Insomniac: Fans believe Resistance 2 'was a failure'
Reaction on popular forum NeoGAF felt like 'a dog turning on you'.
Hardcore Resistance fans believe PS3 exclusive first-person shooter Resistance 2 "was a failure", according to developer Insomniac.
That's the stark admission from senior community manager James Stevenson, who told VideoGamer.com in a wide-ranging interview that long term fan feedback "weighed" on him.
Resistance 2, released in November 2008, managed impressive review scores. Tom gave it an 8/10 in his review, calling it "a solid FPS, with moments of brilliance and some top notch multiplayer modes". At the time of writing, the game's sitting pretty on an 87 Metacritic score.
For Insomniac, however, negative fan feedback suggested Resistance 2 didn't turn out as good as the US developer had hoped.
"Resistance 2 got better reviews than Resistance 1," said Stevenson. "But the long term fan feedback from that game weighed on me.
"The hardcore fans of Resistance 1 were maybe a little bit disappointed. Those folks consistently expressing that - especially GAF [NeoGAF] - it was like your dog turned on you," Stevenson explained.
"That's the feeling of it. You had this dog that loved you. You loved the dog, too, but they expressed all this affection for you. And then suddenly the dog bites your hand and it's that feeling of, ooh, ow, that really hurts.
"The critics loved Resistance 2. Some people didn't like it, but for the most part… And the Metacritic's higher than Resistance 1. So we got better reviews than Resistance 1, but the overall opinion of it is that it was a failure by fans, that Resistance 2 was a failure, because maybe the expectations were so high for it.
"But that weights on you more. We talk to journalists a lot but we deal with our fans every day - and when they are disappointed… Reviewers are playing lots of games. They're supposed to be critical.
"But the people who put their money down on our game, want to see our game be good and want to invest months of their time into our game, spend months of their time leading up to our game watching videos, reading about it, sending us questions, listening to our podcasts, investing hours and hours and being excited for our game, if they're disappointed then it hurts more than some reviewer being pissy about a game and giving it a seven, well, okay, whatever. I can move on from that. I can ignore that. But fans that are genuinely disappointed are a lot harder to cope with."
Were you disappointed with Resistance 2? Let us know in the comments section below.
User Comments
Interloper@ renegade
It wasn't a sequel. It was an entirely different game sharing a few bad guys and a title. I've never been so pissed off and disappointed.
In a move of galling hubris, Insomniac took a giant chunk of what made the original interesting and different and chucked it out. What's worse, you could tell they did so out of some cowardly, lame attempt to appease critics.
"How come the game's not colorful? It's all grey and stuff. This sucks."
Boom. No more of the cool faded-color motif of the original. Instead, we get the same damned graphics every other friggin' game has. Genius.
"How come Hale can carry around, like, a dozen guns at once? That's not realistic. That sucks."
Boom. You get to carry, like, one gun. And there's no longer any cool progression as you get better and better guns over the course of the game. No awesome second-replay unlocking of bigger, badder, weirde4r guns. Instead, you use whatever's on the ground near you. Just like practically every other shooter in the universe. Genius.
"How come if the chimera regenerate, you don't just regenerate all the way? Those yellow vials are like healing potions. ANd this isn't a fantasy game. So that's stupid."
Boom. Now we get the same ()*&%*(& "hide and you gradually heal up" system every other game in the universe has. Yawn. Morons.
I would've happily paid $50 for a game that didn't change a single thing -- for, basically, a map pack that gave me the same quantity of levels and gameplay time as the original. You wouldn't even have to throw in any new guns (though I obviously would enjoy it if they did). But no. I get a game that's exactly what retarded reviewers who play so many shooters that any departure from the norm serves as a hassle for them rather than a breath of fresh air want: Gener-o-shooter set in the interesting mileu of Resistance 1.
I can't even begin to describe how pissed off and disappointed I was and continue to be, all this time later. Insomniac betrayed me with this game. If it hadn't been a Christmas gift, and if I hadn't therefore tried to pretend to like it lest I disappoint my wife, I would've returned it and demanded my money back. When you do a sequel, your fans deserve, at the very least, a game that has SOMETHING to do with the original.
What the hell is wrong with the people at Insomniac? What the hell is wrong with the reviewers who voted the milquetoast generic sequel *higher* than the brilliant, engaging original? Is it really so much to ask that we find some reviewers somewhere who play the game like regular players -- y'know, for fun -- and base their reviews accordingly, rather than basing their reviews on powering through the game because it's just one of 7 (or 70) they have to review this month?
kentuckyfried
I just finished it right before Uncharted 2, and I gotta say...after nearly a 1 year wait before completing the game, I feel like I shouldn't have even bothered. R2's single player campaign was terrible.
I loved the customizable controls but that's about it. I really didn't like:
(1) removal of the weapon wheel - that's what made the first so much fun. This isn't COD4, after all
(2) Nearly complete lack of character development - I couldn't give a s*** about Nathan Hale or his team, or any other person in this story.
(3) Weak story/confusing plot progression/incohesive narrative
(4) Stupid, depressing ending
(5) Lame QTE-like moments to survive; these really killed the momentum of the game
I can't say that Resistance 1 was written that much better, but it stayed together with Parker narrating. R2 lost something along the way (outside of the wheel).
jakeistheman
dudester
As for Jake I made my points clear I thought earlier in the discussion? if you would like me to clarify them then please let me know.
rbevanx@ jakeistheman
"well if you didn't find it entertaining why read it you have already said you think its a stupid argument so why continue this you have essentially created another stupid argument after i ended the other."
So if I read the first page of a novel, I know by that one page it's gonna be rubbish. Great thinking there
"how was i supposed to know you were dyslexic if i knew i would've spaced."
No that was my personal fault but re-reading my post that came out wrong (sorry), it's just hard to read your post that way.
"And finally (again) about the middle part of my third post i tried to explain that most people probably saw the way the argument was going and how i couldn't understand why you kept reading."
No it started fine and I expected people to ignore the silly comments but that didn't happen, hence my comment.
jakeistheman
well if you didn't find it entertaining why read it you have already said you think its a stupid argument so why continue this you have essentially created another stupid argument after i ended the other.
how was i supposed to know you were dyslexic if i knew i would've spaced.
And finally (again) about the middle part of my third post i tried to explain that most people probably saw the way the argument was going and how i couldn't understand why you kept reading.
rbevanx@ jakeistheman
I also found your post quite hard to read, as there were no spaces between your sentances and I'm dyslexic which dosen't help tbh.
And I assume I "didn't read that part or you didn't see it that way".
jakeistheman
rbevanx
"if you feel its a stupid conversation why post in it"
Becuase I read it and there was a reply button for me to reply and would only take seconds to comment back, like this reply back to you.
"why read it i presume you could see the way it was going"
I can't predict the future.
jakeistheman
rbevanx@ dudester
Co-owners + Benitez= No hope to win the title.
dudester
rbevanx@ dudester
thompo555@ dudester
dudester
:p