C-12: Final Resistance is a post-apocalyptic Third-Person Shooter created by SCE Studio Cambridge, released on the PlayStation in 2001.
Years have passed after aliens invaded earth to harvest its carbon resources and destroy humanity. Facing extinction, humanity has formed a resistance to fight off the alien threat. Lieutenant Riley Vaughn, a cybernetic soldier, is sent out into the field to deal with aliens and rescue soldiers in need along with his partners Colonel Grisham and Dr. Carter, before it's too late.
C-12: Final Resistance provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: While the setting itself can pass for the early 21.st century or even as early as the 80s, there is a sprinkling of advanced tech among humans such as bionic implants, cryonics, dropships and a prototype laser rife.
- After the End: The game takes place after the aliens have invaded Earth and have decimated most of humanity. What's left of the human race is either getting killed off, captured and turned into cyborgs, or losing hope that they'll ever win the war against the aliens.
- Always Night: Every outdoor mission seems to be set at dusk.
- Ambiguous Time Period: It is never stated exactly when the game takes place or even how long the alien invasion has been going on, though it's probably sometime in the early 21.st century.
- And the Adventure Continues: After Vaughn kills the Alien Leader, Dr. Carter tells him there's still more work to do. The two of them then fly away together in a dropship as the credits roll.
- Attack Drone: The aliens use a number of types, security, combat and swarming ones.
- Batman Gambit:
- Everything about Dr. Carter's abduction. The aliens knew in advance that Vaughn would go out of his way to rescue her—which he does. So they planted a homing device on her so she'd unintentionally lead them to the resistance's central base, which they immediately attack.
- Done again right after the humans repel said attack on the base. When two humans are stranded outside the base once the forcefield is repaired, some aliens calmly wait in the shadows for Vaughn to come outside and rescue them, knowing full well he suffers from Chronic Hero Syndrome. They immediately ambush Vaughn and capture him.
- Big Bad: The Alien Leader.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Alien Leader and Dan Carter are both killed, several alien battalions have been stopped thanks to Vaughn and the resistance, and various alien bases have been damaged or destroyed. However, Colonel Grisham is dead, Vaughn is a complete cyborg now, and humanity still has a long way to go before they take back the planet.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Deconstructed. Vaughn will do whatever he can to help out fellow soldiers or innocent civilians—to the point where it bites him in the ass. After Vaughn goes well out of his way to rescue Dr. Carter from her backstabbing husband, it's revealed that the aliens put a homing device on her so she'd lead them to the resistance's base. And after Vaughn sees two rebels who were locked outside the base when its forcefield was brought back online, the aliens use the opportunity to ambush and kidnap Vaughn, knowing that he'd come outside to try and rescue them.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: The dropships. Unlike the tanks, all you have to do is shoot at them (for a while) until they go down, as it's relatively easy to avoid their attacks.
- Darkest Hour: The final level. Vaughn is captured by the aliens and turned into a full cyborg, Colonel Grisham is killed freeing him, and the aliens are days away from poisoning the entire world and rendering humans extinct.
- Deflector Shields: You can collect mobile shield generators, which creates a bubble-like forcefield around you which can absorb damage upon being activated. But for the aliens, their tanks and dropships have the same type of forcefield as well.
- Dropship: Both the Resistance and Aliens use them for quick troop transport.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Major Dan Carter is just known as "Henchman" in the game. Even after Dan's true name is revealed, the game's captions and even objectives involving Dan credit him as Henchman.
- Face–Heel Turn: Dan Carter. He willingly gave himself up to the aliens and became a cyborg, then greatly aided the aliens in their attempts to destroy the resistance.
- Fate Worse than Death: What happens to the humans the aliens kidnap. They're sent to a convention facility where they're "droned" and turned into the very same deadly cyborgs that Vaughn is forced to kill throughout the game.
- Force Field: Used in fence-like manner by the aliens. Riley and the alien elites have a personal variant as well.
