When Resistor was revealed at Future Games Show earlier this Summer, it quickly caught my attention with its cel-shaded visuals and car combat. As a lifelong fan of games likeTwisted Metaland Jak X, I was just happy to see another contender in the genre, let alone one with such a striking art style.
I was already on board with Resistor after seeing its first trailer, but after taking it for a test drive atGamescom, I was shocked by how much it’s trying to do and how many genres it’s dipping into at once. Developer Long Way Home isn’t just making a stunning racing game here, it’s also combining a decision-based narrative likeMass Effect’s with open-world exploration likeBurnout, all with a sprinkle of SSX’s trick system.
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The demo started with a bang in the stylish character creator, where a child version of my racer looked into the mirror and imagined the superstar hotshot they wanted to be. I didn’t get to fiddle with the options, but I was told by game director Violet McVinnie that my choices would not only affect how my childhood self looked in the prologue, but also the appearance of my parents, a laFallout3.
It was a very cool way of handling character customisation that was made even cooler as the scene transitioned from my young protagonist playing around in a soapbox car with their friend to crashing through a sign as a fully-fledged racer out to make their mark. It was a memorable intro that served to remind me that Resistor is aiming to be much more than a racing game.
After jumping into the future and into my first race, I got a feel for Resistor’s driving mechanics, which put an emphasis on pulling off tricks while airborne and drifting around the track whenever you’re not. That might sound easy, but it took me an embarrassing amount of time to get used to the drifting and movement, something that I felt a little better about after McVinnie told me that there was going to be a high skill ceiling.
The race I got to play was on the short side and served as more of a tutorial for how things will work in the full game, but it was enough to whet my appetite and keep me excited for more. I also got to see McVinnie play through the same race with a lot more skill and flair, which showed me how cool things are going to look when you know what you’re doing… and just how awful I am.
As much as I enjoyed Resistor’s arcade racing and its unique introduction to character customisation, it was the things that I was told about the game and not shown that excited me most, like the open-world exploration across unique biomes and areas that serve to both split up the races and give you a chance to get a better handle on your car and the various abilities you earn throughout the story. This open world will also be affected by the amount of influence you have over each territory, with new structures and paths popping up as you gain more control.
What could truly set Resistor apart from any other title in the genre is its focus on story and decision-making that sounds remarkably like something from Mass Effect or Dragon Age. McVinnie told me that, depending on your choices and interactions throughout the game, characters can either be added to your party or turned into villains that go against you in the tournament.
McVinnie wouldn’t fully confirm this to me, but this level of narrative influence seems like it could even apply to the story’s main villain Ethan Dekker, who is actually voiced by Mark Meer, Commander Shepard’s male voice actor, just to drive that Mass Effect influence even harder. I didn’t get to see any of this in action, but it’s an exciting prospect for what is already a unique racing game.
Resistor is gathering all of the right ingredients from games like SSX, Burnout, and Mass Effect, and if it successfully manages to combine such a wide variety of influences across different genres, then it could end up being something very special.
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