For all the consternation caused by Sony’s decision to stagger the European release of the PlayStation 3, it seems that the very people who felt slighted will actually benefit from the hiatus. The gaming press has been flooded with reports of unsold consoles and software littering the shelves in Japan and America, and while it’s difficult to tell the facts from the fiction, it is safe to assume that the launch didn’t run quite as smoothly as Sony would have liked. Much has been made of the console’s price, and while there is a credible argument for it being worth every last penny, persuading consumers to part with so much when games of true quality were so thin on the ground was always going to be a tall order.

Europe will be granted an embarrassment of riches by comparison, with, among others, Oblivion, Motorstorm and Virtua Tennis 3 immediately available to provide a level of choice and justifiable excitement that gamers in America and Japan evidently struggled to feel. This releases a considerable amount of the pressure that was applied to Resistance: Fall Of Man when the PlayStation 3 was originally launched. Given the alternatives, Insomniac had the most credible shot at providing the console with its first masterpiece, but instead of a great game the public were merely offered a very good one, and Resistance suffered from some over-zealous criticism in certain corners of the gaming press as a result.

The dissenting voices were not reacting to any great faults or mistakes on the part of the developer, rather they were an inevitable consequence of a hype machine so pervasive that many had lost the ability to keep their expectations in check or, ideally, disregard them altogether. The mystery surrounding the supposed power of the PlayStation 3 – propagated in no small part by Sony itself – created a hugely inflated sense of anticipation that was all but impossible to satisfy. Resistance did not turn out to be the second coming, and in the minds of some it felt like a promise had been broken, albeit a promise that nobody made in the first place. Gears Of War also endured some unnecessarily scathing reviews due to the enormous hype built not only by the industry but also the gaming public, whose endless discussions on forums are every bit as important to the creation of hype as the machinations of platform holders and publishers. If videogames are indeed the new rock ‘n’ roll and this generation will push them firmly into the mainstream once and for all, then this process will only become more pervasive, and if we don’t understand the way the machine works, the reputation of games like Resistance will inevitably suffer as a result.

Ultimately, Resistance is a traditional first-person shooter. It doesn’t make full use of the PlayStation 3’s potential, but there isn’t likely to be a game that does for a good few years yet. More importantly, and in direct contradiction to the beliefs of many, a game like this simply wouldn’t have been possible in any previous console generation. Perhaps we will soon see a complete revolution in gameplay, but until then it is senseless to criticise any game for not doing so. Factors like scale, physics and graphical sheen comprise the largest part of what next-generation technology actually has to offer, and fine examples of each are in evidence here. Just because Resistance doesn’t feel like nothing you’ve ever played before doesn’t mean that it’s not a step forward. From the enormous multiplayer battles and the sheer number of NPCs littering the game’s larger set-pieces, to the way that each window breaks entirely differently from the last and road signs crumple under the weight of a soldier’s boot, there are more than enough glimpses of the possibilities of the PlayStation 3’s power to satisfy.

Certainly the game feels linear, though quite how that has become equivalent to an insult when no story-based game has achieved anything more is a complete mystery to us. Resistance is a carefully structured experience, easing you in with a series of tight, claustrophobic levels before hitting you with a string of bombastic setpieces whose size seems more impressive when contrasted to what has gone before – everyone has a favourite, but we feel that ‘Outgunned’ is the level where Resistance really starts to come into its own. Insomniac is canny enough to understand that a few narrow, linear levels are vital to effectively pacing a game. This is a ride, and every good rollercoaster needs a few steady climbs and creeping lulls to make the intense moments seem that much more special.

Not that this is purely a technical showcase. The purpose of a game is to entertain, and Insomniac displays great imagination in the design of the Chimera and, more obviously, the range of weapons (see boxout). Even with a greater range of software, if you’re buying a PlayStation 3 this remains an essential purchase – an enthralling demonstration of action gaming with a smattering of nods to what the coming years might bring. Hype or no hype, right now we should expect nothing more.

Matthew Handrahan