Resistance: Burning Skies Review

Posted By Taylor Hoyt about 11 months ago

Resistance: Burning Skies Review

It would be an understatement to say that FPS games are all the rage these days. Call of Duty and Battlefield are two of the best selling franchises in the industry, and also happen to be FPS games. One key feature necessary for a successful FPS is either a mouse or twin analog sticks. With PS Vita being the first handheld to have twin thumb sticks, everyone was excited to see how an FPS would play on it. Too bad the first game of this type had to be Resistance: Burning Skies, because it’s plain dreadful.

In Burning Skies you play as New York firefighter Tom Riley. On what seems like a routine call you end up encountering the Chimera and get swept up in an alien invasion. You’ll run into your family very early on and tell them to run for safety. Riley proceeds to help a few citizens while attempting to reunite with his family. That’s essentially the plot of this game. It’s about as thin as it gets. Outside of just being brave and trying to be a hero, Riley’s motivations are unclear and it’s hard to connect with the character. Because of this you’ll rarely care about anything that’s going on around you.

The story threatens to be interesting on occasion, but never follows up on any of it. Resistance games are known for great stories and interesting characters. You’ll unfortunately find none of that here. What you get is a story that serves as a means to guide you down hallways with bad guys waiting for you. Nothing more. I wanted to care because I know how great other games in the series are, but I simply couldn’t be bothered to.

As uninteresting as the story is, gameplay is actually quite good. The aiming, shooting, ducking, and moving all work well. Nihilistic made quite an ingenious design choice in terms of how you run by having the player hold up on the left thumb stick and holding the down direction on the d-pad. It may sound odd, but because the down button on the d-pad is so close to the left thumb stick it makes running quite intuitive.

There are a few touch controls that I could give or take. To throw grenades you have to touch and drag them to the destination you want. It sounds simple enough, but can get you killed if done wrong in an intense firefight. Each of the guns have secondary fire, and some require the use of the front touch screen. You’ll either have to tap enemies or drag your finger across the screen to lock on to them. Chopping foes down with your fire axe also requires tapping an axe icon in the corner of the screen. Not the worst design choice, but a bit clunky.

For the most part, controlling Burning Skies is a breeze. Shooting enemies is fun and satisfying. There are also a ton of guns that are all very unique from one another to choose from. I don’t play many first-person shooters, but Burning Skies definitely had its moments of good fun. The cover mechanic works particularly well, especially considering this is an FPS and not a third-person game. Bosses are mediocre at best, but the shooting gallery of Chimera is where most of the fun is had.

running right about now is usually a good idea. usually.

While there is definite fun to be had here, the fatal flaw of this game is its design. Good God in heaven, can this game be frustrating. One of the worst sins you can commit in making a game is having the player do the same thing over and over again (unless you’re Minecraft or something). There are certain sections of this game that you’re going to play over 20+ times, and it’s going to drive you nuts. It won’t even be your fault, it’s simply broken game design.

There’s one particular section where a building is burning down and you need to escape. Sounds exciting, right? Well it isn’t! Usually sequences like this are scripted and will play out slowly once you reach certain markers in the level. That’s not how this works here. Not only is fire constantly creeping up on you, but doors are slowly closing throughout the facility. These two things run on a timer, regardless of where you on in the level. Oh, and you have to do all this while being attacked by swarms of enemies. You’ll inevitably get caught up somewhere and be forced to do the whole thing again from the start. It’s one of the most grueling gaming experiences you could possibly put yourself through.

Resistance: Burning Skies Review

By Taylor Hoyt

The first twin-stick FPS on a handheld turns out to be one of the most disappointing games the system has to offer.