Resistance: Retribution (PSP) Preview

Posted by James McGee on 01.27.2009

Hands On: Sony's stand-out shooter gets the portable treatment, and I take it for a test drive.

One of the few high-profile releases for the PSP this year is Resistance: Retribution, which brings the PS3's flagship shooter series to the portable market. With software offerings for Sony's handheld so sparse, Retribution, is set to carry the hopes and dreams of PSP owners on its shoulders. So how does it hold up under scrutiny? I spent some time with the demo, and while it's a little rough around the edges, Resistance: Retribution should offer up a solid bit of action to quench gamers' thirsts during the current PSP drought.

We're given only a taste of the game's story in this demo. Players will take control of James Grayson, a British resistance fighter who has partnered with a group of French soldiers in their fight against the Chimera. Though details are sketchy, it seems Grayson's brother was a victim of Chimera conversion, and so revenge is his biggest motivator. Yeah, not a terribly original set-up, but it seems like a solid-enough justification for lots of shooty action and explosions. Players are tasked with infiltrating a Chimeran conversion center to rescue a captured comrade (alliteration rocks!). Along the way, Grayson will engage in several fire-fights against a variety of enemies, familiarizing gamers with the controls and letting them test drive a number of weapons. The demo ends with Grayson acquiring a sweet new toy (the ever-popular Auger) and facing off against a giant Chimeran mech. While blasting away at the machine will eventually bring it down, there are also some environmental attacks that hint at an open-ended style of gameplay. And thus, my brief time with Retribution came to an end.


Gray. Brown. But still beautiful.

Bringing a first-person shooter to the PSP is a tricky proposition, so Retribution takes a cue from Killzone: Liberation by pulling the camera out to a third-person perspective, while maintaining the look and feel of its big brothers on the PS3. Bend Studios—the developer behind the PSP entries in the Syphon Filter franchise—is handling the development of Retribution. As a result, anyone who has played the games from that series will find the control scheme here very familiar. The analog stick is used for movement and strafing, while the face buttons are used for looking and aiming. It's never going to replace the dual-stick set-up that has made shooters viable on consoles, but this solution works pretty well once you get use to it. The game also features an Aim-Assist to help make up for the lack of precision. It isn't perfect, as switching between targets is a little dodgy, but it works well enough, and the fast action makes it much more viable than the clunky manual aim option. In short, the shooting controls aren't great, but they're probably as good as we can expect without a second analog stick (hint, hint, Sony, as if you needed another reminder for the PSP2).

Something that does work like a dream is Retribution's cover system. Auto-cover is usually the bane of a gamer's existence, but Bend has pulled it off flawlessly. During a fire-fight, Grayson will automatically crouch behind any barrier he approaches, or press his back against any wall. He can still aim, and will automatically pop out for a shot when the fire button is pressed. Context-sensitive controls also allow him to vault over object, making movement between cover spots a breeze. Because the auto-cover isn't really "sticky," Grayson remains mobile and you never have to worry about getting stuck behind a shield if you don't want to be there. It's really a beautiful mechanic, and helps further alleviate the other control issues.


Sniping in slow-motion—as awesome as it sounds.

The weapons on display in the demo are all pretty standard shooter offerings. Automatic rifles, shotgun, rocket launchers, alien energy weapons…you know the drill. Each weapon has a secondary fire mode for added fun. The Auger's shield and sniper-rifle's time-slowing feature are the stand-out performers (the latter makes sniping the only instance where manual aim is preferable). Since the series is known for creative weapons, it's a safe bet that the arsenal will grow by the time the full game is released.

So what's the final verdict? The shooting controls are a little lacking (though probably as good as they're going to get), but everything else about Resistance: Retribution seems to be coming together very nicely. The game looks great, both during pre-rendered cut-scenes and during actual gameplay, though it does suffer from the dreaded "next-gen curse" of a brown color palette and industrial environment (maybe the final version will feature a more diverse look). I noticed that health and ammo pick-ups were ridiculously abundant (this could just be a feature of the demo), but enemies were intelligent and relentless, so balance didn't really seem to be an issue. It may not turn the gaming world on its ear, but this one is shaping up to be a solid shooter, and should help curb gamers on PSP withdrawal when it is released this March.

Screenshots
All 4 Resistance: Retribution Screenshots