An old school FPS that brings some great ideas to the table, only to then set fire to it all in the second half as it turns the entire concept of health and armour pointless, as all enemies are now equipped with an automatic hitscan instant death railgun, and they won't miss.
YEEP sips monster they really throws away dollaridos on gmanlives patreon don't make them like they used to parts receding hairline
Red Faction is a game that's been kicking around in my head for the twenty or so years it's been since I'd last played it. I've been meaning to go back to it for years, as my memories of the game were quite fond ones. What I have found in returning to this game, however, is that memories can be unreliable, even outright incorrect.
Aspects of this game unearthed memories buried deep within my brain, things that without my knowing I've been carrying with me for a couple decades: the enemy call outs and death screams; the incredibly stupid line at the beginning as the mining corporation thug attacks your comrade, "You threatenin' me? Yeah, well threaten this!"; a select few sequences here and there. But what I also came to realize is that this game that I looked back on so fondly? It's a total blur. I remember almost none of it. And for good reason: it kind of sucks.
For the purpose of not making this drag on too much (edit: about that... oops), when Red Faction is at its best, it's a pretty fun FPS. Shooting feels for the most part good, although I do think the spread could use to be tuned to be a bit less dramatic. There's a world in which this could be a game right in there in the same breath (or at least not far off) as the greats. So why is it, then, that I sort of hate this game?
Right as you start accruing an arsenal of decent weapons, Red Faction decides to flip a switch and turn into a stealth game. It takes all of your weapons but the silenced pistol from you, gives you a disguise, and tells not to get too close to anyone or they'll see through it. The game never communicates any of this information well enough to not feel fucking terrible and I found myself instead wishing I were playing No One Lives Forever or, shit, even one of the new Hitman games. Even if you set off alarms, and you will, you can't break out of your disguise and pick up new weapons; you have to hope you can make do with the magazine of bullets you were given. After some trial and error and strong use of quick saving and curse words you'll find your way through, but it never feels rewarding or that you've done something well. Oh and by the way? After that whole miserable sequence and more traditional shooting segments where you get your weapons back the game does it again, it fucking does it again, but this time in a more confusing area with deadlier enemies.
Even with those awful parts I wasn't overly down on the game, but then it turns into one of the least enjoyable FPSes I've ever played. For the last third or so of the game, nearly every single area you take battle in contains at least one enemy with an instagib rail gun that shoots through walls. It makes every encounter basically random: you will die dozens of times the instant you walk around a corner, well before any person could react. It feels like playing a multiplayer shooter in a lobby full of cheaters. It is horrendously fucking unfun. Except of course when you're using the gun yourself. It is awfully satisfying ripping a single cartoonishly powerful round through a line of clueless enemies from a couple rooms down the hall.
But it's not just the rail guns that made me ultimately hate the game: more generally speaking, the last stretch has a severe leap in difficulty that never feels properly challenging so much as it does cheap. Sometimes you'll open a door and be greeted by an unavoidable rocket an enemy has already sent your way. Sometimes enemies will be spawned behind you from dead-end corridors. There are stretches where there are more health items than you can use and then others where there are so few you end up riding the quick load button until you get by without taking a hit. I didn't happen to find healing before the (for the record, really, really bad) final boss fight, so I had to beat it without taking a single hit.
I should also make quick note of the game's defining feature: the so-called "Geo-Mod" technology, wherein explosions excavate the game's terrain. From a technology standpoint it's pretty neat, especially for 2001, but also: it barely exists. There's almost nowhere to use it in the single-player campaign and the places you can are at best superficial. Volition's method of stopping players from using the technology to perform sequence breaks appears to have been basically stopping the player from ever being able to use it at all. I think if they had instead taken the exact opposite approach and embraced the potential game-breaking nature of deformable terrain, the game would be profoundly more interesting. Instead, we're left with little more than a few walls in empty rooms you can make small dents in.
