(C-12) Final Resistance

For a system that has so few good third-person shooters, I was surprised that I had never heard of (C-12) Final Resistance, which is an unusually decent for a game on the first Playstation.. As it turns out, I probably hadn't heard of it because, in the United States, it didn't come out until 2002, nearly two years after the PS2 was out. It was made by SCE Studio Cambridge, the same developers responsible for the MediEvil series and the version of LittleBigPlanet for PSP. It was originally released in the EU in 2001, which seems more reasonable than when it came across the ocean more than a year later. I don't know why it took so long. Certainly, a game from a Sony studio released by Sony themselves could have been released sooner.

 

The first thing that surprised me about C-12 was the title theme, which was pretty high quality. Sadly most of the in-game stuff is boring ambient stuff, but oh well. The second thing that surprised me about the game were the completely reasonable controls. The left analog stick controlled the character's movement, and the right analog stick adjusted the camera. L1 cycles through weapons, R1 is a lock-on system, and R2 switches to first-person aiming. X and square are attack buttons, fire and alternate fire for example, and circle handles both crouching and other contextual actions such as climbing crates. They are a bit clunky, and it can be a bit confusing returning to third-person from first-person, but it is a lot better than most PS1 games.

 

Story is not the game's strong point. It is the typical aliens vs. elite military video game story, and cyborgs are involved some way, but it isn't all that important. The text dump at the beginning of the game is the most of the story, and the rest of the game seems to be about getting from point A to point B. Thankfully there are things like card keys and minor puzzles to keep it from being as linear as modern shooters. I am much happier having spent a dollar on this instead of sixty on some new game.

 

The graphics are pretty good for a PS1 game, though they were never going to blow anyone away. I think most of the development time must have went into making sure the main character's laser eye cast the proper dot on the environment. On the subject of lasers, this game does the strange thing of putting visible laser beams on the sights of enemy sniper rifles, which is tactically suicidal. At least it looks cool and provides an easy cue for the player. 

 

Mostly, C-12: Final Resistance seems like a missed opportunity and is a case of too little, too late. Had the game been released years earlier, in a time of games like the original Syphon Filter, it probably would have done pretty good. It may be a bit clunky and generic, but it is solid. Consider that by the time it hit US shores Metal Gear Solid 2  was already out. Maybe this was just revenge for all those games that came to the the EU so late, excuse me if I don't shed a tear over this slight. At the very least, through the virtue of being made in the UK, it is one of the few games to have real British accents, as opposed to the usual laughably bad imitations. Sorry, Cam Clarke.