Resistance: Fall of Man - hands-on

In addition to being a huge, weapons-rich action blowout, Resistance: Fall of Man is the story of one man, Nathan Hale.

Our introduction to Hale was in a cutscene in which he and his company are overwhelmed by hundreds of vicious little arthropods while patrolling a outside a city. These little critters turn out to be the carriers of the Chimera Virus, and we watched as about a dozen of them wormed their way down Hale's throat. But while the virus normally causes a coma, Hale actually wakes up afterward, and nobody knows why. Nobody knows how much time he has left, either. Will he die? Will he get superpowers? Or will he turn into a monstrous, playable hybrid, like the main character in Quake 4?

Probably not, but we're looking forward to finding out. So is the game's actual protagonist, British Intelligence officer Rachel Parker. You won't play as Rachel (as far as we know, anyway) but the game does unfold from her perspective. Resistance, it turns out, actually begins after Hale's mysterious disappearance, and it's Rachel's job to reconstruct exactly what happened to Hale over the last three days he was seen alive. The story will unfold investigation-style, with Rachel learning about key events that in turn give way to flashbacks in the form of the game's missions.

However the story shapes up, Resistance: Fall of Man is already an impressive piece of work, as well as the only PS3 launch game that so far makes us even think that shelling out $600 might be a good idea. It's not re-inventing the genre, but it looks great and plays even better, so expect to see lots more as we get closer to November 17.