Red Faction

Moby ID: 4194
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

The Ultor Corporation of Mars is successful because of the mineral wealth of that planet. It employs a number of miners and scientists to mine the Noachite ores far underground. The miners are constantly pressured by the guards to work harder and faster, while at the same time being forced to share their meager resources. While the mines itself are dangerous, so too is the mysterious plague that has broken out among the ranks of miners, killing many. Into this low morale situation, propaganda against Ultor has begun appearing, signed only by "Eos". These pamphlets and posters urge the miners to rise up against their oppressors and take a stand, also recruiting members into their secretive "Red Faction". As a result of Eos' efforts, tensions are rising high between the Ultor corporation and its workers, any little incident could ignite...

Red Faction is a first-person shooter. Players take the role of Parker, a miner working underground for the Ultor Corporation. Equipped in an environment suit, Parker is protected from various hazards and able to breathe deep in the mines and in airless locations. At times, Parker also needs to travel undercover in a less protective disguise. Parker defends himself with a variety of weapons, most of which feature a primary and secondary firing mode. The weapons are divided into: hand weapons such as riot shields and flamethrowers, light arms which include pistols and shotguns, heavy arms featuring rocket launchers and sub-machine guns and finally weapons that are thrown or placed such as grenades and explosives. The game features a variety of vehicles to drive in first-person; including jeeps, drillers, flying craft and submarines. In order to survive, Parker must link up and aid his fellow miners, receiving direction and objectives via com-link messages.

Red Faction features a game engine called Geo-Mod. It allows holes to be blasted into all manner of terrain including floors, walls and ceilings. While limited to certain surfaces, such as rock, ice and concrete, this nonetheless results in a more destructible environment where deviation from the level design is encouraged. Players are able to at multiple points, create their own paths, tunneling past obstacles and into new environments. Only heavy explosives; such as missiles, torpedoes, grenades and plastique will allow the terrain destruction of this sort.

Spellings

  • Red Faction :สงครามแดงเดือด - Thai spelling
  • 红色派系 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

127 People (103 developers, 24 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 58 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 146 ratings with 17 reviews)

Like a good action movie

The Good
I will try to keep this review short since FPS aren’t my preferred genre…

I believe that a good fps should be as a good action movie and this title have a strong developed plot. Player takes command of a rebel miner that is part of the Red Faction in the Mars mines against the Ultor Corporation.

The best point in my opinion is the need to play vehicles in order to beat the game, submarines, helicopters, jeeps and tanks.

The personal guns are great also; I specially liked the two-function feature for each item.

I know that many of this features are already an standard on FPS but since I have low-expectations when playing FPS I had a good-time playing Red Faction.

The Bad
Just 2 Points:

1) Too easy, well I like easy FPS but not too much.

2) Too short, finishing a game in a weekend isn’t especially long…

The Bottom Line
Good game that represent high entertainment but not a challenge.

Windows · by Cabeza2000 (689) · 2003

A potentially great game full of flaws

The Good
The weaponry, by a long shot. Blowing holes in walls with explosives is great, but for the most part appears to be more about showing off technological innovation rather than constructively contributing to gameplay. Likewise, the rail driver gun is great fun as well. There are some good examples of good artwork too, like environmental artwork. I personally like repetitive gameplay, so it wasn't much of a problem for me.

The Bad
The incompetent programming that left the game riddled with bugs, some of which should've been weeded out during play testing. The largely talentless voice acting, much of which resembles somebody trying to fake a rape claim. The largely crappy artwork, which could've easily been knocked up in Photoshop within a couple of minutes.

The Bottom Line
Worth buying, but download a patch first, otherwise you WILL have problems.

Windows · by Dave Billing (24) · 2010

The fastest game on PS2.

The Good
I dunno why there is so much tense in the air whenever talking about this game, and why I got the impression that many people don't like this game, but I've only one word for them - crazy! Lol! From the moment I saw this game on PC, couple of years ago, I knew I must get this game. Of course, at the time, I had not idea I'll get a PS2 version since I had no PS2 console nor was in my slightest idea of getting one, but man, does this game looks great on PS2, I had no idea something like this is possible.

First of all, the controls are great, and once you get use to them you can quite alright play throughout the game... with autoaiming cursor, that is, 'cos c'mon, let's get real, this ain't no mouse+keyboard combination we all got used to when it comes to FPS games. I guess I gained some experience on PSX game MOHU which I don't recall having autoaiming feature. Still, graphically Red Faction looks brilliant, I couldn't tell the difference between this one and the PC version from what I remembered it.

Okay, the big breakout about this game was the fact you can destroy the terrain, thus making the whole in the wall deep enough to be a hideout or to bypass some heavy metal doors that won't open, but that wasn't what got me hooked. Sure, it's a great feature, and I salute them for making that, but what got me was the graphics. Now now, don't start joking with me saying this game doesn't have any special graphics. I didn't mean any extraordinary quality, but the textures they chose are rather perfectly balanced and create a real atmosphere and great feeling to game.

