Red Faction

Perhaps then I wouldn't have disliked this game so much.
 
It's tough to review a game this old, especially when its old enough to run on my crappy laptop. I know reviews should be objective as they can be, but honestly, who is reading a review for this game nowadays? Probably someone who hasn't played Red Faction before, someone wanting to see if this is a classic that withstood the test of time. I figure this gives me some justification for grading this game based on modern day standards. I have no nostalgia to blind me, nor do I have any vested interest in the series alone.
 
Oh, and did the game withstand the test of time? No. No it didn't. That, my friends, is what I like to call my thesis statement.
 
Where to begin? Well, for one, this is a competent shooter. That is to say there are guns, and you can fire them at enemies, and they die. Unfortunately, you'll be searching the entire game for something ELSE you feel it did right...and for me, not much else came to mind. I do want to get across, though, that as an FPS it does everything right. It just feels so lame and generic and boring that it's hard to call it any other than passable.
 

The story, for instance, is god awful. Very little is explained in a cohesive manner, and most of the events that happen feel bland and drawn out. You player as a miner on a Mars, though much of the back story of your character, Mars, and the future in general is nonexistent. Miners are treated like crap by the mining corporation (down with The Man!) and decide to rebel against them. Violently. As the story goes, you are one of the only miners that seems to survive (you can take take more than 2 bullets before dieing, for example) and it's up to you (guided by helpful NPCs who give assistance via your radio) to battle a multitude of guards and other nasties to escape Mars. I was secretly hoping it was set on Earth all along.
 
Oddly enough the story tries to take itself a bit too seriously, and Parker, the main character, attempts to play the role of a "badass" that I guess you're suppose to root for. Of course, you'll feel no attachment to Parker, the miners, or any other character in this game. I found myself killing harmless scientists and doctors just for the hell of it, largely because it didn't feel like I was part of some morally righteous revolution. I think Parker just felt like killing a whole bunch of people. He was probably pretty shocked when he learned there was a "revolution" or something going on.
 

They did a good job with the guns and used a lot of smart choices. Every gun has a "secondary fire" and are grouped together based on type (melee, semi-automatic, etc.), which makes it feel almost part RPG. I found myself switching weapons fairly constantly depending on what was going down, though I stuck with my SMG and assault rifle and then, later, the precision rifle. Enemies, however, are dumb dumb dumb. They run at you, one at a time, staring their lifeless gaze your way until finally letting off a shot or two. Then they're back to running.
 
They also have this bizarre habit of running away, screaming something along the lines of "I'M UNARMED DON'T SHOOT" or "I GIVE UP", only to turn around and shoot you. At first I thought this was a fairly neat (albeit cheap) tactic to throw me off my guard. Only they kept doing it...all game. By the end I seriously wondered if some civilian sound files found their way into the soldier's folder.

At times it feels very much like Half-Life, and I'm positive that's no accident. There's a good amount of exploration to be had, and usually you're rewarded for your efforts with some ammo or health. Even certain plot elements - such as a group of very powerful soldiers coming in to cover up all the stuff that's been going down - feel ripped right out of HL1's book.
 
Of course, I did my research and I do realize this game was largely made to show off the GeoMod engine, technology which allowed one to destroy the hell out of any wall they wanted. It's definitely some neat tech and every so often they did something cool with it, like miners marking special walls you can blow down to find hidden paths and items. But it doesn't feel very...important. And given that I'm able to critique this feature 8 years in the future, I'm willing to bet it wasn't important. No game has really mimicked the GeoMod system again, at least not in the way this game tried to.
 

At the end of the day I'm left feeling like I missed something. What was the point to this game? Was it a tech demo in disguise or a "real game" that ended up flat on its ass? I'm not sure. Either way, if you're a newcomer to the game and you're wondering if it's worth playing...it's not. The story, the gameplay, the everything has been done before and done much better by many, many other games.
 
Time Played: 5 hours to complete the entire game. Includes some fairly hardcore exploring, though mostly said exploring was on "accident"