Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Mike Escobar

For those of us that have missed being a subversive element, never fear!  Volition and THQ have brought us the third installment of the Red Faction series and it has never been so much fun to be a troublemaker.  If you’re not familiar with these games, Red Faction tells the tales of various rebellions that have taken place during the colonization and exploitation of Mars.  The original Red Faction came out way back in 2001 and was quickly followed up in 2002 by Red Faction 2.  Apparently “Red Faction” is just too good a name for the Martian rebels to pass up.  I guess calling themselves “Red Dawn” or “Redrum” just wasn’t good enough…

Previous Red Faction games were first-person shooters, but Red Faction: Guerrilla (RF: G) changes gears with this title and is now a third-person sandbox type of game in the same vein as Saint’s Row or Grand Theft Auto.  This is also the first time that Red Faction has been released on a nextgen console, and the results are great. The developers have really taken advantage of the graphical and processing horsepower that the PS3 has to offer.  With fully destructible vehicles and buildings, there’s never been so much fun to be had just running around destroying everything you see.

Taking place some fifty years after the events in Red Faction 2, we come to find that the Earth Defense Force (EDF) has let all the power we gained for them in Red Faction 2 go to their heads and is now oppressing the workers just as brutally as the previous regime.  Your mission is to unite the colonists and defeat the EDF, paving the way for the glorious worker’s paradise!

As anyone who saw the excellent 1990 documentary Total Recall can tell you, Mars is kind of boring looking.  I mean, it’s an orange kind of color with blocky utilitarian buildings.  All kidding aside, technically the environments are all very good, with plenty of variety, and almost no “pop-in” of people or vehicles.  The problem is that Mars is still being developed and colonized, and to maintain any sense of “realism” in the environment means you’ll be seeing miles and miles of orange, dusty terrain.  Some of the later levels include a heavily urbanized area and an oasis of sorts, but be prepared to deal out plenty of dusty death.

The character models in RF: G are solid, middle of the road examples of people on a nextgen console.  You won’t be seeing a Final Fantasy-esqe person with each hair on their head individually modeled, but the characters are all believable and don’t detract from the game experience at all.

The real graphical stars of this game are the buildings.  Keeping a consistent style of construction while still having plenty of diversity, you really get engrossed in the world around you.  Destroying all these structures never gets old, either the way they collapse or the variety with which you can cause their destruction.  Whether you’re stealthily planting demolition charges or just stealing an armored personnel carrier and running it through the building again and again, it just never gets old.

The voice acting is average, and I blame the sheer forgetability of the characters more on their lack of development than the quality of the actors’ performances.  Environmental sounds are all well-executed, with the groan of tortured metal as a structure collapses being something you’ll hear quite a bit.  Background music is just that – music that stays well in the background and doesn’t pull you away from the action on the screen.

One part of the sound work that I really did enjoy quite a bit was the reaction and chatter from the colonists in each area you visit.  Whenever you successfully destroy an EDF building or accomplish a mission for the resistance, the conversations you overhear at any of your safe houses is positive and upbeat.  If you die or fail on a mission, just the opposite happens.  People in the street will grumble more and generally convey a feeling of hopelessness.  It may seem like a small thing, but it helps make the world seem more alive.

Controls feel natural and will be easy for anyone to pick up. The left stick is used to move around and the right stick is used to look.  The controls are completely customizable, but the default layout works very well, with some nice little twists.  Weapon swapping is handled via the R2 button.  You can tap the R2 to cycle through weapons or hold it down and manually pick the weapon you want.  You crouch by using the L3 button, and can configure it to either crouch only while L3 is held down or to switch back and forth between crouching each time you press that button.  With so many options available, everyone should be able to find a configuration that fits their needs perfectly.

The overall goal of RF: G is to rally the workers behind your cause while at the same time removing the control that the evil EDF has over the people.  While so many games have some kind of contrived method of teaching you how the game works, RF: G accomplishes this in a refreshing way.

You receive your initial information from your brother, with him explaining to you how there are six separate areas of Mars, and that he lives and works in the first of these areas, Parker.  Once you are given proper motivation to join and fight for the resistance (I won’t give away what little story line there is by revealing that here) you begin performing missions and supporting the cause in the Parker area.

While it is obvious you need to take over all the zones of Mars to complete the game, Parker is in the hands of the rebels fairly quickly, taking roughly two hours of solid gameplay before you move on to the next zone.  This might cause some concern initially, making players think that they’ll have the game finished in a quick eight to ten hours.  It is only after you move on to the second zone, Dust, that you realize Parker was more of prelude to the main game, giving you an opportunity to see how the flow of play progresses, in an albeit shortened version.  After you arrive in Dust, you realize very soon how much work you have ahead of you, to unite an entire planet against your oppressors.

And this is where the trouble starts.

