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Videogame
Source : PlayStation 2 |
Red
Faction |
| Graphics |
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6.5 |
| Sounds |
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7.0 |
| Replay |
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7.5 |
| Gameplay |
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7.0 |
| Overall |
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7.2 |
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Review
by JR Clone |
A Great First Person Shooter?
From Volition and THQ comes Red Faction, a fairly hyped first-person-shooter boasting
revolutionary new advances in gameplay. The premise of Red Faction is reasonably
interesting: Miners working for the devious Ultor Corporation in the quarries of Mars
revolt against their employers, who force them to work in terrible conditions. As Parker,
a run of the mill miner who becomes swept up in the rebellion against Ultor (spearheaded
by a group of miners called the Red Faction and their leader Eos), you must attempt to
sabotage Ultor while fighting to survive.
The main selling point of Red Faction is a piece of technology called the Geo-Mod, which
makes environments completely destructible. Demolishing walls, ceilings, and floors is
completely possible within the world of Red Faction. Although the Geo-Mod could mean a
large step forward in gaming, it seems rather under-utilized in Red Faction, almost like a
gimmick used to mask the fact that while Red Faction is undoubtedly good, it is neither
original, nor fun, nor deep enough to achieve any sort of greatness.
The Geo-Mod: The next step forward in gaming?
The Geo-Mod Technology, while not quite an innovation in gaming (yet), is quite an
impressive piece of programming, and brings a few new aspects to the table. One of the
main frustrations of games, hunting for keys to doors that could easily be blown away with
a few bullets, is somewhat eliminated with Red Faction. Got a door that just won't open?
Simply bust out a rocket launcher and blast your own pathway through. The Geo-Mod can also
be used to create hiding spots, find secret areas, and send tons of rock crumbling down on
the enemy.
The only problem to be found with the Geo-Mod is that it is not fully utilized in Red
Faction. In the rocky cave areas of Red Faction, anything and everything can be destroyed,
but in the more confined areas in the later game, the Geo-Mod is not used as often.
There's no knocking the Geo-Mod, but it is slightly unnerving when one minute the
environment is crumbling, shattering, and disintegrating around you, and the next minute
500 fusion rockets won't make a dent in the wall. The Geo-Mod, as of yet, is not a huge
leap forward in gaming, and is definitely not used to it's full potential in Red Faction,
but it adds new facets to Red Faction that will hopefully be capitalized upon in the
future.
Did they get their character models from Goldeneye? (graphics)
As you will see in this review, the theme in every category is that there is some good,
some bad, and nothing really outstanding about Red Faction. Starting out with the
graphics, the environments look very nice indeed. Ultor’s facilities on Mars are
broken up into two distinct areas: the brown cave areas and the gray lab areas, both of
which are smooth and fairly well rendered. The Geo-Mod, from a graphical standpoint,
shines, as one of highlights of the game is sitting back after an intense shootout and
taking notice the numerous holes and damage to the surrounding. Besides a few blurry,
low-res looking background objects, the environments and effects are very nice.
The bad portion of the graphics lies in the characters. The enemies, seen from a distance,
are tolerable, although they seem disproportionate. During cut scenes, however, it gets
much worse; some of these characters should be sent back to the second generation N64
world from whence they came. Parker's arms look like they aren't attached to his body and
his eyes look like they are falling out of their sockets; mouths don't match up with
characters’ speech; faces are oddly stretched out; and the textures on the characters
look very blurry. Very disturbing indeed. Some good, although slightly repetitive,
environments contrast sharply with the ugliness of the characters.
Is this anything we haven’t seen before? (gameplay)
Playing by all the rules of the FPS world, Red Faction delivers a solid experience, sans
any sort of originality. Most of the missions in Red Faction involve Parker being
instructed to go kill/blow up something, killing all the enemies along the way, and then
moving onto the next area after narrowly escaping the big explosion you caused. Except for
one sequence in the entire game, blowing away the enemy is the only course of action.
While this can be fun for a time, it shows a serious lack of originality on the part of
the creators.
