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