Halo: Reach vs Resistance 3

Gears of War 2, Halo 3, Forza Motorsport 3... Killzone 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Resistance 2... These six games all have something in common; they're console exclusives. They have proven that they sell very well in their own way, ranging from 2 million sales on day one, to around 10 million in a few months. These six games are also sequels or prequels from previous well-known games to the gaming community.
What makes these exclusives any better than other exclusives or multiplatform games? What differentiates an exclusive game on one console to another? How does an exclusive gain so much hype and sell so well at launch? The answers to these three questions vary from fanboy to fanboy, usually being "because it has better graphics", or "because Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 is the best" (also, these things are commonly said by these fanboys even before a game is released).
In this article, the comparison between two games that are not even out yet will be made. Before we decide which two games we will see go face to face, lets take a look at the above list of those six games. Which two games on both consoles really, and I mean REALLY, stand out? Since this article is mostly based on unbiased opinions and facts, the obvious answer would be Halo 3. Sure, you might say it's an opinionated answer, but the Halo series is definitely one of the most played and most successful series on the Xbox consoles.
As for the PlayStation 3, we need to pick a game that has also lots of players and has been a successful series since its first game. Of course, Uncharted was quite successful, and its sequel even more, but if I am to compare a FPS with another game, that game has to be a FPS as well, just to make this comparison fair. Today, I will take the Resistance series. Are you still expecting a biased article? Don't worry, there is no biased information in here at all. You can call us Microsoft or Sony fanboys for all I care, if it makes you happy...
As I've said before, I'm going to compare two games that have no release date at all, no screenshots, no videos, nothing (Hell, one of them hasn't even been confirmed yet). Right now, I will compare Halo: Reach and Resistance 3 on three different aspects that might make up your decision on which console to buy this Christmas, if you haven't got one already.

Let's start off with expected sales, since recently, that's what most people care about these days. Taking a look at statistics, Halo: Combat evolved came out in mid-November 2001 and from there to early April of the next year, 1 million units had been sold to Xbox consumers. As of early November 2005, 5 million copies had been sold. Tell me that's not successful. I agree, it wasn't the perfect game, but it sold so well around the world that a sequel just had to be made, thus Bungie gave us Halo 2. In four years, Halo 2 sold 8.46 million copies over the globe, 3/4 of those being sold only in the US, which shows where this game is more popular and successful. Halo 3 alone, from its launch date until today, has sold over 10.30 million copies worldwide. If that's not successful, I don't know what is. Just to add icing to the cake, Halo 3 ODST sold around 3.13 million copies in less than a month (let's not mention Halo Wars' sales...).
While not being too big on sales, PS3 games have had not so much luck since the console has been out. With 3.63 million and 1.68 million sales for Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2 respectively, Insomniac Games had the right to be disappointed about the sales. Though the PS3 gaming community is smaller than the Xbox 360's, the numbers are not really surprisingly low, at least for Resistance: Fall of Man, which was a launch title. There wasn't as many sales for Resistance 2, god knows why (disappointed PS3 owners?), but that doesn't stop Insomniac from making a sequel to boosts its sales, which could look real good for the PS3.
The winner here is definitely the Halo series. Resistance: Fall of Man was a very good launch title, but could not compare to Halo even after being out for only 3 years. It could however probably beat the first Halo's sales, but after seeing what Halo 3 has achieved in its own sales, there's no denying that Halo: Reach will sell a lot more than Resistance 3.

Let's take a look at what single player will offer, in terms of story and a bit of gameplay. Leaving us with quite a cliff hanger at the end of Halo 3 in Legendary mode, Xbox 360 gamers were quite excited to know what would happen next in the Halo series. Unfortunately, the trilogy had to end right there. Luckily for Halo fans, Halo: Reach was announced a bit after Halo 3: ODST. Anyone who has read the first book called Halo: The Fall of Reach will know that Reach was a military planet where they used to train Spartan soldiers to send in combat and stealth missions. Back then, there was more than only one Spartan; there was a whole bunch. They teamed up together and took part in these missions to fight against the covenant.
Without spoiling too much, the book does end very well, and with the book being years before the first Halo signifies that Halo: Reach will definitely be a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved. Creating a co-operative mode with Halo: Reach would be easy as pie. If there were many Spartans back then, it would be safe to say that co-op would feature four Spartans fighting together and using stealth mechanics and team work to complete objectives. It could also be the first game in the Halo series where we will see the Master Chief's real face, since he was sent to planet Reach for his transformation. Not a lot can be said about the story, but speculations can be made. As for the gameplay, if Bungie uses the same engine as Halo 3, we will probably see the same thing as before, only with a new color palette and differently looking levels.
People who have played through Resistance 2's single player will know that there just had to be a threequel added to the series, it was definitely hinted. Not a lot can be said about the story without spoiling the end, though, only that this guy has this thing that he got from this other guy and he does this one thing that he's not supposed to do... Who knows what time period you'll play this time? I personally would love to see maybe a present setting, rather than staying in the past in the World Wars. New guns, interesting story (since Aliens will start taking over Earth, or Mars, or create portals on Mars to go to other planets resembling Earth... these are still speculations), anything is pretty much possible once you've got Alien things in your game. Gameplay could change a lot in terms of graphics and the way you may navigate through levels, or how the bosses are varied.
Though you have to finish Resistance 2's campaign mode to understand what I'm talking about, the story does seem to get really, really interesting in the end, which just screams out: "TRILOGY ALERT". Halo: Reach just sounds a lot more interesting for Halo fans, but from what we've seen from ODST's gameplay, it hasn't changed much from Halo 3. Let's give this point to Resistance 3 for the effort it took in making a great looking game with a really surprising ending. Halo 3 had its own well executed ending as well, but Halo: Reach is a prequel and does not follow Halo 3's storyline; it goes back.

