Resistance Burning Skies a handheld shooter that can’t be saved by dual analogs

Resistance Burning Skies makes use of the popular Resistance franchise in its first offering for the PS Vita handheld, but according to most critics the game isn’t very good.  A rather lowly metacritic score points to a few common problems that many reviewers are having with the game.

Game Trailers – 81 – No, you won’t find volumes of content or progressive new ideas, and the forced touchscreen controls are a minor strategic bungle. However, the well-paced single-player campaign is punctuated by a strong and varied weapon set and online multiplayer that hits an unprecedented level of quality for a handheld.

VideoGamer – 60 – The shooting is top notch, but poor pacing and bland environments ensure you never engage with what’s going on, and technical hiccups and formulaic game modes sour the multiplayer. This game proves the potential power of the genre on its device, but not the potential excellence of its own franchise.

The platform’s first FPS is disappointingly dated – Gamespot

Gamespot – 55 – Burning Skies leaves little doubt that the Vita is a comfortable home for first-person shooters, but the platform’s first FPS is disappointingly dated. Toothless enemies and simplistic level design make for tepid campaign action, and the solid multiplayer suite is too limited to be a big draw.

IGN – 55 – The story here is forgettable, the action is formulaic, and the multiplayer is simplistic.

Edge Magazine – 40 – The series’ modest ambitions are here scaled back to a glum inventory of FPS conventions, its spectacle dampened by hardware limitations and dormant art direction, and its platform-specific novelties largely revealed as fussy irritations, presumably born of a need to promote the struggling Vita’s features.

Games Radar – 40 – The weapon variety that defines the series is flaccid at best, the story is forgettable, and the multiplayer isn’t even as varied as the last handheld game in the series. It’s hard to even recommend this one to gamers who’ve spent the last six years popping Chimera skulls.

Destructoid – 20 – It is visually atrocious, interactively vapid and incomplete to a degree that a full retail price is an insult. It’s tempting to buy this just to have something new on the system, but good things come to those that wait, and it’s hard to imagine anything not being good compared to this mess.

Did you get Resistance Burning Skies for the PS Vita this week? Are you planning on getting it? Let us know your impressions in the comments section below.