Resistance Retribution is a solid game that features a control scheme that mostly succeeds!
The story is much more fleshed out than the console games in the franchise. You play as James Grayson, a mercenary who after having to kill your own brother, abandon the British army and end up working with the french resistance. Europe has been invaded by the chimera and are converting the humans in their conversion facilities. James wants revenge for his brothers' death, and will stop at nothing to kill all the chimera. The set-up is fine, and even though the characters aren't the best, the story still provides motivation to play the entire game.
The controls are the big deal here. You use the face buttons to control the camera, the analog nub to move Grayson, and the direction pad to switch weapons, reload, and perform actions. And despite the pesky camera, and steep learning curve, the controls do eventually work. The auto-aim has a big part as manual aiming can be extremely difficult to pull off during big firefights. The game will auto-lock onto the closest enemies, although it will occasionally go funky on you. You can press up on the direction pad to enter manual aim, which can be useful when you have a straight line of enemies heading for you. Some weapons like the rocket launcher and sniper rifle have secondary uses to make thinks easier, as these weapons don't use auto-aim. The sniper rifle can slow down time making head shots a breeze, and rocket launcher allows you to pause the projectile in mid flight and redirect it.
Once you learn the controls, Resistance Retribution is a lot of fun to play. Over the course of the 10 hour campaign, you'll run into health packs and ammo as well as collectables and earn skill points which are basically achievements/trophies on the consoles. Resistance Retribution uses the health pack system and not regenerating health, like many other shooters do. There are several different kinds of guns to use and some of them have secondary uses like grenade launchers and shields. Assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, and chainguns are all here to use. It's fun to shoot chimera in the head with all the weapons.
Resistance Retribution is very impressive visually. The textures are solid, but the lighting effects are the most impressive. The frame-rate holds up most of the time with minor slow down in spots, but character models during cutscenes look great. The only real criticism visually, is that the game could really use more variety in the environments as each area starts to feel the same after a while. Of course, you have to keep in mind this is a PSP game, not a PS3 game! The audio is terrific in Retribution. The voice overs are mostly great and do a great job of bringing the characters to life. The sound effects and explosions sound great and the music is top-notch.
Resistance Retribution also has an extensive multiplayer mode with several different modes and offers extensive replayability in the campaign thanks to all those collectibles. The game, despite its tough camera and lack of visual variety, still manages to provide a worthwhile portable experience. Sony bend has made a shooter that actually works on the PSP and should be applauded for their efforts.
Visuals- 7.5
Audio- 8
Controls-7.5
Replay- 8
Gameplay- 7.5
Multiplayer- Not played
Overall- 7.5