Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

Red Faction: Guerrilla represents the third title in the Red Faction series.  You’ll recall that the original Red Faction was the father of the GeoMod technology – a technology that allowed players to dig holes in the earth, walls, and anything else remotely destructible – at least within the confines of the PlayStation 2’s power.  We’ve moved forward quite a bit with console power, so Volition and THQ have decided that it’d be a good time to revisit the series.

Red Faction: Guerrilla takes place 50 years after the previous title, and things have only gotten worse on Mars.  In the previous titles, a group calling themselves the Red Faction threw off the yoke of the Ultor Corporation (you might recognize them from Saint’s Row and Saint’s Row 2 – another great Volition series) with the assistance of the Earth Defense Force, or EDF for short.  The EDF provided security, but civilians can’t live under military rule for long…

Mining operations continue, but greedy corporate entities on Earth demand more every day.  Now the miners and colonists that worked so hard to establish themselves on the Red Planet are being driven from their homes.  A few settlers organized labor strikes and staged protests, but the EDF simply responded with arrests and forced work camp detention centers.  Now and once again, the settlers of Mars are banding together to throw off the yoke of their oppressors.  Once again we see the rise of the Red Faction.

If you’ve played the previous Red Faction titles, you’ll immediately notice one of the largest changes to the series with this entry – the change to third-person perspective.  Red Faction: Guerrilla has transformed from a first-person shooter to a third-person action sandbox title.  Following in a similar path to the aforementioned Saint’s Row series, Red Faction : Guerrilla is an open world for the player to explore.  When I saw this title a few months ago it was already feature complete and could have easily shipped right then, but the folks at Volition were not quite done with it.  I noted then that the areas of Mars were not quite as diverse as I might hope, but apparently the folks at Volition were listening to that as well.  Mars is the “Red Planet”, but it just can’t be the only color for a videogame.  The first few areas of the game are essentially a dust bowl, but as you progress through the six areas you’ll begin to see some variety.  As the sun sets you’ll see headlights light up, you’ll see a bit of a bloom effect, and you’ll get to see some of the great lighting work from nearby burning wreckage.  What you won’t see is a great deal of population. 

Mars is being colonized, but there are several factions warring for it.  That said, it is still a colony planet.  While there are pockets of buildings, the surface of Mars is somewhat barren.  There are plenty of volcanic rock canyons that frame the areas, hiding the occasional pop-in issues, but for the most part the areas are somewhat desolate.  There are vehicles running around, but they don’t seem to have any particular place to be or objective to achieve.  Similarly, the people and guards in the building areas just seem to shuffle about without rhyme or reason.  Similarly, the architecture of the game is somewhat drab and boxy, but the graphics aren’t the focus here, are they?

If you’ve had a bad day at work, play Red Faction: Guerrilla.  If you have a need to destroy entire swaths of buildings, play Red Faction: Guerrilla.  If you like sticking remote detonated mines to enemy soldiers and watching them panic and run around, play Red Faction: Guerrilla.  The destruction in this game is the star of the show. 

Many games utilize the Havok engine, but no game has ever used it to this level.  Volition has dropped the idea that Geo Mod can only be used to bore through the walls and floors, instead applying it to the building structures with Geo Mod 2.0.  Using a powerful hammer, explosives, or in a pinch even your fists, you can take down any structure in the game.  Every building, every lamp post, every radar dish, and every barricade can be destroyed.  It isn’t the sort of destruction you see in other games though – no building ever crumbles in the same way.  Each has a structural integrity, weight, and balance that can be overcome in a near infinite number of ways.  Planting charges on the base structures of the building can cause the entire building to topple.  Planting the same charges on the roof to cause it to collapse to the ground below it might cause enough structural damage to cause implosion.  It isn’t just a weapon that can cause this sort of damage – vehicles do a fantastic job of bringing the destruction as well.  There is nothing more satisfying than watching the enemy dive out of the way as you plow a dumptruck through the front entrance of a building…until you get access to the higher-order weapons that can cause an entire building to implode with the compact blackhole power of a singularity bomb.  Simply put, you’ve never seen destruction look so beautiful.  While the graphics may come off as plain, the destruction is nothing short of awesome. 