Before I get out of here, I've already rambled on too long, let me just briefly touch on the story. How fucking cool of a concept is taking part in a full-on violent revolution against the capitalist fucks who have been killing your fellow workers. It whips ass, right? Unfortunately no. I can't possibly imagine the concept for this game wasn't to at least some extent inspired by the real life labor history of miners such as that documented in the essential documentary Harlan County, USA, but rather than using any of that to enrich the plot or even attempt at making anything grounded in reality, Red Faction just kind of throws in some weird old cyborg guy who floats around evilly and has a forcefield. And a weird lady who also floats around evilly and has a forcefield. There's a virus or some shit too? I don't fucking know. It's written badly and acted stiffly and I didn't care about a goddamn thing that was happening. Wasted potential.
I still don't have the answer for how much of this game I actually ever played in the first place. It very well could have been that I cheated my way through the whole thing. Was my fond memory of this game based on a reality where I barely even played it? I don't know. Regardless, now that memory is replaced with a new one, and it goes a little something like this: Red Faction—a game I thought I liked.
Aspects of this game unearthed memories buried deep within my brain, things that without my knowing I've been carrying with me for a couple decades: the enemy call outs and death screams; the incredibly stupid line at the beginning as the mining corporation thug attacks your comrade, "You threatenin' me? Yeah, well threaten this!"; a select few sequences here and there. But what I also came to realize is that this game that I looked back on so fondly? It's a total blur. I remember almost none of it. And for good reason: it kind of sucks.
For the purpose of not making this drag on too much (edit: about that... oops), when Red Faction is at its best, it's a pretty fun FPS. Shooting feels for the most part good, although I do think the spread could use to be tuned to be a bit less dramatic. There's a world in which this could be a game right in there in the same breath (or at least not far off) as the greats. So why is it, then, that I sort of hate this game?
Right as you start accruing an arsenal of decent weapons, Red Faction decides to flip a switch and turn into a stealth game. It takes all of your weapons but the silenced pistol from you, gives you a disguise, and tells not to get too close to anyone or they'll see through it. The game never communicates any of this information well enough to not feel fucking terrible and I found myself instead wishing I were playing No One Lives Forever or, shit, even one of the new Hitman games. Even if you set off alarms, and you will, you can't break out of your disguise and pick up new weapons; you have to hope you can make do with the magazine of bullets you were given. After some trial and error and strong use of quick saving and curse words you'll find your way through, but it never feels rewarding or that you've done something well. Oh and by the way? After that whole miserable sequence and more traditional shooting segments where you get your weapons back the game does it again, it fucking does it again, but this time in a more confusing area with deadlier enemies.
Even with those awful parts I wasn't overly down on the game, but then it turns into one of the least enjoyable FPSes I've ever played. For the last third or so of the game, nearly every single area you take battle in contains at least one enemy with an instagib rail gun that shoots through walls. It makes every encounter basically random: you will die dozens of times the instant you walk around a corner, well before any person could react. It feels like playing a multiplayer shooter in a lobby full of cheaters. It is horrendously fucking unfun. Except of course when you're using the gun yourself. It is awfully satisfying ripping a single cartoonishly powerful round through a line of clueless enemies from a couple rooms down the hall.
But it's not just the rail guns that made me ultimately hate the game: more generally speaking, the last stretch has a severe leap in difficulty that never feels properly challenging so much as it does cheap. Sometimes you'll open a door and be greeted by an unavoidable rocket an enemy has already sent your way. Sometimes enemies will be spawned behind you from dead-end corridors. There are stretches where there are more health items than you can use and then others where there are so few you end up riding the quick load button until you get by without taking a hit. I didn't happen to find healing before the (for the record, really, really bad) final boss fight, so I had to beat it without taking a single hit.
I should also make quick note of the game's defining feature: the so-called "Geo-Mod" technology, wherein explosions excavate the game's terrain. From a technology standpoint it's pretty neat, especially for 2001, but also: it barely exists. There's almost nowhere to use it in the single-player campaign and the places you can are at best superficial. Volition's method of stopping players from using the technology to perform sequence breaks appears to have been basically stopping the player from ever being able to use it at all. I think if they had instead taken the exact opposite approach and embraced the potential game-breaking nature of deformable terrain, the game would be profoundly more interesting. Instead, we're left with little more than a few walls in empty rooms you can make small dents in.
