New Resistance Title Heading to the PS Vita

Insomniac game’s Resistance series is making an appearance on Sony’s upcoming handheld. Who would have guessed it?

Resistance: Burning Skies has a pleasant surprise in store for those people tired of playing as faceless soldier types, you get to play as a fireman. Of course Tom Riley, the game’s entirely new protagonist, is a videogame fireman, which means less time spent putting out fires, rescuing cats from trees and posing nude for calendars and more time spent shooting aliens in the face with various scavenged weapons.

And shoot aliens in the face he does. Riley starts the demo with just his trusty fire axe, which, in an interesting use of the Vita’s touch screen technology, can be accessed instantly via a virtual button on the right side of the screen. After using his axe to open a door (fireman remember?) and separate a Chimeran hybrid from the majority of its limbs, Riley manages to acquire his first gun. A gun which, I feel honor bound to mention, just happens to shoot rockets. While the addition of a second analog stick on the Vita is obviously a boon for shooter fans, as demonstrated by the quick and precise marksmanship present in the demo, I wouldn’t discount the effectiveness of the touch screen when it comes to alien homicide either. A simple touch of the screen allows Riley to throw grenades with a surprising degree of accuracy while a longer swipe lets him mark enemies for salvos of homing rockets.

The game’s cover system also seems pretty slick, allowing the player to slide in an out of cover without tethering them to it. Cover can be a sticky issue for first person games and very few seem to have got it just right, but Resistance: Burning Sky takes a novel approach. Tilting the Vita forwards or lifting it up will cause Riley to peek out from cover in various directions but if motion controls aren’t your thing, you can also lean out by aiming or pressing the fire button. Options are always nice.

Anyway, take a peek at the demo above.

Exciting isn’t it? While I’m still not convinced the PS Vita needs as many touchscreen and motion sensing doodads as it has, especially given its $250 dollar price tag, shooting rockets with your fingertips is just cool. Maybe not $250 cool, but cool.