[Review] Red Faction: Guerrilla
Posted by Anton Gordon at 2:31 PM Jul 10, 2009
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Red Faction: Guerrilla
Publisher: THQ / Developer: Volition / ESRB
Rating: M / Price: $60
Given how late this review is, you probably already know the deal with Red Faction: Guerrilla. While it is a sequel to a pair of first-person shooters from the previous console generation, Guerrilla is a complete relaunch of the series that abandoned everything except the Mars setting and Volition's "Geo-Mod" technology. Rather than a shooter, Guerrilla is a GTA-style open world game, and the Geo-Mod technology has been so improved that it has become something entirely new. In the previous games, you could blow holes in walls. In Guerrila, you can level buildings, demolish bridges, and pretty much destroy anything you see.
Many games have featured destructable environments before, but never to this scale, and Volition was well aware of this fact when creating this game. Like most open-world games, you can explore the game map, taking on story missions or side missions whenever you choose. Most missions ultimately involve blowing something up, but there's enough variety in the objectives and targets that it rarely feels like you're doing more of the same. If you don't feel like tackling story missions, there's always something else to do, like delivering vehicles to safe houses, practicing your demolition skills, or helping your comrades in the Red Faction raid facilities owned by Mars' evil oppressors, the Earth Defense Force. In one of Red Faction's best design decisions, completing side missions and activities helps you with story progression; the game world is divided into regions, and as you finish missions in a region, the EDF's control of that area drops. Once it drops to zero, there's a final story mission to help the Red Faction take control of the territory. Don't like a particular story mission? Destroy high-value EDF locations to loosen their grip instead.
The story of a man's fight against an evil corporation to help free an oppressed planet is nothing new, and Volition was wise to not focus too heavily on plot. As I mentioned before, the developer knew exactly what the star of the show would be. It really can't be said enough how impressive the destruction tech in this game is. It's not pre-scripted, it's not limited to certain structures. It affects every aspect of gameplay. In one mission, I wanted to get to a high vantage point to take out some targets, so I ran up into a tower. A EDF soldier ran up after me and killed me from behind. So when I restarted it, I ran up the tower again, but this time I took out the stairs with an explosive charge so no one could pursue me. In another mission, I killed multiple high-value targets at once by collasping a roof on top of them and watched as they were taken out by the rubble. I clipped a flying gunship with a rocket and watched it spiral to the ground after tearing away a chunk of wing. I drove a truck through a building wall to kill the soldiers within. I demolished an entire EDF complex with a giant construction robot. I had a hell of a time doing it all. Guerrilla lets you tackle most missions the way you want to: go in blasting, create your own opening in and sneak in, etc.
Of course, Red Faction has a satisfying selection of weapons to help you in your extreme makeover of Mars. There are several variations on the rocket launcher, explosive mining charges, and a nano rifle that distintigrates anything it hits. The nano rifle technology is the object that drives the plot forward, and when you earn it, it opens up a world of new gameplay possibilities thanks to its more targeted destruction. Once you have the nano rifle, you can shoot the floor out from under enemies, dissolve bridge supports so it collapses under the weight of crossing vehicles, and more. The gameplay takes another evolution after you unlock the jetpack, while opens up a new world of angles and strategies as you discover a world of previously unreachable areas. Volition was wise to pace out these game-changing upgrades, as they help keep things fresh over the course of the longish campaign.
Despite how much I loved Red Faction: Guerrilla, the game isn't without its faults. Even for an open-world game, there's too much driving. Some missions force you to drive to a rally point, only to drive back the other direction as soon as you reach it. It feels like video game busy work. You can warp to a safe house when there's no alert, but their are too few of them, so you'll find yourself constantly driving on the way to a mission. Why not allow the player to jump directly to a mission as long as there's no alert level? Driving often helps you discover new targets to take out, but just as often you'll find yourself driving past... nothing at all.