Before I get out of here, I've already rambled on too long, let me just briefly touch on the story. How fucking cool of a concept is taking part in a full-on violent revolution against the capitalist fucks who have been killing your fellow workers. It whips ass, right? Unfortunately no. I can't possibly imagine the concept for this game wasn't to at least some extent inspired by the real life labor history of miners such as that documented in the essential documentary Harlan County, USA, but rather than using any of that to enrich the plot or even attempt at making anything grounded in reality, Red Faction just kind of throws in some weird old cyborg guy who floats around evilly and has a forcefield. And a weird lady who also floats around evilly and has a forcefield. There's a virus or some shit too? I don't fucking know. It's written badly and acted stiffly and I didn't care about a goddamn thing that was happening. Wasted potential.
I still don't have the answer for how much of this game I actually ever played in the first place. It very well could have been that I cheated my way through the whole thing. Was my fond memory of this game based on a reality where I barely even played it? I don't know. Regardless, now that memory is replaced with a new one, and it goes a little something like this: Red Faction—a game I thought I liked.
There are games out there that have a cult following, most of which you presume deserve so as they are hidden gems. Tis could be something like Shadow Warrior (1997), Blood, Get Even, XIII (2003), and what have you. But THIS is lost on me. Why people like this game so much, is something I can't figure out and probably never will. It's not a bad game, but my god is it slow and clunky.
It's an FPS, probably one of the slowest. If I had to describe it, it would be Half-Life, but it's on Mars, it's slower, and the lore and world is way more boring. It takes place in the future where workers of a corporation known as Ultor decide to rebel against them given the incredibly poor working conditions and sickness going around.
In terms of gameplay, it is very much like Half-Life. All the weapons you carry have some kind of secondary like Shadow Warrior (1997), except most are useless.
You have a Baton which is slow, doesn't do much damage, and the secondary, a taser, requires batteries and it guzzles the whole thing before you ever actually stun an enemy. A pistol with a silencer as a secondary that you only have to use once in a stealth section. It nerfs the pistol so badly it will take maybe 6 shots before you kill anything.
There are two assault rifles and snipers. Once you acquire the second of both guns there is no reason to return to the first because they're that much better. To be fair, these are the two most practical in the whole game. The assault rifles fires like normal, but has secondary for more accurate shots at long range. However, this is almost worthless because you get an SMG with an assault rifle secondary that takes the same ammo. (These weapons are a fucking mess.)
A shotgun which functions and looks exactly like the one from Half-Life. A railgun which is a railgun. Then there are the three most useless weapons in the game. The flame thrower and rocket launcher, while not bad weapons, are useless due to how scarce ammo is. Then there's the riot shield. It is so terrible it will take you 13 hits before you kill an enemy. The only reason this weapon seems to exist is because you need it to avoid getting insta-killed by an enemy with a rail gun.
Now one thing I think most people associate Red Faction with is the geo-mod technology which this game is the earliest use of. This is something that allows the player to blow holes in walls, floors and just about anything, allowing some advantages in game. Is what I would say if it did. There is almost no scenario where blowing open a floor or wall gives you some kind of tactically advantage. Technologically impressive, tactically unnecessary.
I keep saying how slow the game and that is very apparent in the movement which feels too slow for the kind of game on display, there is no enemy variety with you fighting the same Ultor enemies over and over again, the level design is pretty flat, and the only thing that keeps the game from being incredibly boring are the two stealth and vehicle sections.
The stealth is poor and the mechanics established are pointless most of the time. It's the most basic stealth in that you wear a disguise, keep your distance from guards and cameras, and keep your pistol holstered to avoid detection. That's basically it. There are only two missions and they're very straight forward. Well, except one.
In the second stealth mission you have to get to Cryptek's secret lab and you need a access card to get through. To get this, you need to get it from the administrator, but you can't get into his office if you just b-line straight to it because the guards will be alerted. It turns out that you have to receive a brain from a room that's out of your way, give it to the surgeon in OR, take it to cryogenics, to which then you can get into the admins office as you need the admins signature. If you don't know about this beforehand then you'll be lost as to what to do.
The vehicle sections are actually not bad and allows you to blow up and kill many enemies. These mostly serve as a way to get somewhere, not that different from the vehicle sections in Half-Life 2. Except these vehicles actually control much better, oddly enough.
If you wanna play a good version of this, just play Half-Life.
