Worth noting this is less a comprehensive overview of the Resistance series and more me playing them in sequence for the first time and trying to piece things together. I intentionally avoided looking things up because I wanted to dodge spoilers and let story moments and revelations hit as intended.

The Chimera skull with the army helmet is easily the hardest box art of any game imo

Most realistic part of this game is the government not telling their soldiers what they’re up against.

Fun Fact: in the strategy guide that was officially released by insomniac had little dossier on all the enemy types describing how best to kill them and little lore bits. The single best thing in all of them I still remember to this day and it was on how to kill the "Menial" enemies. It went something along the lines of "Don't even waste your ammo on them, a single hit with your gun will ALWAYS do the job, they can't hit you from range and your faster".
This also lead to the best running gag that my dad and I had when we Co-oped this game back in the day: I've always been Mr. Melee so we had a deal that anytime we found a Menial, I got dibs to run up and beat it to death. This culminated with a scene in the final level where you are locked in a smallish room and dozens of Menials at released inside with you. To which I paused the game looked at my dad and with a giddy smile said: "I got this", unpaused and proceed to run around the room systematically beating each and every one, all while humming "The Cancan" loudly and to the beat of...well the beatings. My dad almost fell off the bed laughing his ass off and didn't get hit once the whole time.

The wall wasn’t built by the other countries, Russia itself was keeping the Chimera at bay all those years until they wasn’t, the other countries thought the isolation from the Russians was because they was preparing weapons of some kind they had no idea about the outbreak until it was too late, i had the platinum trophy for both Fall Of Man and 2, most of the lore is explained in intel documents you acquire throughout missions

‘Knock out the mothership and the drones all collapse’ is one of my most hated tropes. The description here of the chimera not being able to go on without the Angels though leads me to a thought that I’d love to see explored more in something, where instead of just stopping functioning, the bad guys emotionally can’t go on after the big heroic victory and the heroes have to deal with, like, what do we do with a metric ton of suddenly docile but not dead enemy combatants?

13:18 in this timeline, the beatles didn't form, meaning Liverpool wasn't culturally significant, and thus it was rightfully wiped off the map

fun fact the bolshevik revolution failed in the resistance universe so it was imperial Russia that had spent decades fighting the chimera and build the red curtain why was it named that no idea

god I miss this series. I always loved the horror of an enemy that assimilates you, The Flood, the Chimera, the Harvest. All of them have this horrifying idea that you are probably alive threw it all.

In addition to WW2 never happening in the Resistance universe, Orson Welles' 1938 "War of The Worlds" broadcast also ended differently. Instead of elevating his career, Welles was ruined by the backlash of the broadcast instigated by U.S. Government, who were very much aware of (and scared shitless by) the Chimeran invasion happening in Russia.

I also vaguely remember reading a collectible in-game that was essentially telling radio stations and operators what they could and could not say to the British public. I remember reading something along the lines of: "Do not use the words 'Aliens, invasion, extinction, or genocide during broadcasts.'"

Wanna know what would suck
Winning, going home, and having ptsd every summer because of the cicadas

Yeah trust me, 2 will clear up some things real quick. Also at least the "kill the queen" cliché works for this series.

My favorite part of this game was actually the random soldiers bantering.

"Say what you want about the Chimera, they have heart. AND TEETH! Big fookin' teeth!"

"Before you ask, yes, Cheddar Gorge is where cheddar cheese is from."

26:10 It's rather sad that the lack of a forced and totally unneeded "romantic subplot" is in general so notable because of how commonplace they are despite almost always been trash.

"It was an honor sir"😢

this game series was a pillar of my childhood! I replayed the campaigns countless times and always wish we got another game

Between the chimera,  the cybermen from dr who, and the flood from halo, a sci-fi faction that gains reinforcements from converting enemy losses always is so intimidating. Almost always makes a very overbearing enemy and can do good at making them feel like a impossible foe imo.

Something you didn’t mention is the emphasis on it being snowy in July. Rachel mentions it near the beginning of the game when Nathan presumably asks her about it, and at the after-credit scene we see that despite it being July 14th, they are in a complete blizzard. It’s insinuating that the Chimera are controlling the WEATHER in its entirety, to keep themselves cool since their bodies get so hot… I don’t know if the games ever mention how they were accomplishing this but it’s absolutely horrifying, that if they can plunge England into an ice age, just as a casual strategic move, what else are they capable of?

From what I understood about Nathan being somewhat immune to the chimeran virus in the 1st game was because he was part of the Abraham project. The project took Chimeran cells and injected to American soilder volunteers (Nathan being one of them) and it was this reason for why Nathan had awesome healing abilities. The intel in the 2nd game explains more on what the Americans did before the invasion of the USA.

8:30 the reason PS3 shipped without rumble is actually because of a lawsuit they were in during that time regarding their use of the rumble technology. after the lawsuit was over, they released the dualshock 3

Interesting fact I learned when I was still playing this game. If your aim is good and you're quick, you can save some of the soldier NPCs. They usually die kinda quick to the chimera, but killing the monsters quick enough saves them. Doesn't do anything but I just liked to keep them alive if possible.