Get to Mars, and blow it up
Ah, mindless action... how I despise thee. Yet, somehow I love thee. You make me feel things I've never felt before. I...
Ehem...
Right, so as you may well know by now, Red Faction: Guerrilla is a game that focuses on destruction. Throw in a plot that is really more of an excuse, an enemy that is really bland, and a ton of awesome weapons to toy around with, and you've got RFG.
As stated before, this game's plot is not its strongest point. You play as Alec Mason, an immigrant coming to Mars to do some honest work. Lucky for you, Alec is a demolitions expert. He blows stuff up for a living. After arriving, he meets his brother who is helping Alec get on his feet on his new home world. He learns about the new Red Faction, and the planets occupying force, the EDF. The EDF is raiding towns, executing people they deem threats, and taking full advantage of the colonist's inability to fend for themselves.
I won't spoil anything for you, but needless to say bad things happen and Alec ends up with the Red Faction. He meets several uninteresting characters, and begins his rampage of destruction. Again, I truly feel like this is all one big excuse to justify blowing things up, so don't expect much in that area. Still, there is an interesting twist, and a few decent moments in the story. But that is not why you're here, is it?
You my friend, you are here because you want to make things explode, yes? Many things. Good. This game is all about destruction. And it's bloody great at it. Buildings can be brought down one support at a time, and it really feels great. Watching a building collapse on itself, and everyone inside is a great thing. So yes, I can confirm that this game features some of the best destruction and explosions around. Stop reading, and buy it.
RFG is an open world game. You'll spend a good amount of time driving around the world, trying to resist the urge to drive through random buildings. Which of course you will. I mean, why not? You have safehouses, which are places where you can hide from the EDF, grab ammo, or upgrade your weapons and gear. Each safehouse is designed to be a Red Faction base, with other guerrillas going about their guerrilla lives. You can also listen to the EDF biased news station, which will put a spin on your actions, making it seem like the EDF won, or it didn't happen at all.
Your main goal in the game is to liberate Mars. The EDF has a control meter that is seperate for the six different sectors, Parker, Dust, Oasis, the Badlands, the Free Fire zone, and Eos. Your goal is to lower their control in each sector to zero, and then drive them out. You can lower EDF control by destroying their structures, which are marked on your map, and completeing story missions. However, that is not all. You also have to worry about Morale. Morale is the populations will to fight. Having a high morale will inspire the population to help you. You'll get more salvage, the game's currency, for completeing missions, and also have guerillas join you when Morale is high. When a colonist or guerilla dies, Morale is lowered slightly. However, raising it is simple. Destroy propaganda, go on a killing spree, or do Guerrilla actions...
Guerilla actions were one of my favorite parts of the game. Consider them side quests. You'll be asked to do things like join Red Faction raids, kill a swarm of EDF troops with some heavy armor, or just drive a car from point A to point B. Some of these can be fun, and there is a good variety of them. But what really shine are the random actions. You'll be driving along, and suddenly recieve a message from a Red Faction operative. You'll be asked to intercept a convoy, defend a base, or even stop a messenger. They are good fun, and there is no punishment for ignoring them.
The game has an awesome variety of weapons. From your standard assault rifle, to your high powered rockets, it has something for everyone. I won't spoil any of them for you, but they are crazy. One that stood out to me was the "Grinder." Imagine a high powered foam disk launcher. Replace the foam disks with spiked metal disks of death, and you've got the Grinder. The best part is, when you upgrade it... the disks explode. Glorious!
The game's graphics are not the best, but they more than suffice. I found the EDF to be bland, and uniteresting, but I still enjoyed killing them. Seeing my metal disks of death implanted into their corpse is a great sight, and another more... potent... weapon really gives them an enjoyable death.
The multiplayer was a fun surpirse. It has some of the craziest weapons ever to be created, and the backpacks add some nice variety to it. It features all the game modes you could ever need, and really is a non-stop thrill. I'd go farther in, but words can't truly describe the fun to be found here.
Red Faction: Guerrilla is a game anyone can enjoy, so long as they don't hate having fun. Even then, those people can spend the entire game mining ore, so... Yeah, just buy it. Now. Seriously, do it. Go. Stop reading. This review is over. HURRY UP!
