A Fun Game Despite its Flaws
In Red Faction you play as a man named Parker, who, wanting an "escape from Earth" left for Mars to become a miner working for the Ultor Corporation. He soon finds that his romanticized vision of Mars is nothing but a fantasy as he is greeted to harsh working conditions, tight living space, and an authoritarian employer. To add to this anguish, a disease known as the plague is spreading among the miners with know end or cure in sight.
Things quickly turn south when miners begin to revolt. Parker, caught in the uprising, joins the revolution. He is soon contacted by Eos, leader of the Red Faction, who are miners rebelling against Ultor, and Hendrix, a security technician working for Ultor who sided with the Red Faction. Throughout the game they communicate with you and give you objectives, similar to Atlus in Bioshock.
While not an open world, Red Faction's game world is, for the most part, continuous. Although the game is straightforward, a little exploration will lead you to rooms and areas that contain ammo, weapons, health, and armor. To add to this, the Red Faction features probably its most famous technology, GeoMod. GeoMod gives the game destructible environments not seen before and to this day rarely seen. This mixes up the game play as the player can blast through walls around doors, dig foxholes, and whatever else they can come up with.
Although GeoMod is unique to Red Faction and to its later sequels its overall game play is somewhat bland. The weapons are familiar to what you would expect from your typical FPS. This includes your pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, and rocket launcher among others. The enemies show little variation and you'll find yourself mostly fighting guards who all look and act similar. There are also vehicles sections in which you fight mostly same enemies. These sections are fun and do the game well with added variety.
While somewhat repetitive Red Faction is still a fun game and in a time where FPS are dominated by games such as Call of Duty or Battlefield, Red Faction is different enough to make it enjoyable despite its flaws.