Saving New York in Resistance: Burning Skies

The last time I was lucky enough to play new content in Resistance: Burning Skies, FDNY firefighter Tom Riley was busy laying into some Chimera invading the eastern coast of the United States. As I remarked then, this PlayStation Vita title looked good, but more importantly, it felt great. The Vita's dual analog sticks make all of the difference, pushing Burning Skies forward as a bona fide FPS that feels like you're controlling it on a console.

This time around, the content I played had more context than the run-and-gun nature of what I saw in Germany this past summer. Burning Skies takes place in 1951, sometime after the events of Resistance: Fall of Man. With Europe (and most of the rest of the world) subjugated, the Chimera have taken aim at North America. Their weapons are drawn across the Hudson River, and the Chimera are looking to send in more of their forces into New York City. But our hero doesn't intend on letting that happen without a fight.

You see, Riley is concerned about all of the civilians stranded on the George Washington Bridge between the human forces and the approaching Hybrids. The powers that be want to blow the bridge up to prevent the Chimera from advancing, and that may very well happen when all is said and done. But as a firefighter, Riley's first order of business is to save those civilians. Instead of staying off the bridge, he runs headlong into the fray, running into a significant Chimeran onslaught in the process.

This section of the game felt decidedly more difficult than the one I played several months ago, mostly because it takes place near the middle of the Burning Skies' campaign. The gunplay still felt great, though, and taking aim at the Chimeran Hybrids as they advanced on me was quite satisfying. Much like I would in Resistance 3, aiming for the Hybrids' heat stacks makes them easier targets, and while the aiming isn't quite up to snuff when compared to Insomniac's latest effort, I was still able to hold my own.

The environments were dilapidated and hectic, as you might expect in a situation such as this. Yet, a waypoint system appears on-screen that lets you know where to go next, which is quite helpful. Complementary control options help make-up for Vita's lack of R2 and L2 functionality as well as clickable analog sticks, which is also nice. Crouching is done with the circle button, for instance, while grenades are tossed and your melee weapon (a fire ax) swung with on-screen touch controls directly next to where your right thumb is sitting on the analog stick.

While I'm not typically into what I would deem gimmicky touch controls, Burning Skies' touch controls are actually necessary because the buttons that would usually let you perform certain tasks in the PS3 Resistance titles don't exist on the PlayStation Vita. Throwing grenades feels natural, especially because you can point where you want them to go. And with the Auger equipped -- a famous Resistance weapon that allows you to shoot through walls -- I was able to throw its secondary function, a blast shield, on-screen by putting my fingers on the OLED screen and drawing a straight line. It may sound weird, but it's strangely fluid and functional.

Likewise, the weapon wheel that appeared in Resistance 3 has been recreated in Burning Skies, and it too is brought up with the triangle button. Press the button rapidly to bring up a recently-used weapon, or hold it down to freeze the action and carefully choose from your arsenal. Typical Resistance weapons were available for me to use, including the Carbine and aforementioned Auger, but an all-new Chimeran sniper rifle made an appearance as well.

Resistance: Burning Skies easily remains as one of my most-anticipated PlayStation Vita games, not only because I'm a big fan of Resistance's deep mythology and solid gameplay, but because Burning Skies will hopefully represent a trend moving forward, one where first-person shooters can find a comfortable home on a handheld. I can't stress enough how great playing a true FPS on a handheld is. Resistance: Burning Skies is coming out sometime in 2012 (Sony wouldn't nail down an exact date or timeframe with me), so we hopefully won't have to wait too much longer to see more of Tom Riley's adventure in between the events of Resistance and Resistance 2.

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