What about multiplayer? Halo's evolution in the Xbox Live community has grown significantly, sporting up thousands and thousands of players online every day. There will always be a multiplayer match being played somewhere around the world until Xbox Live goes down or Microsoft and Bungie decide not to let users play Halo 3 on Live anymore, which will not happen anytime soon. As well as having so many players to play with and against online, the game itself is just fun. What keeps people playing Halo 3 is its addictive multiplayer matches and the goal to get the highest rank in Halo 3. It's definitely a beast of a multiplayer game, and only a few other games do almost as good as Halo does.
Having 60 players in one match is already an achievement for a video game developer. Imagine having a hundred, or even two hundred. We're definitely capable of doing something like this, maybe not in this generation of video games, but if Resistance 3 comes out on the PS4, there could be possibilities. Kind of like MAG, which already supports 250 players on one map, though this game concentrates on multiplayer matches only. Having other modes than just deathmatch would be interesting to see in Resistance 3.
Resistance 2's multiplayer does feature a whole lot of people online in one match, but MAG still does better than this. Resistance 2's multiplayer modes are not as varied as Halo 3's, featuring such modes as deathmatch, team deathmatch and a capture the flag variant. Halo 3 wins in this category for being extra fun for lots of people and very populated all the time.

Unsurprisingly for many people, Halo: Reach finishes this fight. It'll have good sales like always, its story will be reminiscing for a lot of Halo fans, and its multiplayer will stay golden since Combat Evolved. Resistance 3 will surely sell but just not as much, the story might be very interesting so I have no idea what's in store for us, and its multiplayer will include a lot of players. If you own both consoles, and both Halo: Reach and Resistance 3 come out, buy both. That's all I can say for now.



This has been a message from EPiC FUiL.

[Saaking]

Resistance 3 obviously. It's PS3 exclusive after all.

[espiritu604]

Y compare resistance 3 when theres no commercials or even an image of the gameplay yet!?! Y think u know the person when you never even heard of him? I bet resistance 3 would win.

[thedisagreefairy]

but comparing 2 games that arent going to be released for like another year is kind of well...idk

i personally liked resistance 2's story alot. but there is alot of room for improvement. if they make it more story driven and less go here finish mission then quick cutscene showing you go to another place, then it could have a really compelling storyline.

they have set up so many ideas in R2, that they have plenty of material for R3.

for multiplayer, if they keep it at a 60 limit and have more focused mission objectives like killzone 2 did, and also make little cutscenes for the 8 player squad coop that show why they are doing stuff (like uncharted 2) instead of intel documents, then we are looking at a potential rival to halo multiplayer.
i doubt they will have campaign coop because it will mess up the story.

resistance 3 has lots of potential...i hope they dont screw it up.

[warhugger]

i would say that resistance 3 would be better because is something new unlike halo especially when halo hasn't changed at all but that's my opinion and if you noticed bungie ran out of ideas with their games sure it was good at the beginning but i guess they have to come up with something new don't you guys think so???

[Halo3 MLG Pro]

I'll be playing both but cmon now. Halo Reach will be THEE biggest game of 2010. Resistance 3 will just be another game in a sea of games coming out.

[lh_swe]

If you don't like Halo like moi then wouldn't Resistance 3 be the better choice.
Unless the come up with something new and interesting to revive the franchise whats to keep this from just being another DLC turned into "full" game.

[shazui123]

halo reach is not the biggest game coming out in 2010, far from it. After ODST it's hype has dropped a lot, considering it was a let down to most halo fans and considering games with larger followings and expectations like GOW3 and GT5 are coming out in 2010. If its anything at all like ODST it wont match the likes of less anticipated (yet still amazing) games like MAG, heavy rain, the last guardian, splinter cell or Mass effect 2

[TenSteps]

His name is Halo he is a big fan of Halo so to him Halo is probably the most awesome game or something, I'm more interested in Mass Effect 2 and maybe Alan Wake.

