Red Faction

The Good
PRESENTATION: The game's menu were well presented, easy to read and pretty funky with the mars landscape scrolling at the back.

STORY: You are Parker, that's it for a name, you thought working with Ultor would be cool, how wrong are you. In fact the opening dialouge is spoken with surprise. Anyhow the conditons are bad, and the miners revolt. The story kinda trails off from there but remains through the game, in one way or another. It's ok but....you'll have to play to see what I mean. In a way it's just recycled from other story lines.

CONTROLS: All of them can be remapped, thank god, the default key configuration is too far paced across the keyboard for one hand, so remapping the enter key for operating doors is must.

GRAPHICS: Fairly good, the people/things in the game are well done, not perfect but enough to get things rolling. The GeoMod engine is lacking when it comes to curvy walls so some corners looks a little rough and jagged. The textures are also a bit lacking, the game WAS taken from the PS2, so that's one problem. The set pieces (desks clocks) are well done as well, there is even a little pencil on a desk, and the clock hands move, nice touch of details there. Lighting is fairly well done as well with a few ok shadow effects thrown in, and the light glare from flying craft is well done as well. Underwater is well animated as well with little particles (fish food?) floating about, and bubbles from gun shots are also included. The animations are fairly well done, keep an eye out for the shotgun death animation.

SOUND: All the gun effects work just perfect, the reload effects for the Persision rifle and the Sub Macheine gun are really fun. The game also notices little things like crunching glass when you walk over it. Foot steps are a little off set and the voice is not really that good. But it works.

GEO-MOD This has been given a section because it is different from GAMEPLAY. Firstly you all know what GEOMOD is? For the people who don't know, GEOMOD, is the first gaming engine to utilise a realtime world destruction engine. In other words, you can make a level swiss cheese with time and a rocket launcher. This also means you can make a cieling collapse by taking out the support struts, or make APCs plummet into a abyss by taking out the bridge. And if you have time, carve out large sections of the cieling and watch them fall onto people. All the effects that I have mentioned are possible. Glass is well done as well. Fire at a pane from a distance with a pistol and you will only get a little bullet hole. From close range with a rifle, and the glass will shatter from where it is hit. And the pieces fall down every where as well as get thrown about with an explosion. Perfect.

GAMEPLAY: Ok a mixed bag. Firstly the A.I in this game is GOOD. The enemy run to cover to reload as well as call in others and dodge their way around you. The weapons are wonderful to play with. The pistol has a nice silencer screw on animation and the heavy machiene gun has a really cool reload action. The only bad bit about the weapons is the uselessness of the close combat weapons. The riot shield only deflects so much in terms of bullets. The rail driver on the other hand is a weapon of mass fear, even in the hands of the enemy. Firstly it can drive a charge through the wall into somebody, or you. The levels are interesting, a bit boring at some points, mainly with the missions in the mines, but it really shines in the space station mission, with low gravity and interesting recol effects.

Multiplayer is interesting as well as chaotic. People try their best to terraform the enviroment to their advantage and other's disadvatage. In this game the floor can vanish below your feet with no warning. Fun.

The Bad
Ok time to dish out the diss.

Firstly the GEO MOD engine. The programmers offered us this new technology and do not let us use it fully. For examples all doors cannot be destroyed and the wall around them cannot be carved into with a rocket launcher. On top of all that the office levels walls are stronger than mars rock.

Apart from that major niggle, the game is a well thought out game.

The Bottom Line
Yes it is worth your $89.00 (Aus). The multiplayer levels are a dream and the single player, while lacking still is a good challenge. It may not be the next Half-Life, but it is very close.

The Good
The answer to that question is a complicated one. Truth be told, THQ's 'Red Faction' did not revolutionize first-person shooters (FPS) or games in general. But, having said that, this game is also not the "disappointment" and the "soulless clone" many disgruntled user reviewers have described it, either.

The 'Playstation 2 Official Magazine UK' praised 'Red Faction' as the "Playstation 2's deadliest game" upon its first release in 2001. It wasn't kidding. 'Red Faction' is a really challenging game, which gets more difficult as you progress. It is not the puzzles that are tough, usually they are pretty straightforward. 'Blow a hole there to get to there', 'push that switch to open that gate', that kind of stuff. It is learning how to survive from one gunfight to another that is the real trick here. Even on the lower difficult settings, this game is relentless. One wrong move, one unnecessary encounter, one careless mistake, and you are dead. 'Red Faction' provides a real challenge for the most veteran of FPS players out there. This forces the player to find all the available strategies available to him before engaging an enemy, such as finding an armored vehicle or an alternate route in the game's expansive environments.

