Red Faction

If you don't recall, Red Faction was a so called "revolutionary" FPS developed by Volition a few years back. It sported a gimmick called Geo-Mod that allowed you to blow up parts of the level goemetry. Spiffy on paper, not quite so cool in exection. Keep in mind there is a PS2 version of RF, but this is the PC review.

The game was really fun at the time I played it, but it's merely OK now. You play as Parker, a miner on Mars (everything happens on Mars, haven't you noticed) and a memeber of the Red Faction. The miners are practically slaves and there is a plague going around. Soon, the Red Faction (a rebellious group of miners) revolts and the game begins. The guards are reasonably intelligent, and they shout simple lines like, "Surrender!", "Please don't kill me!" and my favorite, "I'm unarmed!" while they run away toting a 12mm pistol. They dodge rockets, run away from grenades and try to flank you.

Red Faction tries to be semi realistic, as in a CS-esqe spred of fire from your guns. Te faster tou shoot, the less accurate you are, but I don't think jumping affecs your aim. Also, your crosshairs don't spread, so you can't really tell your accuracy.

The graphics are fair, but the faces are pretty bad and the lip-syncing is equivalent to the Godzilla movies.

There is some music, and it adds to the mood. The weapon sounds are OK, the gun-lover in me is content.

Oh yeah, RF is rated M. Don't believe it. "Blood and Gore" my ass, I shot a guard in the chest with a rocket launcher and he collasped. Shortly there after, his body disappered. There is a little spray paint effect of blood every time you shoot someone, but it's not gratuitous.

The campaign is like the rest of RF. Merely fair. Geo mod is never fully utilized, and the game itself is fairly repetitive. There is a stealth mission, but it's not of Splinter Cell quality, just duck in doors to avoid the guards. After a while you fight stronger guards, but the game get tedious at that point. You fight two bosses, but they are extremely similar. Both have energy shields, and you plain just shoot them until they die. One has a cheap tracking beam that kills you in two hits, the only way to kill him is to play Time Crisis: hid behind a pillar, peak out, shoot, hide again. The underwater segments are like getting smacked in the face, and there are several "choke points" that are like getting kicked in the balls. In one situation, you must climb up a ladder into a crowded sub bay and kill everyone there. Your enemies can shoot you while you swin in the water, and they have shotguns while only your pistol works underwater. That was a HUGE pain in the rear. All in all, the camgaign is OK.

I haven't played the multiplayer, but it's just standard DM.

The guns are OK, you never really use the SMG because you can't hit the broad side of a barn. The shotgun is a ripoff of the Half-Life shotgun, except it's not nearly as useful. Your primary fire is a double blast, and the secondary is full-auto. BUT the double blast cycles very, very slowly, and it either overkills someone, or it doesn't hurt them and you have to wait for Parker to take his dear sweet time cycling it. The full-auto can't hit the braod side of a barn. One other dud. The fusion rocket launcher is supposed to be the biggest, baddest gun evar. It sucks. For some obscene reason, it never kills the mercs (the stronger guards) while the massive spash damage ALWAYS reduces you to about 30 health. The railgun makes the game incredibly cheap, as you can shoot one-hit-kill bullets through any wall and kill anyone before they even see you. The AI of your foes isn't good enough to make them come after you, so you can just kill squads after squads of mercs that way. To lower the realism further, you can see guards spawn into the map right in front of you. They just appear out of thin air. Disapointing.

Oh yeah, even though my computer had better then the recommended stats, I couldn't keep a good framerate. No matter what I tried (and belive me I tried) RF didn't work well. Pretty annoying (especially with the stupid shotgun as explained above).

All in all, RF is a OK way to spend a few hours, but I'd rather play Doom 3 or CS:S or Halo 2. IF Geo mod was used to it's full porential, this review would have been much-much different. Too bad.

Stay tuned for my review on RF2.

3 star(s) out of 5

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