Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm about halfway through the game (most of the way through chapter 3) and I'm really enjoying this so far. Chunky, satisfying weapons, a lot of the CoD4 factor (where heavy use of scripted elements, dramatic music, and allies shouting at you to move forward make the game feel very dynamic) without the "infinite-enemies-until-you-cross-a-line" mechanism I never cared for. The environments are lovely (a creepy walk through a deserted forest and creek with sudden appearances by Predator-style invisible enemies was very pretty). Most of the combat is a little more trigger-happy run and gun than we are used to in this generation of games; the rank and file enemies are fairly weak and come en masse, which is quite refreshing.

Online support looks interesting, with an 8-player co-op mode and 60-player competitive, with three classes to play as too. I suppose I might dip my toe into that at some point, if only to have a look, although the absence of bezzies is rather offputting. Speaking of those 60-player games, why is the PS3 way ahead of the 360 in this field? Killzone 2 supports 32 players, Resistance 2 60 players, MAG supports 256 players. I can't think of that many games on the 360 that support 16, and only (I think?) Frontlines supports more than 16? I can't see why the PS3 is technically capable of more than the 360 in this regard. Perhaps Microsoft's certification requirements around bandwidth are more restrictive.

Some negatives. It's too dark in places and has no gamma setting; I had to turn the brightness on the TV up and that's just shit. You die pretty easy, and that can get annoying when one lucky rocket from a miniboss monster kills you; occasionally you are then also unlucky with checkpoints and have to run through the same segment a few times.

Overall though I'd really enjoying this. Who else has it?

I bought the first one and was really unimpressed with it however I had heard the second was a vast improvement. I don't have it yet but it is tempting to ask for it on goozex and see what I think. Does it have split screen co-op/split screen online? That would convince me (or rather it would mean I am allowed to play it ).

i would hate it then. Leave me in the middle of nowhere and explain me nothing and i'm a much happier man.

I didn't play the first one, but every review and every comment I've heard about R2 starts with "it's far better than the first one in every regard". Where the first one was workmanlike, this is lovingly polished.

Not sure about splitscreen, but the Internet seems to say yes.

My copy came from Goozex. I suppose people are getting rid of it as they are playing Killzone 2 now.

Fair enough. It's a very different game style. I think CoD4/R2 are the logical evolution of idea begun in Half-Life 1 and 2; the most memorable bits of those games for me where the scripted sequences (e.g. the soldiers shooting into the air duct you are crawling through in HL1, and then it gives way and you land on their heads). CoD4 and R2 are almost entirely made up of bits like that.

I loved the 1st CoD that i completed it in a weekend. It was genuinely overwhelming and i had a 5.1 sound system. Nowadays i don't have any patient for games like that. Some scripted sequences may look great, but when you realize that if you play it again it will evolve in the exact same way, i loose interest. Stalker has also incredible moments that were all "created" by me and the enemy AI. Even if it isn't even half as epic in the grand scheme of things, it satisfies me a lot more.

Or just leave me in an arena with enemies spawing everywhere like is Serious Sam and Painkiller. Love those games.

I have it and really enjoyed it. Bizarrely it only seems to be the opening level or so that seems to suffer from ridiculous contrast. It is quite short but I intend to play through it again at some stage.

Im interested in this also, but I just got Kilzone 2 which so far im liking a lot and its oh so gorpeous to look at too

I have added it to my goozex requests and I'm about to send off GTA IV so I should hopefully get a copy quite soon. I am considering having another go at the original, the only thing that's stopping me is the pile of other games I want to play!

The 60 player support for online multiplayer sounds ace, I share your view that it is something Xbox should do. I loved playing CoD3 online when you got a good game of War that lasted for an hour, they were brilliant. Long multiplayer games is something else that more game devs should make.

If this has split screen co-op then from that mini-review I'm all over if I'm ever lucky enough to get a PS3.

CoD4 taught me that there is basically another genra of FPS games Scripted-FPS or something like that. And I love them.

Yeah, it does Lave.

Note it has three modes. Campaign is single player only. Co-op is up to 8 players, and takes place around the campaign, sharing some maps but with different content optimised for the larger number of players. Competitive has the usual FPS game types.

I haven't tried either of the last two of those, so I can't comment (and I still only have one PS3 pad, so I can't try the splitscreen out, either).

Good stuff.

Me and the Girlfriend are playing through Resident Evil 5 in co-op and it's acebest. Really papers over the cracks in the game.

8 player co-op play sounds pretty cool, if I get it we'll need to give that a shot. I still only have one PS3 pad as well (I can't justify spending that sort of money on one when I could buy a game instead!) however my younger sister buys things and gets bored of them after about a day so she got two pads for her PS3 and about a day later I 'borrowed' one. Mwa ha ha ha.

@Dr Lave I think I am too scared to give Resi 5 a shot, I don't get scared whilst playing L4D despite having a totally ridiculous fear of zombies but then I had a zombie nightmare last night
It is a shame though that it is so unusual to find games which support split screen play without limiting the features, it leads to me buying games I wouldn't normally bother about just so as my girlfriend and I can play together.

Weird, everything I've heard about this from real people (as opposed to reviews) is that it takes the excellent first game and comprehensively ruins it. The rllmuk thread, in particular, is full of fans of the first game moaning about how shit the second one is.

What are their specific criticisms? We need people who played both games. DBSnappa did, I'm pretty sure he was meh on the first one and (as he posted earlier) he loved the second.

They perhaps are best viewed as two separate games, rather than sequel and prequel, as the differences to play mechanisms and gameplay style are quite large. Certainly, from what I've read, the health system was complete changed (R1 had a traditional health bar, R2 a modern-style "duck out of sight to regnerate") and weapons management (R1 let you carry all the guns, R2 only lets you have two). I imagine you could find that very jarring when moving from one game to another. Plus they moved all the controls around.

I quite enjoyed Resistance 1, particularly the real locations featured ,and felt it was a strong game for essentially and FPS launch title. It was that easy either, which was good.

I dont feel the changes would ruin it , and its so long the control scheme and weapon mgt I cant remember anyway.

Ill get it when its cheap.

I would most certainly be interested.

My only concern is lack of a headset for online playage.

I'm really going to have to try this. The first Resistance bored me to tears to be honest, though it was pretty good for a launch game, it must be said.

the usual suspects (Play, Amazon) have a number of Bluetooth headsets for a tenner.

I had forgotten I'd need a headset, I'll need to get me one of those as well. Sounds like we could get a few of us on in the next month or so?

I'd be up for giving that a go. I need a new headset too, actually, my old Sony-Ericsson won't charge any more.

I'm DrGlyndwr on PSN.

One thing, my PS3 lives in the lounge (whereas my 360 is in the study), so I have to scrap for access to the TV sometimes. Stupid Sony, not supporting VGA output.

CoD3 did either 24 or 32 players, Frontlines did 50. Can't think of any others off the top of my head.

It could well come down to the whole dedicated server thing... Frontlines only let you do 50 players if you joined one of the dev's special servers, if you hosted on your own you could only do up to a maximum of 16.