Wow. I mean, you expect a sequel to improve on the original in most technical respects, but Resistance 2 looks like being an order of magnitude more entertaining, more frenzied and more imaginative than its predecessor. Of course, Resistance: Fall of Man was a launch title, coded way back when Insomniac probably wasn't sure what the target hardware was capable of – and certainly before Sony started pulling its finger out and supplying workable SDKs and libraries.

But Resistance 2 exhibits more than a better understanding of the machine. It's just fundamentally a more enthralling ride. Once again you're Nathan Hale, the lone survivor of Britain's fight against the Chimeran menace and now infected with the virus that threatens to transform him into his enemy – a familiar Neitzchian theme that players will probably recognize from Spiderman, Blade and a whole host of other pop-culture protagonists. Discovered wandering in deep snow outside London, the idea is to ship him to the States where his condition can be analysed by Chimera expert Dr Malikov. After a brief stopover at a besieged Icelandic base, you end up at a rusty research base out on the Frisco bay.

Cue lots of running through metallic corridors, blasting hybrid troops and occasionally running into big guys like the new ravagers, immensely tall, muscle-bound death merchants with miniguns the size of pillar boxes. The visuals still aren't eye-poppingly amazing and there are one or two lazy FPS checklist features (empty rooms there just to make the map feel larger, packing boxes to hide behind, etc, etc), but what this game does brilliantly is deliver excellent choke point set-pieces, with dozens of hybrid troopers, zig-zagging around, lolloping over scenic structures to get at you. Resistance 2 feels old skool, in its linearity and level design, but it has embraced that, and the charging narrative (quick! You're accompanying Dr Malikov. Now you're going back for some inhibitor drugs. Now you're clearing a landing bay of hybrid scum…) grabs you by the neck and virtually yanks you through the twisting corridors.

Then you're out. And near the end of the first mission, there's an amazing moment where you emerge from the research facility and look out over an obliterated San Francisco, Chimera motherships cruising overhead as thousands of fighter craft blast at collapsing buildings – all in front of a burning red and orange sky. It's like Apocalypse Now writ large, and with monsters.

Then you're in the swamplands of Orick, North California, tracking a new breed of Chimeran menace - the chameleons. These mammoth razor-fingered beasts have an invisibility trick like the Predator, occasionally becoming hazily visible to provide a loping momentary target. They rip your fellow soldiers in half like garlic sausages.

One point here, though – in these early stages, I feel the weapons still lack real impact; compare the Bullseye and Carbine to the key weapons in CoD IV or World at War and you're getting none of the kick, or explosive affect - I'm not just talking about force feedback, I mean the graphical and audio representation of a massive mega-gun in action. Chimeran troops still perform an unconvincing dance when shot – when actually you want them to arch backwards, gaping wounds and missing limbs spraying blood all over the place. (Although, there are some great explosive deaths from grenades and more fearsome weapons.)

But it's still thrilling stuff, later taking in Independence Day and War of the Worlds before racing back through the Aliens quadrilogy. Amid the laser fire and military bluster are clever little moments of quiet – like the bit where you're stalking through an abandoned town while a knackered fifties radio plays hillbilly country somewhere in a devastated house. This sort of thing was used in the first title too, but it's more ambient and subtle here, and the contrast with the vast alien space craft you're about to encounter is beautifully pitched.

Resistance 2 is not Gears of War 2, that much is certain. Though the game shares a similar sense of ceaseless action against overwhelming odds, Resistance 2 hasn't quite made the generational leap that Epic's title has; it still seems to have its heart and soul in the Quake era, despite the obvious visual sheen made possible by the current hardware. But there is a lot of heart here - it's a really carefully constructed game. I didn't think it would surprise me, but it has. And I feel there are plenty more shocks in store.