For Insomniac head Ted Price Resistance 2 is more than just a sequel, it's literally a second shot. "We believe we'll set a new standard for shooters," said Price. From massive 60-player online battles to a set of cooperative missions supporting up to eight players and even a brand new single player campaign that introduces new elements, Resistance 2 shows a lot of potential.

When you start the game, you're presented with three options: campaign, cooperative, and competitive. Each is a portal to a different aspect of the game that offers unique content tied together by an overarching story. Following the events of the first game, you reprise the role of Nathan Hale as he escapes occupied Europe and journeys to a secret American facility in Iceland. It's here that the single player campaign kicks off. You discover Hale isn't the only person immune to the Chimera virus and the US government has drafted soldiers with this immunity into a Special Forces group called the Sentinels. Before much gets explained to Hale, the base comes under attack from overwhelming Chimera forces intent on destroying the facility. Towering Goliath mechanism lay waste to entire structures as you make a dash for evacuation, lobbing shots at attacking hybrids along the way. Tutorial messages pop up with instructions on how to control firearms and scramble about the base ruins, but it does little to slow the pacing of this intense escape.

The anxious tone immediately established from the game’s beginning persists through the entirety of the single player campaign and bleeds into the cooperative missions and competitive matches. Further along in the story, Hale makes a trek to the redwood forests of California in a mission entitled "Gray Territory." Switching from evacuation to infiltration, you now lead a squad of Sentinels through the towering trees into the timber town of Orick. Unfortunately, the caravan is halted by an ambush and you find yourself forced to hike through a wilderness infested with never-before-seen Chimera foes. Cloaked Chameleons stomp about the forest and lash out with sharp claws, disappearing as soon as they've finished terrorizing. A quiet walk along a small stream turns into a bloody encounter with these new beasts, a beautifully rendered fog only heightening the suspense. Chimera drones taking aim from above proved troublesome in the hike to Orick too. Walking through the photo-realistic forest means using tree trunks as cover from the shots fired from these robotic scouts.

Upon reaching the town which has been obliterated by Chimera forces, the already intense pacing ratchets up with a tough battle against a lumbering Titan. Once the fiend goes down the fighting doesn't stop with a difficult sequence involving Auger-equipped hybrids capable of shooting through walls. Having played the original, you'll recognize several returning firearms including the Auger, Carbine, Laark, Bullseye, and Rossmore. A new Magnum pistol that can fire explosive rounds has been added, which of course makes blasting Chimera pretty easy. Additionally, the Fareye sniper rifle has been replaced by the Marksman.

Naturally all of these weapons are available in multiplayer, both cooperative and competitive. Depending on your class, however, you need to work with teammates to accomplish objectives in both modes. Resistance 2 organizes players into classes as a means of structuring its enormous competitive matches; moreover, it serves to tie players together in cooperative missions since class-based characters force cooperation for survival. Medics, for instance, are necessary to keep soldiers and special ops alive, but medics will get slaughtered without the firepower of a soldier there to save their butts. With a possible eight players banding together for cooperative play, these classes require actual cooperation and discourage moving too far ahead of your compatriots. Tackling a mission entitled "Holar Tower," working together was the only way to infiltrate the Chimera facility and slaughter the inhabiting forces.