Like aliens? Like guns? You’ll like Resistance 3

You won't actually fight this enormous mechanized spider in RESISTANCE 3, but you'll skirmish with plenty of smaller robots.

I’m not sure how or why the videogame industry decided to elect September as the time to release console-exclusive shooters, but I’m not complaining, either. Publishers are showering the masses with durable, AAA action games this month — next week, Xbox 360 owners get GEARS OF WAR 3, and last week, PlayStation 3 gamers got RESISTANCE 3.

The review embargo on GEARS lifted this morning, and by nearly all accounts, the game’s roomy development cycle has paid off. Like any red-blooded American with a controller and a pulse, I’m really, really looking forward to it.

But at the moment, my heart belongs to RESISTANCE. After a confident debut and a spotty but enjoyable follow-up, developer Insomniac Games has delivered on all of the series’ apocalyptic potential with a meaty, exciting single-player campaign, an addictive multiplayer component and, most importantly, an outrageously fun suite of weaponry.

At the game’s outset, humanity is reeling. The Chimera — the bloody-minded alien force that invaded Europe in the first game and overran much of the rest of the world by the end of the second — has opened a wormhole over New York City, preparing for a full planetary occupation.

You play Joseph Capelli, the man who killed Nathan Hale. Hale was your avatar in the first two games, but by the end of RESISTANCE 2 he was lost to the virus that transforms humans into alien hybrids. After Hale murmured something about “beautiful” Chimera, Capelli dutifully put a bullet in Hale’s head. He was then vilified and dishonorably discharged.

So, yeah. Calibrate your expectations accordingly. The story and setting unfold with uncommonly vivid sci-fi gusto, but make no mistake: This game is bleak. There are only a few million humans left, and most of them (including Capelli) are content to live out their lives in whatever hardscrabble peace they can find. But when the Chimera begin an assault on Capelli’s dusty Oklahoma settlement, our hero is prodded reluctantly into saving the planet.

The narrative mechanics at play aren’t especially involving — there’s some junk about Capelli’s wife and kid, and the few characters you meet aren’t drawn very well — but it’s the caliber of the shooting that matters here. And it’s wonderful. Even the most traditional armaments in your arsenal, including a shotgun and burst-shot rifle, are terrific fun to use, and the alien weapons are absolutely wild.

The Auger (shoot-through-walls gun) and Bullseye (shoot-around walls gun) return, and they’re complemented by the Atomizer, which projects electricity and miniature black holes, and the Cryogun, which shoots beams of ice and concussive blasts that shatter frozen enemies.

By the point in the story when every weapon has become available to you, RESISTANCE has become a sort of role-playing game. You’ll pause the action frequently to select the proper item from your weapon wheel, and though there’s a suitable response for every enemy and encounter, no weapon is ever useless.

Even better, all of them are fun to shoot. The improvised HE .44 Magnum might not be the most effective way to take down mechanized Chimera, but you’ll try anyway. Remotely detonating gunshots never gets old.

Most of that loadout carries over to the multiplayer suite, which is as fleshed out with persistent perks and upgrades as any game since CALL OF DUTY 4. Leveling up earns you skill points, which you can use to unlock weapons, powers and attributes.

As in the single-player campaign, almost everything here is useful, and almost everything can be upgraded with skill points. Deciding how to spend those points and choosing which perks to take into battle can be extraordinarily difficult, but experimentation is half the fun.

And that’s why, as much as I’m looking forward to GEARS, I’m not worried about cooling off on RESISTANCE. Though it’s derivative in spots and doesn’t do anything especially new, the game has carved out a definitive niche in the shooter market. If you want to take down bad guys without necessarily shooting at them, this is your game.