I wish I made the wrong choice by letting the rachni queen go I'd like to see how that would appear in the story.

Oh and on Halo Reach vs. Resistance 3, no comment haven't seen anything from either so I'll have no basis to argue.

[TheBand1t]

Gran Turismo 5.

[HDgamer]

It is the biggest game for him, just look he doesn't own a ps3 and never ever played anything available on that platform. Halo reach is going to be an FPS with the same graphics and halo 3's campaign except you get to play as a n00b who dies easily. Wait that's halo3 mlg noob. It's his biggest game, pretty much because it's the only series he can hope to play and sleep at night without raging hard on the internet.

[chrisulloa]

I'm not going to lie, Halo has a bigger fanbase. Resistance hasn't revolutionized the FPS genre, Halo has. Halo Reach is also going to introduce new spartans and is going to be BIG. That's just my opinion though.

[TheBand1t]

Halo 1 revolutionized console FPS. Halo 2 improved the multiplayer aspect. Halo 3 was watered down. :/

[mastiffchild]

Whatever. This is a daft excuse for a blog subject isn't it? NOONE ever hailed Resistance as a Halo killer did they? Certainly not Insomniac or Sny who you'd think ould gan the most from it being so, no?

Funnily enough there are MORE FPS exclusively for the PS3 than the 360 these days ND many millions of 360 gamers bought their consoles to play Halo-I pretty much did so myself and this year the only games I've played on Live have been Halo3, ODST and Gears which king of makes my point. 360, however many like to disagree, is a console with a larger percentage of shooter fans than PS3 and the PS3 shooter fan has more exclusive FPS to choose from too so sales are always goin to be smaller on the PS3 FPS front. People also have to have Halo to justify paying for Live imo, which gives it another advantage.

Going into this generation there wasn't a big, exclusive shooter franchise for PS anything like the size of Halo and comparing it to Resisyance which only began after Halo had two games out is totally unrealistic in my eyes. Like some have said , if you want to compare sales f similar sized franchises use GT5 when it comes oput or even, n a few months compare ODST and GT5P-as they're pretty siilar in not being totally complete games-even if they did demand full price for ODST.

I just think it's very unfair to ask a FPS starting from WAY behing Halo and on a console with fewer shooter fans but more shooters to play to compete in either sales or number of peeps in MP. Compare the possible stories if you must but them you're basically comparing your tastes with others which doesn't work. I can't STAND the Halo novels-find them nearly unreadable nonsense and think the story for Halo3 ws one of thje weakest I can remember even in a FPS game-certainly compared to HCE it's a little crappy anyway. The story in R2 wsn't as good as the first game either but a middle game of a trilogy often suffers from existing mainly to set up the final installment(shouldn't happen but it's hard to avoid for some reason)and FoM had a great little story, imo.

Thing is they aren't even in much competition are they? So why the comparison? Halo is like GT-it's a real system seller and enjoys a unique place among it's console's history from iteration to iteration(it basically saved the first Xbox in many ways). As such, and without a shooter in a similar position on Playstation it does NOT bear any comparison. Like comparing Forza to GT doesn't work either. One is almost synonymous with it's platform while the other is merely a racing game on the other one-regardless of how good it might one day become.

[RockmanII7]

Halo 3 revolutionized customization in console FPS's. With it's forge mode and theater mode. You could make any game on any map while chosing between any armor variation and sporting any emblem you want. Plus with theater mode, Halo 3 is like LittleBigPlanet (customization) + Uncharted 2 (Ability to watch saved clips) + Modern Warfare (1 million different people get online every day). IMO it's only main flaw is a weak story mode.

[ABizzel1]

I could have sworn I read this before. But anywho Halo will have the better sales and the bigger hype for sure it always does, but if I remember correctly Halo Reach isn't on the same engine it's on Bungie's new engine (I think about 60% sure) so Halo Reach should be a great improvement over all the others gameplay wise and graphically. And if it's not then they need to add new modes, and features because it'll feel like more Halo DLC (meaning ODST).

Resistance 3 has the most to prove. Insomnaic has heard all the positive and negative feedback from the fans for both Resistance: FOM and Resistance 2. If they take everything into consideration then Resistance 3 should be a complete fan service and enjoy a nice amount of success probably 2 - 3 million in sales (maybe more with all the new PS3 owners by then). And not only will it sell better, but it will also be a MUCH better game than R2 was (which was good, but not great.) Now if they do everything I said to do with R3 then it will be absolutely amazing and one of the best FPS this gen, but I'm not the game director so I can only hope.

In the end both games are going to do well, and review well so there's no need to compare. Halo Reach will be on the top of 360 owners list, and R3 will be on the top of PS3 owners list, once again it's good to own both systems ;)

[superfedya]

Half-Life 3 will beat them all!