Review: Red Faction Guerrilla

Last generation Volition introduced us to the Red Faction, an organized resistance movement of workers and miners who fought for their survival against the oppressing Ultor mining company.  Players fought throughout the innards of Mars and, in desperation, called for help from the Earth Defense Force to help eliminate the Ultor threat.  The second game in the series took us away from Mars to show us the rise to power of the EDF but for this title we’re back, this time fifty years after the events of the first game.  Much has changed in the last half century.  Mars has been terraformed, providing oxygen for everyone to breathe and the foundation for vegetation to grow on the planet’s once barren surface.  The Ultor Corporation has all but been destroyed after the events of the previous two games and, logically, the citizens of Mars couldn’t be happier.

Click to read the full review

Better Red than Dead

Well, logic didn’t win the day on this one.  With the economy of Earth having all but collapsed the military might of the EDF has been deployed to Mars to take over the mining operations there and help bolster things back home.  With the deployment has come oppression far worse that anything the Ultor corporation had done; workers are being kidnapped in the night, arrests and indefinite detentions are handed out left and right, and any resistance to the EDF regime leads only to bloodshed.  In response, the Red Faction has been reorganized to help rid Mars of the EDF threat.  Enter Alec Mason, a newly arrived miner to Mars whose brother, a member of the Red Faction, is killed the same day.  Out of revenge, Mason joins up with the fledgling resistance and plays a key role in the destruction of the EDF on Mars, all the while exploring Mars and discovering what has happened in the last fifty years.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well, it seems that this is more information than you get in the game itself.  While the story has the potential to deliver an epic sci-fi adventure what is given to us is a series of pre-rendered cutscenes and heavy-handed dialogue tell you very little about the world around you and many potentially interesting plot points, like the ultimate fate of the Ultor Corporation after their downfall, remain unexplored.  None of the secondary missions expand the plot and even an entire third faction remains un-explored until the very end of the game.  The game could be so much more if they had delivered an interesting plot but as it stands they might as well not have had a story at all.

Life as a Human Wreaking Ball

The previous Red Faction games were known more for their technology than the rest of the games themselves.  Utilizing a custom engine designed around environmental deformation, the previous games allowed players to carve their way throughout levels using whatever they see fit.  Dubbed the Geo-Mod engine, it helped make Volition’s first FPS game a smash hit and also served up untold numbers of hours of multiplayer action for me.  Red Faction 2 didn’t impress me nearly as much as it did at most of the review sites, mostly given the fact that there was just less stuff to blow up compared to the first game.

The elephant in the room clearly is the new Geo-Mod engine.  Despite having reached “2.0” status the engine is pretty much entirely different from what we remember it to be as, instead of terrain being destructible, buildings are the object of focus.  Terrain is completely indestructible so don’t waste your time trying to dig a tunnel through a hillside.  The story of the engine’s development is an interesting read for those who want to learn about it, but let me sum up the experience of the Geo-Mod engine in a little story.

Several  hours into the game I came across an EDF base that seemed to be a heavy industrial sector.  According to the map there were several targeted buildings in the area that needed to be destroyed, these targets ending up being smokestacks that were littered around the area.  With the EDF having already spotted me and calling in the big dogs I’m basically running through the area taking out as many as I can before I kick the bucket.  As I round the corner of a warehouse and sight my fifth target I notice one of the more imposing enemy vehicles in the game: an EDF light tank.  Knowing that my health bar is depleting fast from the soldiers hot on my tail, I formulate an idea.  I use my jetpack to get on top of the warehouse and pull out my satchel charges and toss them all at the top of the smokestack.  I then jump to the ground, pull out my sledgehammer, and proceed to go to town on the base of the smokestack.  As I hit it one last time the base of it comes apart and begins to lean.  I watch as the target I just knocked down tilts and falls on top of the tank at which time I detonate my charges and destroy it.

A smile eroded onto my face.

The power of the new Geo-Mod engine is fantastic and easily one of the most impressive pieces of physics tech since the dawn of the Havok engine all those years ago.  Buildings fall apart exactly the way they should in real life and can be taken down just as easily.  Sure, you could spend several minutes taking out the entire base of a building but why do that when you can just place some explosives on the supports and cause it to imploded?  I personally enjoy taking out most of the supports and watching a building fall apart on its own.  Either way, the Geo-Mod engine is definitely the best part of the game bar none.

