Entry #670: Resistance - Burning Skies

 Back when games where brown and grey.

 Burning Skies is an odd one. Back when the Vita was first announced, one of its main selling points was having AAA experiences on the go, and back then First-person shooters where in vogue and a handheld with two analog sticks was the bees knees, so of course the Vita had to had a few first person shooters! Resistance - Burning Skies was one such game, which arrived to a somewhat lukewarm reception. Well, I'm here to tell ya that it ain't bad at all.

 The game has two modes, Online Multiplayer, which of course nobody is playing, and a short 6-level single player campaign. I quite liked my time through the game, each stage is widely different form one another, even if every single stage is either brown, grey or somewhere in-between, making for rather boring environments. The story itself I found passable at best, with a few of Riley's, the main character, interactions with his daughter in the final chapters of the game laughably bad. The game looks relatively good, although there were a few jarry polygons here and there. One level failed to load textures, so I killed myself in order for the game to correct itself. On the other hand, it's surprisingly and satisfyingly gory, watching the enemy chimerae explode into chunky bits felt great. The game is quite manageable, although the final level had a few very tough segments that I could only clear thanks to abusing grenades in order to make enemies panic and give me some breathing room. The last boss while simple to figure out was quite a bastard too.

 I really liked the weaponry in this game. I know for a fact that at least one of the weapons came from the home-console games(The wall-penetrating Auger) so I'm not sure how many, if any, weapons are original to this game. Each weapon has a main fire and an alternate fire, and while it's not as unique as Painkiller, weapons tend to have interesting alternate fires. As you go through the game you'll collect alien technology cubes which can then be spent in upgrading your weapons. There's a total of six different upgrades per weapon, but you can only carry two at a time. You can override your pick at any time if you have a spare cube. None of the upgrades, at least the ones I purchased felt too impactful, although having my shotgun blast both rounds on a single shot gave me the added horsepower a berserker Rambo like me needs.

 Now onto the controversial, touch-controls. Alternate fire is done by touching the screen. Quick-melee attacks are done by tapping the Axe icon, and grenades are shot by dragging the grenade icon onto the desired point. Also, interacting with objects is done by pressing the touchscreen. That's a lot of different functionalities tied to a single mechanic. Yes, you will occasionally use your alternate fire when trying to open a door or pick-up a wounded soldier, hopefully you won't be carrying the Carbine and kill yourself when you accidentally shot a grenade round instead of opening the door. I never killed myself this way, but I read about a few people that did. Also, as anyone who is unlucky enough to read this knows I love using melee in any game that lets me, so I abused that axe icon like there was no tomorrow and I never had the game register that input incorrectly, so the controls are fine, it's just that the 'open door' icon is a bit too small and it might move as you get closer to a door causing you to press another area and use your gun's alternate fire.

 If the game had one huge flaw besides how bland it looks it's how the quick toggle works. Y'see, holding down the triangle button will have the weapon wheel show up on screen so that you can pick your weapon, fair enough. Tapping the triangle button, however, will switch between your whichever two weapons you used last. That's fantastic, and works well enough... except when you die and reload your checkpoint or even after you upgrade a weapon: The game will just forget what was your other quick-toggle weapon, which can be a bit annoying the first few times it happens and your character won't switch out with the other weapon, but once you figure it out you'll prepare yourself after it resets.

 I enjoyed my time with Burning Skies. It is pretty basic, and the art-design is pretty uninspired, but the gameplay is fast, tight and, above all, fun. The nice amount of variety when it comes to weaponry was pretty welcome too, I don't remember the last time I felt comfortable just switching between every single weapon in an FPS. And, if anything, the shotgun feels great, and any first-person shooter that gets the shotgun right is A-OK in my book.
 6.5 out of 10