It's an FPS, probably one of the slowest. If I had to describe it, it would be Half-Life, but it's on Mars, it's slower, and the lore and world is way more boring. It takes place in the future where workers of a corporation known as Ultor decide to rebel against them given the incredibly poor working conditions and sickness going around.
In terms of gameplay, it is very much like Half-Life. All the weapons you carry have some kind of secondary like Shadow Warrior (1997), except most are useless.
You have a Baton which is slow, doesn't do much damage, and the secondary, a taser, requires batteries and it guzzles the whole thing before you ever actually stun an enemy. A pistol with a silencer as a secondary that you only have to use once in a stealth section. It nerfs the pistol so badly it will take maybe 6 shots before you kill anything.
There are two assault rifles and snipers. Once you acquire the second of both guns there is no reason to return to the first because they're that much better. To be fair, these are the two most practical in the whole game. The assault rifles fires like normal, but has secondary for more accurate shots at long range. However, this is almost worthless because you get an SMG with an assault rifle secondary that takes the same ammo. (These weapons are a fucking mess.)
A shotgun which functions and looks exactly like the one from Half-Life. A railgun which is a railgun. Then there are the three most useless weapons in the game. The flame thrower and rocket launcher, while not bad weapons, are useless due to how scarce ammo is. Then there's the riot shield. It is so terrible it will take you 13 hits before you kill an enemy. The only reason this weapon seems to exist is because you need it to avoid getting insta-killed by an enemy with a rail gun.
Now one thing I think most people associate Red Faction with is the geo-mod technology which this game is the earliest use of. This is something that allows the player to blow holes in walls, floors and just about anything, allowing some advantages in game. Is what I would say if it did. There is almost no scenario where blowing open a floor or wall gives you some kind of tactically advantage. Technologically impressive, tactically unnecessary.
I keep saying how slow the game and that is very apparent in the movement which feels too slow for the kind of game on display, there is no enemy variety with you fighting the same Ultor enemies over and over again, the level design is pretty flat, and the only thing that keeps the game from being incredibly boring are the two stealth and vehicle sections.
The stealth is poor and the mechanics established are pointless most of the time. It's the most basic stealth in that you wear a disguise, keep your distance from guards and cameras, and keep your pistol holstered to avoid detection. That's basically it. There are only two missions and they're very straight forward. Well, except one.
In the second stealth mission you have to get to Cryptek's secret lab and you need a access card to get through. To get this, you need to get it from the administrator, but you can't get into his office if you just b-line straight to it because the guards will be alerted. It turns out that you have to receive a brain from a room that's out of your way, give it to the surgeon in OR, take it to cryogenics, to which then you can get into the admins office as you need the admins signature. If you don't know about this beforehand then you'll be lost as to what to do.
The vehicle sections are actually not bad and allows you to blow up and kill many enemies. These mostly serve as a way to get somewhere, not that different from the vehicle sections in Half-Life 2. Except these vehicles actually control much better, oddly enough.
If you wanna play a good version of this, just play Half-Life.
This is a certified hood classic
No tengo ni idea de por que me empeñe en jugarlo, era literalmente injugable en PC y tuve que jugarlo en PS2.
La historia es pésima, el gameplay es tosco, lento y en general aburrido, y oh dios mío, ese voice acting parece sacado del primer Resident Evil, así que tiene un buen humor involuntario casi como única virtud.
Una perdida de tiempo total.
La historia es pésima, el gameplay es tosco, lento y en general aburrido, y oh dios mío, ese voice acting parece sacado del primer Resident Evil, así que tiene un buen humor involuntario casi como única virtud.
Una perdida de tiempo total.
the first one and it was just okay
Half-Life meets Halo, but you can dig a hole with C4's. Not all the time and there's a ghastly difficulty spike with instakiller X-Ray snipers and my blood bursted at the chance of me auto-saving right before an instakill, there's still an admirable amount of runaway shooting and destructable terrain to behold through vehicles until that damned part arrives. An enjoyably amusing, if maddening baby step of the franchise.
os trechos de furtividade são a pior coisa que ja vi na vida
I remember being convinced to trade my copy of Rygar for this game, in the end I did like this game a bunch. at one point the spaceship has a doomsday timer in it. I saved during this and now i'm softlocked from beating the game.