On top of excessive driving, there are also several missions that frustrate thanks to sparse checkpoints, respawning enemies, or other annoyances. The load times are long. The difficulty of the game tends to be all over the map, with missions swaying from cakewalk to deathtrap throughout the course of the game. But even with these problems, it's to give Red Faction: Guerrilla anything less than Five Blue Pig Ganon rating. This is one of those games that will change everything. After playing Guerrilla, games without a similar level of interactivity in the environment will seem archaic in comparision. All other games that attempt destructable environments shall be judged against this one. Tech aside, it's a damn fine game that's well designed, polished and stuffed with things to do. I haven't even touched on the multiplayer (which mixes destruction tech into traditional game modes with pleasing results) or the Wrecking Crew mode (which basically lets you wreck stuff for points). There is so much fun to be had in Red Faction: Guerrilla that even with it's flaws, it's hands-down the best game of the year so far.
Five out of Five Blue Pig Ganons
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The story of a man's fight against an evil corporation to help free an oppressed planet is nothing new, and Volition was wise to not focus too heavily on plot. As I mentioned before, the developer knew exactly what the star of the show would be. It really can't be said enough how impressive the destruction tech in this game is. It's not pre-scripted, it's not limited to certain structures. It affects every aspect of gameplay. In one mission, I wanted to get to a high vantage point to take out some targets, so I ran up into a tower. A EDF soldier ran up after me and killed me from behind. So when I restarted it, I ran up the tower again, but this time I took out the stairs with an explosive charge so no one could pursue me. In another mission, I killed multiple high-value targets at once by collasping a roof on top of them and watched as they were taken out by the rubble. I clipped a flying gunship with a rocket and watched it spiral to the ground after tearing away a chunk of wing. I drove a truck through a building wall to kill the soldiers within. I demolished an entire EDF complex with a giant construction robot. I had a hell of a time doing it all. Guerrilla lets you tackle most missions the way you want to: go in blasting, create your own opening in and sneak in, etc.
Of course, Red Faction has a satisfying selection of weapons to help you in your extreme makeover of Mars. There are several variations on the rocket launcher, explosive mining charges, and a nano rifle that distintigrates anything it hits. The nano rifle technology is the object that drives the plot forward, and when you earn it, it opens up a world of new gameplay possibilities thanks to its more targeted destruction. Once you have the nano rifle, you can shoot the floor out from under enemies, dissolve bridge supports so it collapses under the weight of crossing vehicles, and more. The gameplay takes another evolution after you unlock the jetpack, while opens up a new world of angles and strategies as you discover a world of previously unreachable areas. Volition was wise to pace out these game-changing upgrades, as they help keep things fresh over the course of the longish campaign.
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On top of excessive driving, there are also several missions that frustrate thanks to sparse checkpoints, respawning enemies, or other annoyances. The load times are long. The difficulty of the game tends to be all over the map, with missions swaying from cakewalk to deathtrap throughout the course of the game. But even with these problems, it's to give Red Faction: Guerrilla anything less than Five Blue Pig Ganon rating. This is one of those games that will change everything. After playing Guerrilla, games without a similar level of interactivity in the environment will seem archaic in comparision. All other games that attempt destructable environments shall be judged against this one. Tech aside, it's a damn fine game that's well designed, polished and stuffed with things to do. I haven't even touched on the multiplayer (which mixes destruction tech into traditional game modes with pleasing results) or the Wrecking Crew mode (which basically lets you wreck stuff for points). There is so much fun to be had in Red Faction: Guerrilla that even with it's flaws, it's hands-down the best game of the year so far.
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Five out of Five Blue Pig Ganons
Comments
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Posted 07/13/2009 at 09:12:54 AMi can never understand when reviewers complain about having too much driving around the map in Open world games... i personally love it, driving and travelling around the map is the best thing about open world games. it makes you feel like you are living in the world, i avoid using fast travel systems as much as possible, why have a huge world to explore when you just skip through most of it?
Posted 07/22/2009 at 04:53:21 AM