While there are a few “stealth” portions in the game where Parker is undercover,
these are made frustrating by the fact that guards recognize Parker's face when you get
within five of feet of them. This would actually be a cool feature, except for the fact
that drawing a gun on a guard to take them out, even when they have their back turned,
results in them somehow seeing you and setting off a full scale alert. This brings up the
issue of the AI. While it isn’t bad, it is not as excellent as some people say it is.
The AI seems to have been beefed up so that it has unbelievably good aim, but is lacking
in advanced tactics such as cornering or surrounding. Besides a few nice tricks (running
away screaming ''I'm unarmed!'' when they run out of ammo), the AI seems to take the
bullets that are dished out without doing much to avoid them. Also, there are no
consequences for setting off the alarm in the ''stealth modes'' except attack from the
guards, so it much simpler to simply whip out the pistol and shoot your way through these
missions.
The weapons are extremely standard fare, and there is not one even slightly innovative
weapon. Some of the secondary modes of fire are cool, like a heat seeking rocket launcher
or a flame thrower cartridge used as a bomb, but this is pretty standard fare, and none of
the weapons achieve the level of fun of the Cerebral Bore of Turok 2 or the
Shrinker of Duke Nukem 3D.
Giving credit where it's due, obvious effort went into the single player quest, and it is
quite long: about 15-20 hours the first time through. Unfortunately, the game begins to
feel repetitive towards the end, and because the Geo-Mod gets phased out as the game
progresses, the last portion of the game is literally running through corridor after
corridor blowing away hundreds of enemies as they give you the bum rush.
The multiplayer mode of Red Faction is fun at a basic level, but there are virtually NO
customizable features or unlockables or extras, much like the rest of Red Faction (unless
you count a trailer for the game Summoner...whoop-de-doo). Tithe lack of extra
options and 4-player support seriously cripples the replayability. The theme of this
review continues: a solid, long single player mission and a basically fun multiplayer game
are all good, just not great.
Wait, so what’s the cause of the Plague again? (story)
I have come to stop expecting character development and intriguing plot twists of the
average video game, so when Red Faction delivered neither, I was not disappointed. Large,
gaping plot holes, however, are inexcusable. Many aspects of the game (without spoiling
anything), such as the Plague, and a character named Gryphon, are simply never explained.
Besides a few clichéd, not exactly well-written blurbs in the instruction manual that
explain the backgrounds of the three main characters, Eos, Parker, and Hendrix, nothing is
really revealed about them.
Even more disappointing than the numerous unexplained features of the plot is the
anti-climatic ending. After a very ordinary final battle against a just recently
introduced character, the game abruptly ends. Being so anti-fantastical actually hurts the
game. It would have been nice to engage in a few elaborate battles boss battles using more
imaginative weaponry, or at least something to add a spark to what is otherwise a rather
disjointed tale with a lackluster conclusion.
Do you think the actor who played Eos is a secretary for Volition? (sound)
Hey, no real complaints here. The voice acting is above average for a video game, with a
few nice performances (Hendrix), and a few overacted performances (Eos, Parker). The
bullets all sound good, the death cries are nice, and there are some fast rock tunes to
get the adrenaline flowing during those intense fights for survival. Nothing really
fantastic to speak of, but a nice experience.
Why didn’t they add ANY customization options? (lifespan)
If this game is your bag (as it seems to be for most people), this will definitely be
worth the money. The single player quest is quite long for an FPS, and may even warrant
another run through for those who want to experiment with the Geo-Mod features. While the
multiplayer lacks any real features of customization, blowing people away should be
entertaining for a while. Especially considering the short length of most PlayStation 2
games out there, Red Faction could keep a gamer entertained for quite a while.
The Bottom Line(?)
I realize that I have dumped on this game quite a bit, mentioning its good qualities in
passing while dwelling on its flaws. Just to stress, this is a good game, but no extras,
no originality (except for the nice Geo-Mod), and a bad story hurt it. The Geo-Mod might
be slightly over hyped, but, in time, games will hopefully more fully utilize this sort of
technology; the Geo-Mod’s future as something beyond mere gimmick status seems
promising. Red Faction does most things right, but obviously sticks strictly to the book,
not really attempting to achieve in any particular area. It is a good game, but I hope it
does not become known as anything more. |
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