I cashed in on the ‘revised’ prices of Sony consoles last month by buying a PS3 system. My first picks after a half and hour of Gamespotting and IGNing (-enning) were Resistance 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4. These two were apparently great games from 2008 (Yes, 3 years its been now) that wouldn’t burn a deep hole in my pocket, and let me catch up on the chunk of gaming history I missed. Also, note that though its been 3 years, i’ve seen these two games in the shelves of almost every music store in South Delhi, despite that most of them keep only about 20-25 PS3 titles. So, heres whether you should buy these games:
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
[This one was my first choice, hands down, as it scored a 10/10 both on IGN and Gamespot. ]
Created by Hideo Kojima, the Metal Gear series has been loved my gamers since they were in their thermal nappies, or so Wikipedia suggests. The stories are reputed to be manically convoluted, with a wide array of characters, and a basic message: War is bad.
The game plays amazingly well, you have a large arsenal of (surprisingly) fun weapons to choose at your fingertips and stealth that blends together with combat like in no other game I’ve played before. The campaign is a joyride, luscious graphics that still look good, highly varied gameplay elements, a great background score, and I can’t stress on this enough- spectacular bosses and boss fights.
The story is good, with amazing cinematics that go on for 20 minutes at a time, but the references to past Metal Gear games might faze you. Also, some of the elements of ‘humour’ might seem weird to many people, perhaps befitting more a Doraemon episode than Metal Gear Solid.
Where the game really fell flat on its face for me was its multplayer. I was expecting a fully immersive drop in and play system that would have me hooked for days on end, but I got bored in less than two hours. Also, for those platinum trophy fiends out there, there are no PlayStation Network trophies for this game.
Verdict: Although the multiplayer disappoints, I suggest you go buy this game just for the single player campaign. It is in a word, epic.
Rating (2011 standards): 8.5/10
Resistance 2
Resistance 2 was the next game I played. Having loved both the campaign and multiplayer on the PSP (Resistance Retribution), this game seemed fairly promising.
Resistance is set in the 50s, in an alternate universe where the Earth is battling an alien invasion. The story is straightforward, and nothing you haven’t seen before. The art is consistently good, but slightly low res by today’s standards and feels somewhat weirdly coloured.
What I really loved about this game was the amazingly varied weapons, with many of them being of the sort you wouldn’t find in other First Person Shooters. There are spike flinging grenades, some kinda tissue virus grenades, energy stealing proton guns, snipers that let you shoot in slo-mo (the explanation being that they inect some kind of neural boosters that give you the illusion of slowed down time), and even Napalm flingers. In short, the arsenal is something like Star Wars weds Counter Strike weds the Exorcist, and its a blast to exploit.
The multiplayer has two modes: Competitive and Cooperative. Cooperative is a blast to play, with the option of 3 different roles and some weapons not available in the single player campaign. However, even here the competitive multiplayer disappoints, with a limited number of game types, and bland presentation. If you’ve played multiplayer on Uncharted 2, its nothing by those standards.
Verdict: If you like First Person Shooters, then you will like this game, but I still suggest saving up for something else like Call of Duty Black Ops (which retails at Rs. 3500 right now).
Rating (2011 standards): 7/10
