Resistance 2 is like a kinky relationship — confusing and frustrating until you add a few more people, and only then a genuine blast. The sequel to 2006’s Resistance: Fall of Man, spearheads the 2008 holiday lineup for the PS3, hoping to fill the online shooter void in the console’s library, but vexing difficulty and numerous cheap deaths prevents full enjoyment Resistance 2’s single player campaign. Online, however, it can’t be beat.

The single player campaign picks up right after the end of the first game.  Series protagonist Nathan Hale — who has gained the ability to speak since the first game — is picked up by a shadowy group of governmental figures after thwarting the alien Chimera’s attempts to annihilate the human race.  Thanks to a new treatment that inhibits the progression of the Chimeran virus, Hale is placed in an entire unit of half-Chimeran soldiers dubbed the "Specter."  From here, Hale wrecks one Chimeran outpost after another, nonsensically avoiding inhibitor treatment and eventually risking complete Chimeran conversion.

The game’s characters are entirely uninteresting, serving little more purpose than to scream military jargon and absorb some gunfire. The game deals with an unexplained alien enemy as well, so plot elements seem pulled from nowhere with little explanation. The arbitrary nature of the story prevents any real involvement with the setting or characters. Intel documents sprinkled in levels attempt to add depth to the game, but they are presented in such a dry and impersonal way that it fails to make any connection. 

While Resistance 2’s narrative may not be worth much, the game does impress with scale and spectacle. A handful of events in the campaign inspire absolute awe: fighting a gigantic bipedal robot, overlooking an alien fleet complete with massive capital ships and swarming fighters, and being tossed through downtown Chicago by a 20-story tall troll. The campaign may not have a plot on par with Bioshock or Half Life, but it certainly could have survived on virtue of these events — if only the game wasn’t so damned cheap.

Resistance 2’s difficulty neuters any entertainment that could’ve been derived from the single player campaign.  Hale is incredibly fragile; less than one second of direct fire will drop him even at full health, and the player will likely be killed if caught standing in the open when a wave of enemies spawns.  An unforgiving health system isn’t the only problem. For example, one enemy in the game, the "chameleon," is invisible most of the time, except for perhaps a half-second before lunging at the player with a fatal melee attack.  If the player is looking the wrong way, reloading, or even slightly slow on the draw, Hale will die instantly. Experiences like this feel downright anachronistic in a game that’s otherwise so modern.

Progressing through the single player campaign devolves into very unsatisfying trial and error. The game offers frequent checkpoints to reduce the frustration, but relying on them is a crutch for outright poor difficulty implementation. To put it another way, a week after finishing the campaign I can still recall the four-note dissonant horn jingle that’s played upon death. I heard it that often.