Red Faction

The Good
The setting. Mars. I loved the switches between hightech Ultor buildings to old abandoned mines which are prone to collapse.

I also loved the weapons (they aren't anything special, but they are very cool). The secondary modes are also good.

The so called GeoMod engine. This engine allows the player to "mangle" the levels with his/her weapons. You can blow everything to tiny little bits.

The multiplayer mode is fairly balanced. Not that many levels, but they do differ a lot. Shame though that there isn't a capture the flag mode.

The Bad
This game is to normal. The weapons are fun, but they arent revolutional. The Martian surroundings do offer a variety, but it just doesn't feel that special. The story is almost identical to the 1990 blockbuster movie "Total Recall" which adds nothing new to the story aspect either.

The AI of the opponenents is terrible! And i mean terrible! If a guard decides to attack you, he'll just run into you and when he notices that you are crouching, he'll flee and starts screaming. In the 'infiltration" level the guards have "super acute" hearing. You are disguised as a diplomat, but the guard will recognize you from quite a distance.

The potentially great GeoMod engine is severely underused. Blowing walls away isn't required to complete the game (oh all right, except for that one moment). I think that this problem has been taken care of in Red Faction 2. And let's be honest, the GeoMod engine is the only thing that is actually new in this game. It's an enormous dissappointment that this was disregarded by the developers.

The Bottom Line
This game isn't bad, but it sure isn't good either. This is just one of these games that just loses it's "taste" once you've played it for about 15 minutes. Multiplayer can be fun, but your going to have to do with deathmatch only. If you are looking for a basic shooter than this is the game for you. If you are looking for a shooter that has a lot of new things to offer, then upgrade your PC and wait for Doom III.