Ah, 2006! A year pregnant with possibilities, and somehow it managed to miscarry pretty much all of them. Team U.S.A. got steamrolled at the World Cup, the girls I desired all turned out to be taken, Crash won Best Picture, and the Playstation 3 debuted with thirteen extremely expensive mini frisbees with their own cases and artwork - but only two actual video games. Call of Duty 3 was one, and Resistance: Fall of Man was the other.

   Both games turned your controller into a handheld Delorean, and both plopped you rather comfortably at a point in history fondly remembered by America as the decade that saw the rest of the world burn in flames, thus leaving the road to capitalistic world domination almost entirely uncontested. At the same time, America was still somewhat of an underdog, so the ability to experience the meteoric rise to top dog while still feeling like the scrappy chihuahua is pretty cathartic - especially if you're holding an M1 Garand. However, while one game time-traveled responsibly to ensure you got your dose of feel-good patriotism, the other callously stepped on a butterfly, accidentally eliminating Hitler and the Soviet Union, and replacing them with an alien invasion bent on turning all the humans they couldn't kill into more aliens - which I suppose isn't too far removed from what we typically perceive Nazis and Commies to be, but it sure as hell is neat. People went bananas over it, called it a killer app, and quietly refused to buy PS3s.

   Almost three years later and here I am, playing the game for the first time while plugging a serious gap in GameLemon's library of distinguished critical essays. The question: was it really that good, or was it merely the least sucky sector of the PS3's black hole of a launch catalog?

I hate contrived suspense in a review. Get on with it, you odious scribe!

   Well...seeing as I played the game years after people were desperately stabbing heroin into their eyes to convince themselves they could see a reason to buy a PS3 at launch, I think I can safely say that yes, this game does indeed kick ass, take names, and crash the funerals of every mother's son it slays.

   But let's get one thing clear: this game isn't a boundary-pushing, mind-altering, art house shooter. It is not in the same league of games as Bioshock, Half-Life, and their ilk. In fact, aside from its world, the game is quite thoroughly generic. It seems the plot exists solely to deliver gameplay sections you would really like to have in a murder simulator. Tunnel fighting? Check. Frontal assault? Check. Fighting off a swarm of face-hugger impersonators, multiple times? Check. Vehicle sections? A very, very emphatic check. And on it goes, story events unfolding as seeming excuses (and good ones at that) to engage in the sorts of gameplay mechanics you expect and want from your alien shooting games without much in the surprise department. Despite that, this game rocks. It may not aspire to much, but it does what it does well and with a surprising humility - that is, as much humility as a game that puts the fate of Britain in the hands of a single American super-soldier can have.

   Before I begin extolling this game's virtues, let's change it up a bit and start by attempting to smear its current near-saintly reputation. If you're the kind of person who'd read a review that's so late that the game could well have fossilized in the intervening time, you're probably trying to decide whether you should play the original to see if you should jump on the bandwagon and pick up it's ludicrously hyped sequel. I'm going to further assume you already know people wank off to this game and you're more interested in things that might potentially piss you off enough to demand a refund. So let's have at it!

About time we actually talked about the game! Do they pay you by the word?

So the game looks like Britney without make-up, takes away all pathfinding agency, and gives the aliens titanium heads.

   Right. But remember, I said this game rocked. And my opinion is incontrovertible.

   This game is all about weapons. The story is all right, the graphics are uninspiring, the mobility borderline infuriating, but then again it's quite obvious this game was not made with those things in mind. I'm sure the conversation that started it all went like this:

   Outside-the-box programmer: "Hey, wouldn't it be rad to have a game with experimental 1950s weapons and alien guns?"

   Head honcho: "Yeah...but don't we only know how to make cartoony robots and helmeted kangaroo mice that love creative ways of celebrating the Second Amendment, not realistic looking people and environments?"

   OTB programmer: "...so?"

   Head honcho: "Brilliant!"

   The end result of this fateful conversation is a game wherein everything feels like it was made by talented and earnest artisans totally out of their element - everything except the weapons, which were made by people who could very well craft a killing machine out of popsicle sticks, yarn, and petrified pencil erasers in their sleep.

   The arsenal includes guns that shoot blobs of explosive goop, guns that shoot through matter and get stronger the more matter you shoot through, slow-motion sniper rifles, and guns that empty their clip to create a hovering gun turret made of bullets. I repeat: a turret made of bullets. And I can't omit mentioning the grenades that turn anything within a six-foot radius into a pincushion and the grenades that are essentially portable napalm canisters.

   I can't begin to tell you how much fun it is to butcher aliens. The opponent is savvy enough to require just as much brains as brawn on your part, but just dumb enough to make performing inspired solo charges into the flanks of entire hordes of Chimera not only feasible but incredibly satisfying to pull off.

   Not to mention some extremely satisfying vehicle sections. See me not mentioning them?

Multiplayer?

   At this stage, it's a bit difficult for me to evaluate the online component. I dabbled a bit, but there is a lot of add-on content I've missed out on that I would need to purchase to really get a good sense of it in its current manifestation, and frankly I'd rather play MGO or wait for my chance to play Resistance 2 instead of paying for a bunch of add-ons for this game. Still, what I played was quite fun, hectic, and interesting, if occasionally confusing.

   The one thing I did make sure to explore was the co-op mode, which despite being a clone of the single-player campaign, was still really awesome. I've heard some complaints about this mode, but I personally don't see anything to dislike - other than it being a campaign clone. My worry originally was that it would be ludicrously easy, but it actually turned out to be just as challenging. Occasionally some sections would mysteriously invert difficulty, too. For example, there was one driving section that was more or less a cinch when I was playing through the single-player campaign, but somehow became almost as difficult as running with Sarah Palin when I played with my FPS-skilled roommate. Nothing much really changed, not that I could tell, other than the fact we kept dying as if it were our job. Point is, there is enough variety in the campaign that a second play-through with a friend is still very much worth it.

Look, a conclusion!

   You know, I thought about writing a conclusion paragraph that wrapped up my thoughts on how this game is worth playing. Then I didn't. But it is anyway.

       ... Rafael Gamboa