Resistance gets new MP modes

With Resistance: Fall of Man set to launch in Europe tomorrow alongside PlayStation 3, Insomniac has updated the multiplayer side of the game with new gameplay modes and a range of other features and bug-fixes. (Update: Unfortunately, it's only available in the US for now. Bah.)

The two modes are both team-based, and alongside them you get a spectator mode, a round-balancing feature, and the option to switch the radar on or off in custom games, or use an "enhanced" radar, which allows humans to see moving or firing enemies while crouching ones go undetected.

All you'll need to do to grab the update is pop into the Online Game menu of the Multiplayer section, at which point you'll be prompted to download and restart the game. Kotaku says it took them about four minutes.

Meanwhile, Insomniac says another update is scheduled for May, which will introduce a pair of new maps and worldwide online play support.

In the meantime, you can add Team Conversion and Assault to the game's lengthy list of multiplayer modes. In Team Conversion, the goal is to kill everyone on the other side, but with limited lives per player. Individuals' scoring is based on survival as well as kills, although the overall winner is the team with surviving players.

Assault, meanwhile, is about trying to deactivate the other team's nodes so that you can reach and destroy their reactor. As well as helping you toward the enemy reactor, deactivating nodes also renders them neutral, removing some of the opposition's base defences at the same time. Scoring's based on reactor and node damage, although the winner is the team who deals with the other's reactor first, obviously. Respawning's allowed at nodes (active or not) as well as your reactor and with your squad, if you're part of one.

All good. Read on for more changes/bug-fixes, or refer to Kristan's extensive PAL review of Resistance published this morning.

UI Improvements

• Sorted buddy list by online status
• Made text on the map easier to read
• Players added to the ignore list will be removed from the buddy list
• Previously the health of a node was indicated by how fully shaded it was in the color of the team that controlled it or was capturing it. This was difficult to see, and it did not distinguish between nodes that were in the process of being captured from nodes that were in the process of being detroyed. Now nodes will have a health bar underneath the node (which will be team colored) to indicate its health, and the color of the node icon will indicate whether any team is in control of that node or not (it will be colored that team's color, or gray if no team controls it). Therefore if a node is in the process of being captured will have a team colored health bar and a gray icon, and a node in the process of being destroyed will have a team colored health bar and a team colored icon.

General

• Optimized net code
• Improved respawn algorithm to avoid selecting spawn points near enemies
• Optimized join game process for ranked game to be faster and more reliable, especially for large parties

Balancing

• Increased points for a "defense" kill from 1 to 4 in all modes
• Shotgun damage will decrease faster as range increases
• LAARK respawn time increased to 90 seconds, ammo respawn time increased to 60 seconds
• LAARK splash damage radius reduced
• Carbine headshot damage increased

Bug Fixes

• In FFA gametypes, you can no longer incorrectly see players on the radar who are within radar range of other players but not within radar range of you.
• Chimeran players no longer take extra melee damage from some weapons
• Enemies killed after you die but before you respawn will no longer count towards your killing spree for your next life
• Deaths will now tally correctly when a player dies by drowning
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the wrong map to load after a map vote
• Fixed problem where the quality of the microphone chat would degrade over time when in a party or long game
• Fixed bug that would cause you to reload after firing one shot if you had full ammo and hit reload and then fired in rapid succession
• Fixed several collision problems, including potential methods of escaping from the intended play area
• Fixed several potentially exploitable gameplay glitches
• Fixed several rare crash bugs