- Foreshadowing: Dan Carter's defection is hinted early on. When Colonel Grisham notices that someone is intercepting their satellite data, he mentions that the only two people who know about their data are both dead: General Hammond (who's definitely dead) and Major Carter (who was presumed dead).
- Giant Mook: The aptly-named "Brutes," unknown giant, gorilla-like aliens who have cybernetic enhancements.
- Giant Spider: The Alien Spiders, which are capable of producing blood-sucking termites and spitting acid.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Colonel Grisham chases down Vaughn after he's captured and sent to the aliens' stronghold, despite knowing it'll be the death of him. Just as he manages to free Vaughn, aliens show up and shoot him dead.
- Heroic Willpower: The implied reason to why Vaughn, post-cyborg conversion by the aliens, somehow maintained his human mind and doesn't fall under alien control, unlike most of the cyborg mooks. Of course, Colonel Grisham's intervention before the cyborgification process can be completed might be another factor.
- Laser Blade: Vaughn's default weapon is an Energy Blade captured from the aliens.
- Laser Sight: Alien snipers have these built into their rifles, which can help Vaugh detect them as they're shooting at him.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Vaugh's rocket launcher, upon being upgraded, can fire six homing rounds per shot.
- No Name Given: The Alien Leader's name is never revealed.
- Octopoid Aliens: From what can be gleamed from the game itself and the official artwork, the aliens appear to resemble a cross between cephalopods and crustaceans.
- One-Hit Kill: A single shot to the head will immediately kill any alien, excluding bosses and Brutes.
- Plasma Cannon: The standard weapon of the aliens are plasma rifles that far outshine anything the humans pack, including the Resistance's protoype laser rifle. No wonder the aliens are winning so far.
- Power Pincers: The cyborg drones that appears in earlier levels are equipped with these as their standard weapon. Some models can sprout a Laser Blade, while later versions from the second stage onwards have built-in flamethrowers.
- Puzzle Boss: Dan Carter, who can only be damaged after committing a set of sequential tasks during the fight against him.
- Reforged into a Minion: The fate of captured humans and resistance soldiers, who were then subjected to Unwilling Roboticisation to serve the alien invaders.
- Scenery Gorn: There's not a single area that Vaughn travels to that isn't strewn with wrecked cars, collapsed buildings, piles of rubble, and/or debris from previous battles. The only decent-looking areas in the game are mostly infested with alien technology.
- Smug Snake: Major Dan Carter, who frequently tries to hide his cowardice and incompetence by gloating at the heroes and telling them that they're all doomed.
- Stat-O-Vision: Vaughan's cyborg eye gives him information about objects he is looking at, including their health percentage.
- Super-Soldier: The Earth is trying to fight back against an Alien Invasion with the creation of cyborg soldiers, including your character Lt. Riley Vaughan.
- Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Right before the confrontation against the Alien Leader, Vaugh can enter an armoury filled with a mountain of weaponry, ammunition, shield packs, health boosts and various goodies. Which he will need in the next area, fighting the Final Boss which is an extremely powerful Marathon Boss.
- Sword Beam: In the final stage, once Vaughn's upgraded with cybernetic enhancements, he can unleash a powerful energy sphere from his Energy Blade.
- Tempting Fate: After Vaughn gets the alien power source and delivers it to Dr. Carter, she mentions how the aliens will be sending reinforcements soon. Cue Dan Carter arriving with some alien troopers.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: The alien invaders frequently do this to captured resistance prisoners, turning them into cyborgs who ends up serving their new alien masters. This is the fate of Vaugh himself in the last level.
- We Will Use Lasers in the Future: Future ballistic firearms are really good, but they just can't match firepower of laser rifle that a human corporation recently put into service, and they're certainly no match for the alien's Plasma Cannon technology.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: It's never stated where the game takes place. Presumably, the setting is somewhere in the United Kingdom, judging by how every character has a British, Scottish, or Irish accent.
