against the Chimera for murdering his brother. After destroying an impressive 26 conversion centers across the United Kingdom, he is finally caught by the army and sentenced to execution for desertion in the time of war.
Luckily for him, just before he faces the execution squad, the European resistance forces, the Maquis, arrive and ask the British government to transfer him to their ranks, in order to commence a retaliation against the Chimera forces still occupying Europe.
Led by Lieutenant Raine Bouchard, the daughter of a scientist who is hard at work developing a virus against the Chimera, the Maquis also enlist the aid of the British military and the battle against the monsters begins, with you in the first line, traveling to cities such as Rotterdam, Bonn, Luxembourg or Paris.
The characters’ interpretation is not a particularly impressive one, but they are pretty well constructed, with a lot of attention being given to the love/hate relationship between the British and the French. The main protagonist, James Grayson, isn't your ordinary shooter hero, such as Nathan Hale or Gordon Freeman, as he has quite a personality and really makes you like him.
Gameplay
The gameplay is extremely solid and is really where the game shines. The team at Bend studios has worked around quite a lot of the drawbacks of the PSP, such as no second analog stick, and made the experience very fulfilling and approachable for people who haven't yet played a game on the handheld device.
The aiming controls are a bit weird at first, as you use the four buttons on the right to control your camera, but after five minutes, you will certainly get the hang of them. The cover mechanic is top notch, and makes the game pretty easy to play and user-friendly. The auto-aim feature is precise, but will sometimes lock on an enemy in the back rather than one who is rapidly approaching you.
Don't think that because you have auto-aim and automatic entry into cover that this game will make you feel safe as an on-rails shooter. The environments are varied and will force you to move around from cover to cover in order to kill the enemies. Also, certain Chimera creatures have weak spots that can only be manually aimed, such as the suicidal Boilers that you need to take out before they get to you and blow up.
You will find almost all of the enemies in the first and second games present, ranging from menials to hybrids, titans and even the dreaded angels. You will get a chance to fight with a few Cloven, mutants spawned from certain experiments, who posses both human and Chimeran qualities.
Some quick time events are present but aren't very numerous, so the whole gameplay experience is pleasant. Mostly, you will just focus on shooting the enemies than on resolving physics puzzles or trying to randomly smash buttons like in the God of War: Chains of Olympus game.
As an added bonus, if you have the Resistance 2 game, you can “infect” your copy of Retribution, thus unlocking an altered variant of Grayson, similar to Nathan Hale, the protagonist of the PS3 games. This new mode makes the protagonist more powerful, gives him regenerative health, can breathe underwater and will be able to use weapons from Resistance 2, such as the Magnum pistol. Sadly, the Infected mode is enabled until you exit the game, as when you start it up again, you will have to connect it to Resistance 2 once more.
Also, when you have Resistance: Retribution and Resistance 2 connected, you can play via the PSP Plus mode and use the Sixaxis or Dualshock controller instead of the buttons on the handheld console. If you choose this mode, don't forget that the autoaim feature disappears, so it will be harder to play.
Concept
The concept of Resistance: Retribution is quite simple, as it aims to provide a portable shooter experience based in the Resistance universe of games. It doesn't aim to be more than that and this makes the game very solid. It features almost all of the classic shooter scenarios, like escorting, vehicles stages or rails segments; fortunately, you don't really feel like you are playing a compilation of shooter cliches, but actually a complete game that makes sense.
The cover mechanics are top notch and give the release a solid basis for all of its action. In a way, it reminds me of the first Gears of War, where cover played such an important role in surviving and inching your way towards your goal.
The story also compliments the whole Resistance canon, as it doesn't stray away from the battles with the Chimeran monsters, but still offers a lot of new things to make the game enjoyable for people who are very interested in this story universe.
Visuals and Audio
Resistance: Retribution is a beautiful game. It won't knock your socks off, but it will leave a lasting impression. The environments are very detailed and you can clearly see other events happening during your own fights. At the end of the game, in a tower in Paris, you can also see the outskirts of the city in flames, with gunfire blazing. Such details are a clever touch, despite the fact that they won't be noticed by many players.
The enemies are also quite detailed, showing that you can recreate a shooter experience on a handheld device, not only puzzle or casual games. The characters move pretty realistically and the ragdoll physics are similar to the ones found in current generation games, an aspect that is also very impressive.
Sound-wise, the game presents itself very well, with everything being just as it should be, and the weapons behaving just as in the first two games. The orchestral score is very impressive and, although you won't notice it very often, completes the action sequences and makes you delve even deeper into the story.
Multiplayer
Resistance games on the PS3 have offered great multiplayer experiences, and many believed that on the PSP, things just wouldn't be the same. Fortunately, the Bend team has pulled through and delivered a great online experience via the Wi-Fi capabilities of the device.
The online mode has five parts, deathmatch, team deathmatch, Containment, Capture the Flag and Assimilation. Interestingly, the two teams aren't humans versus Chimera, but actually humans versus Cloven. They fight against each other in all of these scenarios, with the most interesting one being Assimilation, in which one Cloven player must infect the other humans.
The experience is quite fun and has a lot of options, including turning off the aim-assist, in order to make it more competitive. Lagging isn't a big issue and, in the end, it completes the Retribution package in a very nice and memorable way.
Conclusion
All in all, Resistance: Retribution is a great game. It doesn't set out to shatter any barriers of game design, but is currently one of the very few must-have titles for Sony's PlayStation Portable. It might seem a bit strange at first, but you will certainly get hooked on it, and the urge to fight the Chimera anywhere you go, on the bus, subway or during trips, will be unbearable.
With the story leaving space for a sequel, Sony will surely need to be careful as to not saturate the franchise. Hopefully, we will see the next PS3 and PSP installments launched once more with a short period between them.
