Nowadays, every console launch seems to need an FPS in its line-up (cheers, Halo!), and with the PS3 comes Insomniac’s latest offering, Resistance: Fall of Man.

Set in an alternate timeline, Resistance takes place in our World, but not quite as we know it. Large chunks of the planet, starting with Russia, have been growing ever quieter since the 1930s, and no-one can offer any explanation as to why. Evidence suggests that Russia has developed some sort of super-weapon-gone-bad, but the truth, it turns out, is much worse.

Very quickly, almost the whole World is overrun by six-eyed, gun-toting humanoid creatures, dubbed the "Chimera", which infect humans with their virus, and then harvest their comatose bodies to create new troops for their cause. No-one knows whether they’re aliens, mutants, or just disgruntled civil servants in costumes, but they know one thing: They need to be stopped. Fast.

And that’s where you come in. It’s 1951, and up until now, the US has been in complete isolation, not wanting anything to do with the World’s overwhelming problems. Finally though, on a promise of an exchange of vital information in return for their assistance, they open their doors and ship a regiment out to England - one of the few places left that is yet to be toppled by the Chimeran onslaught - to aid in the fight against this threat to the planet. One important member of said regiment is, of course, you: Sgt. Nathan Hale. You are thrown straight into the fight, and this is where you should be taking your cue to get moving, get tooled up, and get rid of anything that isn’t wearing shoes!

Unfortunately, as exciting as that sounds, Resistance is a bit slow to start. The controls feel all wrong, there’s no weight at all to your character, and you die very quickly. Thankfully (even moreso if this is the only game you bought with your expensive new PS3) all of these issues are easily fixed: Remap the controls, turn the sensitivity right down, and...well, get better, and everything’s fine and dandy again. The level design soon picks up after the first couple of tutorial-esque stages, and everything just snaps into place. From here, you realise that Resistance has a quality that’s becoming rarer by the release date - it makes you want to play to the end. Every new weapon you pick up, every tidbit of story, every set-piece, it all drives you to keep your console on just a little longer. Not only that, but when it’s finished, you just want to start it again. And thankfully, you’re given a new difficulty level to do it on. And then after that, you’re faced with the "Superhuman" difficulty, which challenges every last ounce of skill you can muster - perfect for the gamer that likes a challenge.

Being an Insomniac game (whose previous outings include Disruptor and the Ratchet & Clank series), the weapons are excellent - there’s a sniper rifle that can slow down time, a machine gun that fires mini-turrets that can hang in midair, a rocket launcher whose rockets can be redirected in-flight, a Chimeran semi-automatic that can fire around corners, and once you’ve completed the game once, you unlock a full new set of weapons that can be used in conjunction with the original eight, making a second play-through of the game much less of a stale experience than most.

Despite the decision not to support 1080p, Resistance looks gorgeous. It’s hard to keep being impressed by graphics since Gears Of War blew everyone away last year, but Resistance, armed with its first-person viewpoint and some spectacular smoke and lighting effects, not to mention some genuinely lovely-looking environmental damage, manages to pull it off. Even up-close, both the environments and the enemies look gorgeous (in a hideous sort of way, of course), and it all gets you wondering just how good things will look over the next few years, when developers get more settled in with the new hardware. The sound is brilliantly implemented as well - the music is fairly understated, mainly orchestral, but the sound effects really make everything come to life, especially through a decent 5.1 setup. Bullets whiz past your ears, gunfire from far-away battles is almost always there, like a very gentle reminder that even when you’re not shooting at something, you’re still in a warzone, and the butt of your gun makes a very satisfying thud as it hits a Chimeran footsoldier square in the face.

As well as being one of the longest console-FPSes available (about twelve hours or so on first play-through, which is pretty good by the genre’s standards) Resistance comes complete with a 40-man (or indeed, woman) online mode. Pretty standard fare, but all of the weapons from the single-player campaign are available, your character is customisable, and there’s not a jot of lag, even when the room is full! Unfortunately, the lack of voice-chat really cripples this, and even when there are forty of you, it still feels like a very solitary experience. Not to say that it’s not a fun one, because it is, but you can’t help but feel spoiled by Microsoft’s wonderful Xbox Live service sometimes. That said, you can’t really complain about a free service, can you?

Overall, Resistance is a really nice little package, and it’s certainly a worthwhile companion to your new PS3. If you like FPSes, and you enjoy a bit of a challenge, then this is definitely worth giving a chance. A bit of perseverance is required to see you through the opening stages of the game, but when it all comes together, you’ll be glad you made the effort.