Red Faction: Guerrilla tells the story of Alec Mason and his brother Dan who have come to Mars to find work doing simple mining. I’m going to ruin a small section and tell you that your brother dies about 30 seconds into the game.  The reason I’m ruining it is that it just doesn’t matter.  In fact, none of the revenge backstory really manifests in any meaningful way, serving only as a vehicle to get Alec into the Red Faction.  Once Alec joins the Faction he’ll be introduced to several other characters, but sadly they really don’t matter either.  You have Commander Hugo Davies who gives you your main storyline missions, Samanya is the stereotypical British blonde researcher who will handle your upgrades, as well as analysis of a Martian artifact that serves as the basis for the second half of the game plot.  You'll be fighting against the forgettable EDF Commanders Roth and Kobel.  There are also random civilians that give you your various side missions, but frankly I’m a little surprised here – after playing Saint’s Row and having a powerful connection with my crew in that game, I found myself completely disconnected from the characters in this game. 

The soundtrack for Red Faction: Guerrilla hangs in the background, as it should.  It doesn’t have the punch of licensed tracks, but it handles the ebb and flow of the storyline well. 

I have hit so many games this year for missing subtitles as an option.  I’d like to thank Volition for their attention to detail, giving us discreet options to adjust the audio independently, as well as enabling subtitles throughout the game.  It is greatly appreciated.

There are some games that are pick up and play – Red Faction: Guerrilla is one of them.  The interface for the game is intuitive, the controls work perfectly for the third-perspective, and the camera never feels like it is in the way.  This extends nicely to the “Guerrilla Handbook” – a set of video briefings, instructions, and various other information that you’ll collect through your travels.  It will serve as your central point of data collection, as well as your map.  The map system allows you to set waypoints to your objectives which manifests as a GPS-lead line to your target. 

On the control side, you use your thumbsticks to control movement and camera, the triggers to fire, melee, or throw your weapons, and the face buttons to select between them.  You can also crouch, sprint, take cover, and take fine aim on your enemies.  Given the destructible environments, you can’t rely on your cover for long.  This means that the fine aim and the cover system gets a little less use than you might expect.  When a wall blows open creating new flanking positions, you’ll find that being mobile is worth more than being covered. 

The vehicle mechanics feel almost exactly as they did in Saint’s Row, which is a good thing as it felt polished in that game.  Getting your hands on the walker or the EDF tank is instant trouble for the enemy, making you into an unstoppable armored juggernaut.  Few games manage to make vehicles feel powerful, but that isn’t a problem for Red Faction: Guerrilla. 

Red Faction: Guerrilla kicks off quickly.  Faster than you can say “Get your ass to Mars” you are in the thick of a battle between the EDF and the Red Faction, acting as the latter’s primary agent of devastation and destruction.  The mission structure is somewhat freeform, asking the player to reduce EDF control of the various towns by completing various tasks.  Some missions ask you to rescue civilians detained by the EDF, others ask you to simply do what this game does best by destroying EDF buildings.  Collateral Damage has players ride shotgun with crazy Mars-advocate Jenkins in a run to cause as much damage as possible to EDF property in a set amount of time.  Transporter is a simple snatch and grab run to obtain various vehicles from the enemy, rushing them back to your safehouse under the pressure of a ticking clock.  Convoy asks you to attack EDF convoys, taking down the entire convoy in a well planned assault against the massive vehicles.  In Saint’s Row you had to earn enough street cred to be able to run missions, Red Faction runs the opposite direction.  You’ll have to perform missions to reduce EDF control, unlocking the primary story missions that guide the story.
 
There are no set ways to accomplish the non-story missions.  If you want to take a building apart brick by brick using only your trusty sledgehammer, feel free to do so.  If you want a more explosive approach, mining charges do a great job as well.  There is the usual assortment of pistols and machine guns to use, but those are more for use against the EDF.  As you carry out your destructive plans, the EDF forces will become aware of you.  Further destruction will cause them to send a patrol out to end your nonsense.  Continue to aggravate them and you’ll find yourself fleeing from half of the enemy forces.  Taking down enemy forces and accomplishing objectives raises the overall morale of the area, resulting in salvage and mission completion bonuses that can be used for greater upgrades.  Red Faction member deaths and property damage result in morale being reduced, naturally.  Since the colonists supply the guerrilla ammo crates scattered around the world, their happiness is important.  Couple that with the fact that they will, if their morale is high enough, join your cause and fight along side of you and you have reason to love them.  Occasionally, other Red Faction members may call on you to help defend an outpost.  You can use the cover system to hold down their position.  There is no penalty for not helping, but you gain morale and control for your efforts, so if you are nearby it can only help you.

