Red Faction 2

Well, as promised, here is the review for RF 2. It's not a bad FPS, and it appears on Xbox, PS2, PC, and Gamecube. I'm reviewing the Xbox version, but I heard all 3 are similar.

The campaign is fun, except for the stupid boss battles. All the boss fights are basicaly against a super-tough (and cheap) guy. They involve almost no strategy to kill, except what hole in the AI to exploit. The last boss is the most painful, and stupid thing I've ever done. I'll try not to spoil it for you, but you fight the guy in a battle armor (more on that later), then on foot where he has an instant kill gun that randomly hits or misses. Other than the hackneyed boss fights, the rest of RF2 is fairly enjoyable. The spoken dialouge is fairly stilted, and the story switches between cool and lame, but it's still an enjoyable time. One more complaint of mine, and that concerns the story arc. As you play, you have a "heroism" meter which is increased when you do a heroic deed (such as destroying all the powerlines, or something stupid like that) and decreased if you kill civilians. The stupid thing is, it's REALLY hard to make the meter rise, and insanely easy to drop it. There are 3 endings to the game, and they depend on your heroism level at the end of the game. All the endings are pretty dumb, as they lack any oomph. I'll let you find out on your own.

RF2 now sports vehicles, which include a gunship, a tank, a battle armor, and a submarine (I think). The gunship and tank are not driven by you, but you get to man the guns. The battle armor is really awesome, as it's armed with 2 vulcan guns, a incinderary grenade launcher, and a rocket launcher. That machine makes the gun lover in me crackle with sick glee. Unleashing that beast on evil things is awesome, as nothing can stand up to your might. And feel free to blast through a concrete wall to kill some poor cowering trooper.

Speaking of blasting through walls, I'm happy to report that geo-mod is back, improved, and used more often. Not all the walls are destroyable, but that's understandable. It takes a few minutes to get used to being able to blast through walls instead of finding a way around it.

RF2 uses the Halo way of health, they just explain it differently. You have a "shield" bar, but it's called a health bar. You have 3 blocks of health but they are called health packs. You see, you play as a genetically enhanced soldier, and he's able to recover health by himself. Therefore, you just need to hide for a few seconds, and your health will recharge, just like Master Chief's shields.

What Halo 2 took from RF2 though is dual wielding. RF2 uses a diferent style of cycling through weapons, but the idea of pulling the right trigger and firing the right gun, pull the left trigger and shoot the left gun is here. Also, while dual wielding, you can't throw grenades.

Speaking of things that go bang, the weaponn selection is good, and fun to use. most weapons have a secondary fire, and it's different. No complaints, it's a good bunch of guns. I do have a remark concerning the rail driver, as it returns. Now, the heat scope is replaced with a strange target that appears center mass over an enemy. However, it really hard to hit. I find that the rail driver is more balanced, but not nearly as useful any more.

Multiplayer is decent, with the option for bots, and splitscreen. There's no online. Where as all the guns have use in the single player, it's not so in multi. The sniper rifles are worthless, as it's impossible to hit anyone with them. I'm not a bad shot either. There are no vehicles in multiplayer.

All in all, a good time. The camplaign is OK, and the multiplayer is fun. Red Faction 2 is a solid, well-rounded package that packs some serious firepower. Now that you can pick RF2 up for around 20 clams, it's a great buy.

4 star(s) out of 5

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