Resistance 3

Resistance 3 is the final entry in the trilogy about the alien invasion of the Chimera, and at the same time the darkest game Insomniac Games made on PlayStation 3. Humanity has already lost the war. You play as Joseph Capelli, hiding underground with his family in a small American town, and when a chance appears to strike a decisive blow against the enemy, he sets out across a devastated America all the way to New York. The game's structure feels like a dark road movie: you make your way through flooded towns, mining tunnels, a river journey by boat, and abandoned industrial complexes, meeting a different group of survivors at every stop.

The gameplay deliberately returns to an older school of design. Health regeneration is gone, so you're back to collecting medkits, and above all, the weapon wheel is back, letting you carry your entire arsenal at once. This matters because Insomniac are masters of inventive weapons: shooting through walls, a trap that creates a gravity vortex, a freeze ray, or a shotgun with remotely detonated shells all form a set you genuinely want to switch between depending on the situation. Weapons also gain experience and turn into stronger versions with use. The campaign can be played in two-player co-op, and the game was among the titles that supported stereoscopic 3D on PS3.

Technically it was a solid performance: dense atmosphere, plenty of environmental detail, and impressive lighting work in the underground passages. The music and sound design push a hopeless mood, and the enemies genuinely feel hostile rather than just targets. Contemporary reviews were very good, though commercially the series could no longer compete with the genre's giants, and the third entry became its end. Today, Resistance 3 plays surprisingly well precisely because it doesn't chase the fashionable trends of its time. It's a straightforward, well-paced shooting journey with a strong identity, a properly long campaign, and one of the best-crafted endings of its era. For collectors of PlayStation 3 exclusives, it's also a mandatory stop, since you won't find the Resistance series anywhere else.