To take down an entire area, you’ll have to complete the required missions, as well as reduce EDF control to zero, so continued pressure is a must.  Some missions are fairly easy, but their control impact is minimal.  More difficult missions may require a bit more strategy, but their payoff is larger.  Critical missions will require very careful execution, likely some extra help and firepower, and a great deal of planning, but their payoff is huge.

The game is heavily hinged on the destruction mechanic, but is supported by a somewhat forgettable storyline, so how well does all of this hold up?   Pretty well, actually!  The destruction mechanic and weapon upgrade system makes for a compelling reason to keep playing to the finale, and much like the previously mentioned Saint’s Row 2, you’ll want to see what is around the corner.  The waypoint system and relative minimal impact of the death mechanic (you reload to the most recent checkpoint and the Faction loses 3 morale) keeps the game moving.  Ripping buildings down around the ears of your enemies never gets old – in fact it’s damned near therapeutic.  If you like blowing things up, Red Faction: Guerrilla is your fix.

Many times sandbox titles will have a lackluster multiplayer component.   The developer simply doesn’t have any idea how to make the primary mechanics work in a multiplayer environment.  Well, you can’t say that about Red Faction: Guerrilla.  The mayhem and destruction makes its way over to the multiplayer modes and it is a blast – pun intended.  You have the standard deathmatch and capture the flag modes, but they aren’t the stars of the show.  Damage Control, Demolition, and Siege are going to see a great deal of play as they pit teams against each other in a bid to prevent damage to their own base while taking over designated targets.  The variation between is pretty minimal, but you haven’t heard about the backpack yet.

The backpack makes its appearance in the multiplayer modes.  There are quite a few packs that act as powerups for the player, giving them the ability to stealth, rhino-run down their opponents, do additional damage, fly, unleash a sonic boom, heal their team, and many more equally awesome powers.  Each pack changes the dynamic of the game in a profound way.  For instance, if you are playing capture the flag you have the choice of getting a healing pack or a speed run pack, but obviously you can’t have both.  Quick feet with a healing teammate might be the better strategy.  The permutations are numerous, and none of the packs feel unbalanced.  Since the damage mechanic is fully in place, you can imagine how using a sonic boom in an enemy base, removing all of the walls around their flag, can change the face of battle. 

I’ve saved the “Belle of the Ball” for last – the biggest hit is actually an offline multiplayer mode called Wrecking Crew.  In Wrecking Crew you’ll pass the controller among your friends and cause as much damage with a specified weapon / pack combo in a certain amount of time.  You can limit ammo or have each shot cost you time, but the mechanic is the same – unleash Hell using Geo Mod 2.0 for 3 minutes and then spend the next three ragging your friends as they try to beat your score.  It is a fantastic showcase of the technology that powers Red Faction: Guerrilla, especially when you couple it with some of the more powerful weapons like the Singularity Bomb.  In a level made of nothing but glass structures, it’s just too much to resist. 

The multiplayer bragging rights doesn’t end with Wrecking Crew – the game supports a full stat tracking system that tells you how many kills / deaths / flag caps / targets destroyed / wins / flag returns / etc. you’ve managed to pull off in multiplayer.  Each of these adds to the overall experience of your character, granting access to 125 unlocks including new character models, badges, weapons, HUD color schemes, and more.   Top that with leaderboards, a full spectator option, and a great matchmaking system, and you have a polished system.  Rarely is multiplayer done this well.

With a fairly lengthy single player game, a well polished multiplayer experience, and the best use of the Havok engine I’ve ever seen, it’s hard not to love Red Faction: Guerrilla. Certainly there are places that could improve, such as character development, graphical variety, and the lackluster storyline, but there is so much that is done right here. The building destruction system is unrivaled by a large margin, the vehicle controls are solid, and the weapons just get progressively better as the game goes on. The backpack system in multiplayer will have players talking for a long while, and the offline Wrecking Crew mode will keep butts in seats talking trash. Red Faction: Guerrilla is a great reboot to the series and holds a great deal of promise for the inevitable sequel.

Gaming Trend Score

84

1. Graphics: 83
2. Audio: 80
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 95
6. OVERALL:84