Bringing Down the House

The Red Faction series has always relied on the Geo-Mod engine to stand out amongst the crowd when considering gameplay.  Unfortunately, Guerrilla is no different in this regard.  Despite the shift to being a third-person open world shooter the end result isn’t as grand as you’d want it to be.  The map, despite seeming huge in comparison to Liberty City or Stillwater, is much smaller than you’d expect, only taking a handful of minutes to cross via vehicle.  Many of the outlying areas are unreachable as well leading one to wonder why they are even mapped out.

The map for the game is divided into six different sectors and starts the player out in the Parker sector (remember him?).  It is the goal of the Red Faction to take control of each sector one at a time and eventually rid the entire surface of Mars of EDF control.  Each sector plays out the same way too as you have a set number of missions to accomplish before taking complete control of the sector.  This only does half the job however as you need to reduce EDF control of a sector down to zero in order to completely liberate it.  This can be done by taking on side missions, called Guerrilla Actions, as well as destroy EDF property and buildings.  Completing missions also raises the morale of a sector and increases the likelihood of civilians coming to your aid in case you find yourself in the middle of a firefight.  Raising morale isn’t necessary but it does certainly help you when you are in a tight spot.

Guerrilla Actions, if you want to get more to the meat of the game, are the things to play.  Consisting of several different types, missions are placed at random throughout each sector and are quite common to come across.  Actions also appear at random sometimes when simply roaming throughout the land but do not require you to partake in them unless you want to.  By far the most entertaining one of the bunch are the Destruction missions, scenarios that require you to destroy a building using a given set of tools and a time limit.  By far one of the best examples of these missions resides in the Oasis sector and requires you to take out a water tower from a distance using your sledge hammer to knock explosive barrels at it like a golfer at a driving range.  Instantaneous fun is to be had with these missions.  Two other ones that are particularly enjoyable are the Heavy Metal missions that require you to fend off the EDF whilst riding around in a mech and the Collateral Damage missions that have you hopping in the back of a buggy and destroying EDF buildings and propaganda with a rocket launcher to earn cash.  The only really annoying missions are the Transporter ones that require you to take a random vehicle found on the map to a safehouse in a set amount of time, something not easy to do when the EDF is hot on your tail.

IdiotGuy420, Meet Sledgehammer

Surprisingly, the one of the more enticing parts of the game comes in the form of something that, these days, doesn’t go well for most shooters: multiplayer.  Simply put, the multiplayer portion of the game is probably the most entertaining I’ve played in a while.  Level sizes range from claustrophobic to stadium-sized and are of many different locales that feel as though they were ripped out of the singleplayer campaign.  The various modes included therein are your typical fair with different names like Anarchy being your normal deathmatch and Siege being a CTF mode.  Damage Control, a take on a territories mode, has players destroying specific enemy buildings and then rebuilding them in order to gain points. 

The main draw of the multiplayer is the variety of backpacks you can find littered throughout the map.  Varied in nature each has a specific function and is almost essential if you want to survive during a session of play.  My personal favorite is the Rhino, a backpack that, when fully charged, will propel you forward through almost any manmade wall and, if hitting the enemy in the process, causes them to ragdoll for about fifteen feet.  Pure hilarity will ensue if you can ram your opponents into the air and introduce them to your sledgehammer.  The multiplayer also utilizes an experience system that rewards you based on your actions in-game just like almost every multiplayer shooter on the market today.  Unlockable rewards include the aforementioned Ostrich Hammer, seen in Volition’s April Fool’s Day video about the game, as well as many other collectable hammers.

Shaved Heads are Sooooo Cliché

Red Faction has shown to be one of the most surprising hits of 2009 and is definitely a game everyone should experience.  As a playground experience just like Saints Row is, the gameplay, though not without cavieats, is still unique enough to warrant some good old fashioned stress relieving.  The multiplayer, though not holding up to the fierce standards set by Halo or Call of Duty, is still very enjoyable and deserves even more attention than the singleplayer campaign warrants.  After all, who doesn’t enjoy hitting that annoying little twelve year old who won’t shut up with a sledgehammer?  I do!  With the summer gaming drought beginning soon, those looking for something new need look no further; Red Faction Guerrilla has you covered.