Red Faction's main gimmick is the destructible environment which was really cool and fun to mess around with but it wasn't utilised within the main story enough, I can only recall one time where it was actually necessary to destroy the environment to progress. The story was enjoyable; as a Saints Row fan, it was really cool to see where Ultor originated.
My main issue with the game was the level design. There were some moments where I found it impossible to progress without using cheat codes. For example, at one point in the story, you're limited to only a pistol and no armour; I had run out of ammo on my pistol and there was no way to stealthily progress through the next section of the game so I just kept dying to guards. There were a couple of moments like this which really brings the game down for me because I hate having to fall back on cheats. As well as this, the game was extremely buggy and I had to download a mod just to fix these bugs and allow me to progress through some parts. I assume this is just an issue with the PC port of the game. Another thing that really bothers me about the game is how awful the boss fights are. The combat in the game is pretty average, and the boss fights don't have any unique gimmicks or concepts to them, it's literally just shooting them until they die.
My main issue with the game was the level design. There were some moments where I found it impossible to progress without using cheat codes. For example, at one point in the story, you're limited to only a pistol and no armour; I had run out of ammo on my pistol and there was no way to stealthily progress through the next section of the game so I just kept dying to guards. There were a couple of moments like this which really brings the game down for me because I hate having to fall back on cheats. As well as this, the game was extremely buggy and I had to download a mod just to fix these bugs and allow me to progress through some parts. I assume this is just an issue with the PC port of the game. Another thing that really bothers me about the game is how awful the boss fights are. The combat in the game is pretty average, and the boss fights don't have any unique gimmicks or concepts to them, it's literally just shooting them until they die.
This was cool. You could literally break the environment and make an alternative path.
Workers of the world, unite! And by world I mean Mars, where the poor brutalized miners are rising against the evil corporation that runs the planet. A nice shooter, and first in a series noted for its destructible environments, a very cool feature that even now remains unusual.
The environmental destruction stuff was extremely cool and also extremely underutilized. The first half of the game is not great, but eventually you get guns that shoot where the crosshair is and that helps a lot.
the latter half of this game almost made me go joker mode
I beat this game by shooting rockets at the wall and tunneling to the end I have no idea what this game is about
This one's for you, mom.
First-person shooters were new to me when Red Faction launched in 2001. I didn't have a gaming PC growing up, so games like Doom, Wolfenstein, and Quake were nearly foreign to me. Red Faction was an overhyped game full of development issues and overpromised ambition. The "Gen-Mod" destruction model is half-baked and barely there. The visuals are dull and boring (even for the time), and the story doesn't go anywhere at all. Not to mention zero character development. I rented this game and got bored with it maybe an hour in, and I can see why.
Sure, the game looks much better on PC, but there's not much to really look at. Even for the time level, the design in shooters was fairly dull. Very few had interesting things to look at, such as Half-Life or Halo. Red Faction is just browns and reds with boring caves and industrial buildings. You are on Mars, by the way. You are part of a rebellion group called the Red Faction, who are miners uprising against the overbearing government. You are trying to fight your way to the top and stop a deadly plague that's killing the miners. This story starts and stops here. It doesn't go anywhere; there's nothing to spoil. You end up finding the cure, and that's really it. The voice acting is actually really good for the time, but the only thing that kept me playing was pure curiosity to finally see this game through to the end.
There are quite a few weapons in this game, but most aren't found until the last third of the game. You have your standard array of guns. Submachine, assault, precision, sniper, pistol, rocket launcher, and rail driver There's also a heavy machine gun and grenades. It's a standard list of weapons we've used in so many shooters, and Red Faction doesn't do anything interesting or fun with them. The shooting in this game feels pretty good and holds up well today, but the enemy AI is terrible, so don't expect much of a fight. There are vehicles you can pilot in this game, but they aren't anything fun or interesting. They shoot bullets or rockets, and a lot of the time I would end up stuck in weird physics glitches.
