Resist or Serve definitely captures the mood and style of the series, but lacks the polish of a good video game.
Some of the gameplay mechanics are different but don’t add anything to game. For example anytime you want to interact at all your character will stop and put their gun away pick up an item for then proceed to pull it out again, which isn’t realistic and can hurt you when your trying to get a health back and enemies are attacking you. This and a few other types of aspects placed into the game really slow things down and make a lot of simple things take more time then they really should. Everything else in the game is the same plain Jane stuff you’re going to see in a horror game such as combining items to solve puzzles. You can use Mulder or Scully to complete the episodes in the game and both are different versions of the events, but are not that different. I played the game back to back and completed both versions of the game. While there is new material in both there is a lot more of the same. You do the same parts together in both versions, which makes sense, but the biggest and most accurate synopsis of what each do is basically go to the same areas as the other but in different order. The AI is pretty bad and it doesn’t make for very fin boss fights because the creators of the game have to resort in really cheap tactics to provide challenges that are more frustrating the fun.
All your favorite X-Files personalities are in the game but you might not notice them because the character models are so bad looking. This is easily the worst looking part of the game. The enemies actually for the most part look better then the regulars but they are poorly defined and aren’t trying to look like anyone in particular. The environments look decent enough but like everything else in the game it just needs more work. The animations are pretty lousy and just look kind of bad and under completed.
The best thing that this game has to offer is easily the sound of the game. Written by the original writers of the series and voice acted by the actual cast from the X-Files, presents a true model of the series to this game. The banter back and forth between Mulder and Scully is the same kind of priceless stuff you’d hear in the glory days of the series. It also uses the same soundtrack from the show, which really adds a good atmosphere and captures the shows mood and emotion quite well. The only part of the sound which isn’t top notch would be the sound effects of the game, that aren’t bad and some are good but other needed to be redone.
You can get through this game in roughly six to eight hours depending on how long it takes you to beat the toughest bosses. Mulders final boss fight is a five-part death fest and is basically impossible. You can spend a lot of time on this and there isn’t a save point that’s not well before this. There is a replay value, to play as the other character, but you definitely don’t want to do this right away because the two versions are just to similar to each other to make it interesting. You’re better off waiting a year or two to get both sides of the stories.
Overall, the game captures the style of The X-Files in a lot of ways and is worth checking out for fans of the series. I would imagine anyone who isn’t a fan of the show would want to play through this unpolished game that only provides nostalgia to avid fans of the series. Personally I would have preferred the three episodes be different unrelated topics, but the three-part story is ok too. The worst part about the story is that is basically a zombie shooter, which is way to played out in horror games. I would have been cool with one of the episodes being like this but all three feels like a bad Resident Evil clone that I already played. The last thing I can say about the game is that it’s a lot like the Futurama game where an under polished game with not much merit as a game to play and doesn’t give a real great experience as a game, but does capture and present great moments from the series that fans will get a kick out of.