Book Review: Resistance: Hole In The Sky / Rage
Two books, two oceans.
Published: 13:00, 08/09/2011 by Tuffcub.
4Warning: May contain Resistance 3 spoilers.
One of the joys of spending nearly forty hours flying to and from Hawaii is that you have plenty of time to read so, in a TSA world first, I present two reviews, the first written 30,000 feet above the Pacific, the second 30,000 ft above the Atlantic. As we ascend to our cruising level with Honolulu behind us and 5,000 miles of Pacific before mainland USA, lets take a look at ‘Resistance: Hole In The Sky’.
I say ‘may’ contain spoilers as I have played very little of the Resistance 3 campaign so far and, as the book serves as a prequel to that title, it is somewhat of a shock to discover that Nathan Hale has a number of lines.
There’s no indication in the book whether this bodiless version of Hale is a figment of Joseph’s imagination or some Chimera weirdness that will result in Hale returning during the course of the game via a Bones/Spock mind meld. Whatever the eventual outcome, this is not the Nathan Hale we know. He’s bitter, spiteful and downright nasty. After being executed by his best pal he may have some reason to be a little peeved, but the massive shift in character from hero to grumpy ghost is hard to swallow.
With Ghost-Hale aboard, the book explores the tale of Capelli who has been discharged from the army after the incident (apparently the Army frowns on blowing out your best friend’s brains) and spends his time as a runner, delivering packages across the wasteland previously known as the United States of America. The ruined landscape is as much a character as Joseph and writer William C. Dietz has done a wonderful job describing the destroyed cities and desolate countryside.
The plot zips along at a fair pace but does seem to take its cues from computer games – Go to point A, collect item B, go to point C, protect donkey D – and drops in numerous battles with both Chimera and humans. New characters include Nathan Hale’s sister and Doctor Malikov, one of the main characters in Resistance 3, makes a few brief appearances.
All your favourite Chimera appear during the course of the tale and many weapons from the series are used, I was particularly impressed when the Alt-fire modes of weapons were accurately described.
Overall ‘Resistance: Hole In The Sky’ is one of the better tie in novels as it nicely fills in the missing months between Resistance 2 and 3, this should be an essential purchase for fans.
With the Pacific behind me and twelve hour stop over in Chicago (where it’s a stupid 102 degrees), it’s time for the final ten hour trip across the Atlantic in the company of the tie in novel for Rage, cunningly entitled ‘Rage’.
Now, I’ve played a good few hours of Rage so was rather disappointed to find the tie-in novel recounts this portion of the game, step for step. Admittedly, it does flesh out the plot considerably but as I knew what was going to happen it was a real struggle trying to finish the book. The author Matthew J. Costello also wrote the script for the game and it appears that the novel is just an expanded version of that text.
Story aside, I found the novel rather hard to read as Costello has a rather abrupt style of writing and there are an awful lot of short sentences.
Like this.
It’s quite annoying.
Isn’t it?
You should try reading a whole book.
Like this.
It gets very tedious.
And quite tiring.
If every sentence.
Is split.
Into three.
Paragraphs.
If I go any further in to the plot I will spoil the game, conversely if you play the game and then read the book, there are very few surprises. This makes the Rage tie-in novel a bit of a gooseberry, you really should not read it before playing the game and I can only recommend it to die-hard Rage fans. It’s not a bad novel by any means, it’s just totally pointless if you’re planning on playing the game.
That concludes the world first “double ocean game tie-in novel” review, if you have enjoyed reading this then please make a comment and maybe Peter will pay for me to follow up these reviews with another world first, Modern Warfare 3 at the South Pole and Battlefield 3 at the North.
Most Comments This Week
- Gaikai’s Streaming – Does This Mean No PS4? [65]
- PSN Store Update: 23/05/12 [55]
- First Party Vita Games Drop To £12 On PSN [52]
- PSN Store Hit With 80023163 Errors [51]
- Is Something Big Coming To PlayStation Plus Soon? [50]
- “Leap” Motion Controller Could Revolutionise Gaming [43]
- Ghost Recon: Future Soldier PS3 Install Is Huge [42]
- Australian & New Zealand D3 Players Suffer High Ping Rates [41]
- Sony Files Patent For Game-Interrupting Soda Adverts [40]
- Ghost Recon Future Soldier Review (PS3, Xbox 360) [39]
Latest Reader Comments
-
Sunday Thoughts: Leaking E3 And Ethical Debates
- 18:12 TSBonyman: Integrity, yep that’s another reason i stick around here! I’m feeling the E3 anticipation...
- 18:06 skibadee: roll on E3 love it. great read CB :)
- 18:05 gazzagb: This article highlights just how good the writers here are, they actually care + take pride in what they...
- 17:49 seedaripper1973: And this ^ (great article) is why i’ve been a member forever.
- 17:42 Lymmusic: That, and the community here is by far the most respectable and the least bit fanboyee of all sites
- New Hardware, New Plus: All Eyes On Sony This E3
- E3 2012: New “Tomb Raider” Teaser Shows Off Some Lovely Visuals
- Meet the Reader: KAMIKAZE-UK
TSAtv: Original Video Content
Batman book review
Kris Dancing, again
Joe Danger interview
Sonic Generations
08/09/2011 at 13:29
Member since: Apr 2009
lol loving the review
08/09/2011 at 13:32
Member since: Jan 2009
Capelli killed hale with a well placed pistol blast, not a shotgun blast. Otherwise, great read.
08/09/2011 at 14:23
Member since: May 2010
was about to make the same correction ;)
08/09/2011 at 13:34
Member since: Nov 2009
There does seem to be more and more game related books, so review of these are good as their quality can vary wildly.
08/09/2011 at 13:39
Member since: Apr 2009
I had a read of the AC books could not sit and concentrate knowing I could just turn on my ps3 to be in that world so never finished it gave it away to a friend
08/09/2011 at 14:24
Member since: May 2010
Would like to read the Resistance book. The game arrived this morning and I’ve played a bit of it for about 2 hours. It’s brilliant so far, and much more emphasis on the story which I really like. Theres only a short video of the history between the missing four years so it would be good to know the whole story.
08/09/2011 at 14:36
Member since: Feb 2009
the resistance books sounds good, but the rage book sounds like the kind of tie ins we used to get a decade ago, a pretty much straight retelling of what happens in the game.
what’s the point of a book that tells the same story as the game, you can just play the game.
tie in books should flesh out the world, showing you things you wont see in the game.
08/09/2011 at 14:44
Member since: Mar 2011
Good review, the first sounds interesting, the second sounds like a half assed money maker. Not the biggest fan of reading though, audiobooks available? :P
08/09/2011 at 15:15
Member since: Mar 2009
The resistance book sounded OK, but as for the rage one…….
it sounded
a bit shit
if it only
re-tells the story
from the game.
See wot i did there :D
08/09/2011 at 17:28
Member since: Mar 2010
No,
what did
you do?
…
Oh,
I see.
It’s fun,
that must be
why Costello
did it. :-P
08/09/2011 at 17:36
Member since: Jan 2009
“Based on the critically acclaimed game from id Software”?
I have a lot of confidence in id Software but the game hasn’t had one review yet. Bit sure, isn’t it?
08/09/2011 at 17:37
Member since: Jan 2009
Has any of TSA staff read ‘Masters of Doom’? Now that is a book! Would love to see a review on that :D