The game isn't very long. You can finish it in under 4 hours, and thankfully there's a quick save feature, which I suggest using often. Enemies are run-of-the mill faceless military dudes, and there's an occasional weird creature thing to mow down in the caves. Environmental detail is what you can expect from this era. Rooms are equipped with an occasional table, chair, or monitor. Nothing stands out or looks interesting in this game. Destruction is boiled down to blowing open a wall to get to a button (there's a lot of button pressing in this game), and that's about it. The occasional chunk of wall breaks off, but this is far from what Volition was touting back in the day.
Red Faction is at least a solid shooter. It's fun while it lasts, and the last act throws new enemies and weapons at you, and there are two whole boss fights in this game. Vehicles don't feel great to pilot, destruction is minimal, the story has a strong premise but goes nowhere, and the visuals are pretty bland. I did find the stealth section of the game pretty fun. Trying to find your way around without being spotted is like a giant puzzle, but that's all there is that changes things up. In the end, if you never play this game, you aren't missing out on gaming history.
Sure, the game looks much better on PC, but there's not much to really look at. Even for the time level, the design in shooters was fairly dull. Very few had interesting things to look at, such as Half-Life or Halo. Red Faction is just browns and reds with boring caves and industrial buildings. You are on Mars, by the way. You are part of a rebellion group called the Red Faction, who are miners uprising against the overbearing government. You are trying to fight your way to the top and stop a deadly plague that's killing the miners. This story starts and stops here. It doesn't go anywhere; there's nothing to spoil. You end up finding the cure, and that's really it. The voice acting is actually really good for the time, but the only thing that kept me playing was pure curiosity to finally see this game through to the end.
There are quite a few weapons in this game, but most aren't found until the last third of the game. You have your standard array of guns. Submachine, assault, precision, sniper, pistol, rocket launcher, and rail driver There's also a heavy machine gun and grenades. It's a standard list of weapons we've used in so many shooters, and Red Faction doesn't do anything interesting or fun with them. The shooting in this game feels pretty good and holds up well today, but the enemy AI is terrible, so don't expect much of a fight. There are vehicles you can pilot in this game, but they aren't anything fun or interesting. They shoot bullets or rockets, and a lot of the time I would end up stuck in weird physics glitches.
The game isn't very long. You can finish it in under 4 hours, and thankfully there's a quick save feature, which I suggest using often. Enemies are run-of-the mill faceless military dudes, and there's an occasional weird creature thing to mow down in the caves. Environmental detail is what you can expect from this era. Rooms are equipped with an occasional table, chair, or monitor. Nothing stands out or looks interesting in this game. Destruction is boiled down to blowing open a wall to get to a button (there's a lot of button pressing in this game), and that's about it. The occasional chunk of wall breaks off, but this is far from what Volition was touting back in the day.
Red Faction is at least a solid shooter. It's fun while it lasts, and the last act throws new enemies and weapons at you, and there are two whole boss fights in this game. Vehicles don't feel great to pilot, destruction is minimal, the story has a strong premise but goes nowhere, and the visuals are pretty bland. I did find the stealth section of the game pretty fun. Trying to find your way around without being spotted is like a giant puzzle, but that's all there is that changes things up. In the end, if you never play this game, you aren't missing out on gaming history.
Before I get into the nitty gritty, let me get one thing out of the way: this game is overpriced. $10 is too much for a nearly two decade old game that isn't even that great. Definitely wait for a sale.
Red Faction was developed by Volition, at the time known for the Descent franchise (with Red Faction even starting development as Descent 4), and later going on to create the Saints Row franchise. The game stars Parker, a miner living on Mars under employment by Ultor, a comedically-evil mining corporation who subjects the miners to terrible working conditions and regular physical abuse from guards. After a group of rebellious miners known as the "Red Faction" begin a revolt, Parker is basically forced into participating in this revolution as the guards begin to slaughter all miners on sight.
As for the story, an effort was made, but it really isn't up to snuff. It starts interesting enough, but it just kind of goes on and doesn't maintain that initial momentum (though the same can be said of the game itself). Some cool concepts are introduced but never really explored. None of the villains are given any buildup and as a result none feel intimidating. None of the characters are all that memorable either, with the vocal performances being okay at best, and dialogue writing being quite cringe-worthy at points.
