Red Faction: Guerilla was released in June of this year and was produced by Volition, Inc and THQ. This game drops the player behind the controls of Alex Mason, a demolitions worker newly landed on Mars. He meets up with his brother who instantly suggests that he join the Red Faction, a group of resistance fighters attempting to liberate the terraformed Martian planet from the Earth Defense Force. The EDF has gone become a tyrant, killing civilians and generally ruling with a harsh, iron fist. Within 5 minutes, you go from new arrival to guerilla extraordinaire as your brother is killed and you vow vengeance.
The game is another openworld, sandbox type. You can run anywhere you want in your current active center and destroy EDF property at random, save hostages, aid in guerilla insurgencies or complete the missions to the advance the plot. It’s a third-person game which makes navigation more manageable. The main point to the game that Volition flaunted was the completely destroyable environment. Any building, any car, any crate can be annihilated with very satisfying effects. This makes getting from point A to B easier because walls can simply be leveled with your trusty sledgehammer. Your objectives are to make life miserable for the EDF by lowering their control of different areas and raising RF morale.
The kinks in the game are a very finicky driving system, a very aggravating weapons control system and a general slow paced nature. On easy difficulties the AI is numbingly boring but any higher and they become killing machines. While it is very enjoyable at first, the amount of time one can spend running through endless quests is limited. Gameplay is repetitive and leaves no real room for strategy. You run in, you drop a bomb, you run out. No real thinking here.
This is a good game for beginners and quest fanatics. It’s not a full blown shooter, so action isn’t it’s real calling card and it’s not totally RPG either. Overall it’s pretty solid gameplay, with a few hiccups here and there. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but if sandbox games are your thing and you don’t care about it not really being a full RPG or shooter, then by all means, sign up with your local Red Faction group today.
One Comment
Good details; good reporting. I’m looking for more of your voice in here with your thoughts on how effective/fun different parts of the game are. One reason we read blogs is to get the insights and sometimes snarky opinions of the writer. Find your voice. And include links whenever you can. That’s the real payoff of following a blogger, all the other information you get from links and mentions.