On other side, there was a promissing and intriguing story behind all the concept. You're playing Parker, one of the miners on Mars, who are just as mistreated as the rest of the miners. You soon learned that word 'miner' is no more than meaning 'looser', being exploited to the max and not caring wether you live or die. And for some obscure reason, there seemed to be 30 guards to one miner, or maybe more. Aside from being mistreated, there was a misterious plague that started spreading and seemed as there was no cure for it. And to be a little bit more complicated, there is a rebellious organization against all the Ulthor corporation and its guards. Yup, those you'll have to whack a bunch per screen.

This game offers a little bit more than just our daily first-person shooter, and that is to drive several different types of vehicles, including submarine in which you can fire torpedos and destroy the underground caverns as much as enemy subs, ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) which resembles standard Hum-Vee but has really nice physics programmed to it. You can enter two sides in that vehicle, either backside and control its mounted heavy caliber gun, or drive it (now there's a fun). Driller is a regular type of what the name implies, heavily armored and capable of digging holes in pretty much anything. And another one worth mentioning is Aesir Fighter so you don't think you never get to control some aircraft, that's what this is, having regular mounted machine gun and rockets.

Nice thing is that you can break the ice, destroy walls, but that I already mentioned sort-of, but what was really surprising and unexpected to see is that I drove off the bridge and into the water, and my ATV was left sank throughout the whole game. Is that kewl or what? Music isn't that plenty, but at least bit more than the game has cinematics which is almost none (there are some, but very few, if you don't count an opening), but it is really terrific beat and it usually indicated you're about to either get ambushed or confront a whole batallion, lol.

The puzzles in the game are on the level, nothing too tough (though sometimes it can seem like they tried to hide something making you harder to just find it), but let's get straight that this is a first-person shooter and not a first-person puzzler, and when I think of all the weapons used in the game, I must say these guys were creative. You have regular pistol which adds a great effect that you can add or remove a silencer to it, several types of machine guns, a shotgun (with a very intriguing alternate fire), several bigger launchers that can destroy more than you could want, a few snipers, and what else not. The ammo may not be as handful, though, even on easy level.

And a word about multiplayer (didn't know I'll ever use this word for some console game), it rocks! It has very nicely designed levels and you can even play the skirmish with computer only. Set up 5 enemy players and see them all fight against each other. Can become confusing sometimes, but sure can be fun once you meddle with the settings and find something interesting.

The Bad
This game has many lights throughout the game, and you can only guess that they too can be destroyed. However, what I noticed on a PC, I couldn't notice here, and that is, once the light is destroyed, there's no darkness coming. It's just as if it's still lit on the same place, only you don't see any. I dunno if I was doing something wrong, but that's the impression I got it. And I definitely rememer this working fine in PC version.

A word about enemy guards a little. Usually one shot in the head may spare you of wasting entire magazine on less vital spot to achieve the same thing. However, later in the game with more armored guards, I got the impression that except with my sniper, no head shot can be effective within a single shot. And no, they didn't seem to have twice as better helmets for that matter. That became frustrating when I needed to waste so many bullets, which I had little on a regular bases, on someone which will leave me even less then I spent.

Animals on Mars were kinda... crappy to say the least. Those low-poly not-like-anything with claws you could usually encounter in certain caverns were really unnecessary. Okay, these can even be accepted, but fished that attack with sonic waves or whatever, c'mon, don't make Doom outta this game. Let it be felt in a Half-Life sense of the way, and so far, it's going good at it.

And a major bug - there should be more music, or should be playing all the time and not just whenever some showdown is at hand.

The Bottom Line
An overly nice first-person shooter which should've gained more fame then it seemed to do. Aside from nothing-but-shooting strategy, for those players who prefer sneaking a bit, like in Splinter Cell, there are a few moment when you disguise and usually carry only your gun (blah!), and ammo isn't to waste. Though even these situations can be handled brutally, just with a bit more luck than skill.

For PC or PS2, this is a fine game that should give you a proper amount of amusement, and when all the light of the story shut down and you reach then end, think of multiplayer and go crazy.

PlayStation 2 · by MAT (240759) · 2012

[ View all 17 player reviews ]

Trivia

Game engine

Although hailed as its main feature, the GEOMOD engine is really the SECOND 3-D engine to allow deformable realtime terrain. The first engine was part of an independent game, Tread Marks

German PC version

On March 29, 2003, Red Faction (PS2) was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games. The German PC version of Red Faction is heavily cut. The flame thrower is missing and there is no blood at all. The game still got an "Age 18+" rating.

Hidden movie

There's a hidden movie in the game's data\movies\ folder. It's a executable file named technochunk.exe,and running it gives you a short movie of various game characters dancing to techno music.

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Related Sites +

  • Red Faction Section at Levels 4 You
    The biggest map and mod database for Red Faction containing thousands of files some of which are real gems.
  • redtechnologies
    Everything you need to know about the RED level editor for Red Faction. This site also has a forum for RF mappers and mod-makers.

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  • MobyGames ID: 4194
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

PlayStation 4 added by Charly2.0. PlayStation 3 added by Sciere. Macintosh added by Kabushi. Windows added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, phlux, Alaka, Lumpi, Abhisit Chanmana.

Game added May 29, 2001. Last modified January 21, 2024.