The biggest problem with the story is the presentation though. The game initially begins very similarly to Half-Life, with an unbroken first-person perspective and a silent protagonist. However, about midway through the game, it switches to in-engine cutscenes with a fully-voiced Parker, who comes off as an arrogant asshole for no real reason. This change is jarring, especially because the cutscenes aren't particularly well-animated. The game would have been better off keeping the Half-Life-esque storytelling.
As for the gameplay, the game touts Volition's proprietary Geo-Mod 1.0 engine, which allows for procedural terrain destruction (sometimes). It's a very very impressive engine from that standpoint and it does blow me away that they were able to accomplish that. However, it feels much more like a gimmick rather than an actual game mechanic. There are few instances where it's more useful than just finding another entrance into an area. It looks neat, but perhaps it was too ahead of its time to be a practical mechanic? The gunplay itself is pretty fun. I found that most of the weapons had a proper use for most of the game, however in the late game most of the older guns are made useless by the new ones you acquire. I found the enemy AI to be frustrating. It seems to zig zag in a particular way that is just perfect for dodging literally all of your attacks. Plus, the enemies aren't very visually distinct, so it's hard to tell who has a shotgun and who doesn't from a distance. I played on hard mode, and the difficulty was relatively fair for the most part, until the lategame, which introduces a lot of bull all at once. The mercs just aren't balanced, and the railgun mercs were the bane of my existence for a while. The friendly miner NPCs are borderline useless and usually get themselves killed instantly. The vehicle combat is fine for the most part. Not remarkable but it gets the job done, other than a particularly boring turret section near the end of the game.
Presentation-wise, this game isn't much to write home about. For a game released in 2001, the graphics aren't very impressive and are somewhat below-average, but for the most part aren't bad by any means. The environments are nicely rendered and the lighting can be pretty cool at points. I do think this game actually looks worse than a few games that game before it, such as Deus Ex. Red Faction suffers from a problem I like to call "half-graphics syndrome", where the technical rendering side of things is perfectly solid, but the art direction is very boring. Some of the robots and early game areas are really cool looking but eventually it just devolves into sameish looking metal corridors. On the audio side of things, the music for this game is surprisingly really good. The song "Faction" especially makes the player feel like a badass.
If this review has been somewhat harsh on the game, you may be asking, why is it marked as recommended? Because for some reason, despite the final stretch of the game being quite boring and/or total bull, the game is just enjoyable from a gunplay perspective. If you can get it for cheap (and it often goes on sale), I would say it's worth checking it out, even with it's many many flaws. As for the multiplayer, I haven't tried it yet but I heard it has a cult following. If you decide to check it out, I implore you to download the Dash Faction fanmade source port, as it fixes a game-breaking bug later in the game
Red Faction was developed by Volition, at the time known for the Descent franchise (with Red Faction even starting development as Descent 4), and later going on to create the Saints Row franchise. The game stars Parker, a miner living on Mars under employment by Ultor, a comedically-evil mining corporation who subjects the miners to terrible working conditions and regular physical abuse from guards. After a group of rebellious miners known as the "Red Faction" begin a revolt, Parker is basically forced into participating in this revolution as the guards begin to slaughter all miners on sight.
As for the story, an effort was made, but it really isn't up to snuff. It starts interesting enough, but it just kind of goes on and doesn't maintain that initial momentum (though the same can be said of the game itself). Some cool concepts are introduced but never really explored. None of the villains are given any buildup and as a result none feel intimidating. None of the characters are all that memorable either, with the vocal performances being okay at best, and dialogue writing being quite cringe-worthy at points.
The biggest problem with the story is the presentation though. The game initially begins very similarly to Half-Life, with an unbroken first-person perspective and a silent protagonist. However, about midway through the game, it switches to in-engine cutscenes with a fully-voiced Parker, who comes off as an arrogant asshole for no real reason. This change is jarring, especially because the cutscenes aren't particularly well-animated. The game would have been better off keeping the Half-Life-esque storytelling.
