Price explains Resistance online

Despite being one of the best-looking titles for the PlayStation 3 at launch (unless you're Ridge Racer 7 fetishist Tom, it's between this and MotorStorm really), Insomniac Games' Resistance: Fall of Man will not be integrated with the console's online functionality, specifically the built-in buddy list - instead, it will use its own buddy list, clan management system, and so on.

That's according to Insomniac boss Ted Price, who was speaking to Eurogamer's Rob Fahey earlier this week in an interview for the ThreeSpeech blog. While the decision to make the game run its own buddy list and so on is a blow to Sony's claims of an integrated online service - and in fact, it harks back to the bad old days of the PS2 online system - Price apparently left the door open for the possibility that the two systems could be reconciled in future, saying that "it is definitely possible to update the game via online."

At least the news about the rest of the game's online functions is more positive. According to Price, the game supports four player split screen, and up to 40 players online - with games being hosted on Sony's own servers for low-latency play. He claims that the team has played matches from locations as far flung as the USA, Spain and Japan without any problems, which is promising.

Price also speaks in the interview about what sets the game apart from the World War II shooter genre - aliens, science fiction weapons which heavily utilise the PS3's prowess in the physics department and environments based on real British cities such as York, Nottingham, Manchester, London and, er, Grimsby (no, seriously) seem to be the main factors - and explains how Insomniac has brought its close relationship with Sony to bear to ensure that Resistance looks more like a second wave title than a launch title.

"We worked closely with Sony at the very beginning to understand what the architecture was going to be all about," he explains. "We participated in that early aspect of development, before we even had dev stations. As a result, we were able to get ready for when those dev stations came - so as soon as we got the dev stations, we jumped on it, and we had our levels up and running very quickly. We began building assets long before we got PlayStation 3 development stations."

You can read the rest of Rob's interview over at ThreeSpeech.