'Red Faction' is obviously inspired by such videogame classics as 'Half-Life' and 'Deux Ex' (not to mention the obvious, like 'Doom'). However, to its credit, it does feel like its own unique game. And for its time, it was certainly avant-garde as well. 'Red Faction''s so-called 'Geo-Mod technology' was an innovative feature in 2001, even though there are a lot of limitations imposed upon the player in this regard. But I find these limitations to be justified. The game tries to make you think outside the box, at least occasionally, and there is no other way but to strategize accordingly if you want to make it out of Mars in one piece.

The story is also pretty satisfying, especially for an FPS. Ultor, a mining corporation operating in Mars, maltreats its employees to the point of enslavement. Eos, Orion (named after gods from Greek mythology: Eos being the goddess of dawn and Orion the legendary huntsman) and a couple of other miners organize what starts to be known as the Red Faction. As Eos explains:

"It was Orion who came up with the name of Red Faction for our team. He thought the political sense of 'faction' would have meaning only for us. And the 'Red' symbolised that we represented all of Mars. The name clicked with everyone..." (from the instruction Manual).

Sure, the story is nothing more than a quest of retribution against an unethical and oppressive company, so don't expect anything Shakespearean. What makes matters more interesting is that there is a 'plague' reaping death among the miners; although, most mysteriously of all, it does not seem to affect Ultor's security guards. While it is revealed that a scientist called Capek had something to do with it, the 'how' and 'why' are never really explained. Still, it is decently intriguing stuff, and the ideas and concepts explored in this game were eventually actualized in the newer generation 'Red Faction' games.

What is probably the game's most redeeming feature is how ambitious it is, even if its budget and the technical limitations of its time may have prevented it from achieving more of a classical status. By 'ambitious' I mean what the game was trying to do even if it is arguable whether it has succeeded or not. From the in-game selection of five vehicles, including a submarine and an aerial fighter craft (the Aesir Fighter), the number of paths the player can occasionally choose to the 'rail driver' weapon, which allows you to shoot through walls and so on, there is no end to the game's innovative and ambitious vein. Even if you do not like the game per se, you have got to admit that it is really impressive what the game had attempted to do.

The Bad
However hard the game tried to be innovative, which it was and still is, not everything turned out the way they should have. The 'Geo-Mod technology', for example, despite being fun, is gimmicky. There are only a few places where you can use it to a good purpose, and I rarely used it in my playthrough. The graphics, although for their time they weren't atrocious, could have been better. Even the lighting could have been improved. At one point I could not find a switch I need to open a door because I could barely see it.

I have already mentioned the game's difficulty, but some parts are so relentless that they are ridiculous.You will be loading your last save file a lot of times, because the game does not have any checkpoints. So having multiple save slots and saving often is a must. Even then the game is frustratingly tough. Later on in the game, heavily armored mercenaries can kill you in almost one shot. The stealth sections did not facilitate anything as well. I almost had an easier time finishing Killzone 2 on elite difficulty than beating this game on Medium, no joke, because I am not someone who is accustomed to saving every few paces. Good luck finishing this game if you haven't already, and I dare anyone who thinks he is a veteran of FPS games to try to beat 'Red Faction' on impossible mode!

Another thing that could have been improved is the artistic direction. Although there are sections that take place in the grand canyons of Mars, underwater caverns and even one level on a space station orbiting Mars, the majority of the game takes place in industrial complexes or drab environments. They did try to create a sort of Flora and Fauna for Mars, but there are only a handful of examples, such as fern-like trees and small bat-like creatures. Nothing special.

The Bottom Line
I have the impression that 'Red Faction' tried to be for PS2 what 'Doom' was for PCs. In that respect, it has arguably failed. But it did show what could be done, and there lies the true success of any revolution.

The Good
Geo-mod really, REALLY made this game what it is. Puzzles can be solved or simply skipped by blowing the crap out of... well... just about anything! The storyline really helps motivate you to start cracking skulls when the Miner Control group screams for mercy, then start shooting again. Plenty of weapons to keep me happy, and of course, the vehicles just sweeten the deal. Just so damn fun...

The Bad
Well, limitations on how much you can blow up for starters. I built a really, really long tunnel into the ground only to find that nothing blows up anymore. It took me 3 minutes to crawl back out, but I wanted to go deeper. Load times really ticked me off as well. It seems like almost every minute or so you'd have to wait a good 15-20 seconds to continue on your mission. The graphics also kind of annoyed me, but graphics arent what make the game great. Those aside, the game is just pretty good.

The Bottom Line
I'd say an equal match, or possibly even BETTER than Half-Life for the PS2. Realistic destructible environments, a very pretty sounding and destructive arsenal, and a good storyline to back it up. Rent first, most likely buy.