As for the gameplay, the game touts Volition's proprietary Geo-Mod 1.0 engine, which allows for procedural terrain destruction (sometimes). It's a very very impressive engine from that standpoint and it does blow me away that they were able to accomplish that. However, it feels much more like a gimmick rather than an actual game mechanic. There are few instances where it's more useful than just finding another entrance into an area. It looks neat, but perhaps it was too ahead of its time to be a practical mechanic? The gunplay itself is pretty fun. I found that most of the weapons had a proper use for most of the game, however in the late game most of the older guns are made useless by the new ones you acquire. I found the enemy AI to be frustrating. It seems to zig zag in a particular way that is just perfect for dodging literally all of your attacks. Plus, the enemies aren't very visually distinct, so it's hard to tell who has a shotgun and who doesn't from a distance. I played on hard mode, and the difficulty was relatively fair for the most part, until the lategame, which introduces a lot of bull all at once. The mercs just aren't balanced, and the railgun mercs were the bane of my existence for a while. The friendly miner NPCs are borderline useless and usually get themselves killed instantly. The vehicle combat is fine for the most part. Not remarkable but it gets the job done, other than a particularly boring turret section near the end of the game.
Presentation-wise, this game isn't much to write home about. For a game released in 2001, the graphics aren't very impressive and are somewhat below-average, but for the most part aren't bad by any means. The environments are nicely rendered and the lighting can be pretty cool at points. I do think this game actually looks worse than a few games that game before it, such as Deus Ex. Red Faction suffers from a problem I like to call "half-graphics syndrome", where the technical rendering side of things is perfectly solid, but the art direction is very boring. Some of the robots and early game areas are really cool looking but eventually it just devolves into sameish looking metal corridors. On the audio side of things, the music for this game is surprisingly really good. The song "Faction" especially makes the player feel like a badass.
If this review has been somewhat harsh on the game, you may be asking, why is it marked as recommended? Because for some reason, despite the final stretch of the game being quite boring and/or total bull, the game is just enjoyable from a gunplay perspective. If you can get it for cheap (and it often goes on sale), I would say it's worth checking it out, even with it's many many flaws. As for the multiplayer, I haven't tried it yet but I heard it has a cult following. If you decide to check it out, I implore you to download the Dash Faction fanmade source port, as it fixes a game-breaking bug later in the game
Someone described this to me as "B-movie Half-Life," and I can't agree more. It's trashy, but it's a big swing, and I respect that.
The main gimmick of Red Faction is the destructible terrain, so it's unfortunate there's only a couple of places where it's actually used, as you progress further into the game it basically stops being relevant entirely, there's maybe 3 sections in total where it was useful excluding the tutorial sections. Parker as a main character is pretty unlikeable, the villains were kinda dull and it was overall pretty uninteresting, the stealth sections were novel though, but it did cause me to get a save bug where I couldn't use any weapons at all due to a glitch, so that made it less interesting.
couldn't get into it, but feels insane to have a commercial game be a blanet far leftist text in 2000s (I mean this in a good way dw)
Seems like a mediocre and generic FPS from what I played.
This short review is coming from a 2022 perspective and someone who has not played it before. I used the DashFaction mod to add modern support however it could not fully save the game. The whole game is just running through corridors shooting people, nothing really beyond that. The enemies are difficult to shoot as they are constantly strafing all over the place.
The vehicle sections are quite boring as well as the 5mph ATV sections where you slowly and unenthusiastically drive through caves.
The vehicle sections are quite boring as well as the 5mph ATV sections where you slowly and unenthusiastically drive through caves.
It starts off with potential, but it's let down by the second half of the game becoming a very frustrating experience.
This game holds up surprisingly well considering its age. It's certainly lacking modern conveniences like checkpoints, actual enemy AI, and the types of set pieces you'd expect out of a modern FPS, but it's an enjoyable, if basic shooter. The destruction elements are pretty muted here, it would have been nice to see them utilize them more than a few scattered instances, and enemy railguns seem disgustingly overpowered. Fun to see where this series began, as a huge lover of Red Faction: Guerrilla.
Fica aqui meu convite ao desenvolvedor que criou aquela arma que vara as paredes. 5 minutos de porrada sincera, sem perder a amizade.
Lixo.
It was okay....
Red Faction was a very unique game when it came out in 2001. Its gimmick was the ability to blast a hole through any wall with its "GeoMod" system. In practice, the mechanic is underutilized in the game. The plot is paper thin, and as a shooter, it's showing its age. But the level design is varied and reminds me of Half-Life (which would come out seven years later). It also has vehicles, which, while novel, are one of the worst parts of the gameplay.