In recent years, game designers have realized how a compelling story line and character development can change a good game into a great game.  Unfortunately, RF: G’s tissue-thin plot just doesn’t cut it, and it really is a shame.  The main characters (including yourself) are ultimately forgettable, and you just aren’t able to identify or sympathize with them.  This leaves you looking for excuses to go blow up some more buildings and wipe out hordes of faceless EDF “drones”.  The good thing is that it is just so damn enjoyable you have no problem whatsoever chasing down the next opportunity to appease your appetite for destruction.

The missions come in a nice variety, with everything from hostage rescue to convoy interdiction to assisting the colonists in defending themselves.  Of special note however, are the ongoing destruction missions.  Highlighted in blue on your map are the structures that are critical to the Earth Defense Force.  At any time you can attack and attempt to destroy these structures, but beware; the larger the structure, the more well-defended it will be.

Taking down the buildings is one of the most enjoyable, and dare I say it cathartic, parts of this game.  Utilizing the Havok engine along with a proprietary technology called Geo Mod 2.0, every structure, vehicle, and person in RF: G is a fully-realized physics object.  This means that buildings behave as they would in the real world, with key support points throughout them.  You can blow basketball-sized holes through every wall in a building and all you will accomplish is providing the occupants with free air conditioning.  Attach an explosive charge to one or two of the vertical supports and it’s a whole different matter.  The structure will creak and sway, eventually crumbling to the ground in a pile of rubble.

Red Faction uses a unique method of tracking your progress in each zone.  You need to increase the workers’ morale while at the same time decreasing the control the EDF has over that zone.  You can easily check your progress by pressing Select, bringing up a meter that shows your zone’s morale rising and the EDF’s control shrinking.  These numbers have a very real effect on your gameplay.  As the EDF loses control of a zone, the colonists will begin to help the rebels more and more.  This begins with the ammo crates that the workers leave lying around.  The lower the EDF control, the more ammo and the more variety of weapons will be inside.  Lower the EDF’s control enough, and the colonists will even join your cause, taking up weapons and helping you when you fight.

One of the biggest bonuses in Red Faction is the way that beacons are implemented.  In other open world games it is easy to get lost all the time, causing you to constantly switch from your map screen to game screen and back again.  The developers solved this problem completely by adding beacons to the game.  Your map screen has all the points of interest listed on it, including side missions, main story missions, and important EDF buildings.  Simply hover your cursor over your intended destination and hit X to Place Beacon.  Immediately your main map will show you the path to take to your target.  Not only that, when you return to the game screen your mini map will have glowing yellow arrows that point to your destination AND you’ll see the same arrows on the ground in front of your character.  It is virtually impossible to get lost, which alleviates one of the most common complaints people have about sandbox games.  They even extend this feature further; from time to time you will receive radio messages informing you of different events, such as a convoy that needs to be intercepted or a worker’s camp that is being attacked.  Without leaving the main game screen you just press right on the d-pad and your beacon has now been set to your new destination.  This helps keep you immersed in the game world and is a brilliant method for solving the problem of getting lost constantly.

Some gamers are old school enough that they can recall games that used a “hot seat” and called themselves “multiplayer games”.  Hot seat gaming is where you have one game machine and opposing players take turns in control of it, making their moves.  RF: G has its own take on this style of gaming called Wrecking Crew.  In Wrecking Crew players take turns causing as much collateral damage as possible in a limited amount of time.  They are awarded a score and then the next person takes the controller and tries to beat that score.  With full leaderboards and rankings, you run the risk of being forever known as someone who is “as dangerous as a kitten with narcolepsy” if you don’t perform well.

The usual modes of multiplay are all here – Death Match, Team Death Match, Capture the Flag, Base Defense, Base Assault, etc.  The key difference from other multiplayer games is how very well these are all implemented.  Nearly every kind of multiplay bell and whistle is present, including spectator mode.  Another great addition to multiplayer is the presence of backpacks.  You can only wear a single backpack and the different ones provide you with unique advantages, like limited flight or x-ray vision.  Too lazy to go steal a vehicle to run through a building?  Equip the Rhino backpack and you’ll run right through walls just like your favorite armored vehicle, doing nearly as much damage.

Between the significant time that can be spent on the single player game and the plethora of options available for gaming with your friends (and future enemies) there is an absolute wealth of replay value in this title, making it well worth your hard-earned money.

There’s so much about Red Faction: Guerrilla that is innovative and goes above and beyond your run-of-the-mill game, it’s disappointing that this title didn’t garner a higher score.  The fact is that modern gamers want an engaging story line along with their action and that just isn’t present here.  The absolutely phenomenal multiplayer offerings as well as the lengthy single player experience make for an excellent experience nonetheless.  Here’s hoping we won’t have to wait another seven years to lead the oppressed of Mars to victory!

Gaming Trend Score

84

1. Graphics: 80
2. Audio: 75
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 87
5. Value/Replay: 90
6. OVERALL:84