Red Faction: Guerrilla

Well, Halo Wars and Hawx were fun, but it's time to go back to the realm of actions games. Of course, I didn't necessarily want to come back to action games this way (as I told some of you through e-mail), but I kept hearing how good it is, how original it is, and how different it is. I figured I wouldn't like it because I played the demo, and the demo failed to impressed me. Once I got the game however, I realized I had no idea what I was doing in the demo, and that clouded my judgment. After learning how to do things in the game, I quickly discovered that this is more fun than the demo let on. Despite this, there are plenty of moments where Red Faction took my enthusiasm and flushed it down the toilet, only to clog up my pipes and required me to call a plumber.

That car looks like shit

You play Alec Mason (not to be confused with Alex Mercer from Prototype...like I was) as he moves to the shittiest planet in the solar system: Mars. After meeting his brother and learning the fine art of swinging a sledgehammer that is for some reason strong enough to take out a wall and support beams in one swing, he learns that brother Mason is a part of the Red Faction: a group of guerrillas (as you probably figured out from the fuckin title) trying to chase out the oppressive EDF Force controlling Mars. After breaking shit, brother Mason gets shot down, and now the EDF assumes you are part of the Red Faction, so you pretty much have no choice but to BE a part of the Red Faction. After that stuff happens in the beginning of the game, the story dissappears. Apparently, the developers felt that after a certain point, a very involved story would get in the way, and frankly, I agree with them. Shut the fuck up, and let me blow shit up.

As you might have guessed by now, Red Faction is all about blowing shit up, tearing shit down, and breaking shit apart, and it's that element that makes this game. Almost everything you see can be destroyed, and how you destroy it depends on you. You can use remote charges to take out support beams to bring a building down. You can fire rockets at buildings, punching holes in the side. You can ram vehicles into buildings and (if it's strong enough) drive out through the other side. If all else fails (and it damn well shouldn't), you can always use your sledgehammer. Not only is property damage fun to do, it's also realistic. When you damage something, it ALMOST always reacts like it's suppose to. Because objects crumble like in real life, it makes you want to destroy more, just to see it come down. It's also fun to strip a building down to just a few support beams to see it stay up for a while, and then crumble under its own weight. Awesome.

Boom Boom Booooom (Gotta get that)

The reason I said "ALMOST always reacts like it's suppose to" is because sometimes buildings do some funny stuff. One time, I took out the entire first floor of a building, and it was still standing. The only thing that was holding it up was a little ass ladder? Really? There must have some awesome ladders in Mars. Also, explosion don't do as much damage as you think they would. I shot 4 rockets into a building, and (all things considering) the building was fine. Things will probably get uncomfortable when it rains (if it rains), but still, not too much damage. There's also not that much to destroy, at least to me. Now, I completely understand the limitations of today's technology, and what I'm about to complain about is really unreasonable, but Mars seems so empty. Geez, it seems like someone just plopped a few buildings here or there on a barren wasteland and called it a game world. There's no real metropolis area where you can just go nuts. There is the residential area, Eos, but that place is so heavily guarded you'll be dead before you finish booming your second building. Once the initial 'WHOA' factor wears off, you'll eventually get bored of the boom boom boom (gotta get that) and just try to get through the game as soon as possible.

Correction: THIS car looks like shit

By far the worst aspect of the game is the shooting. I don't care what the main focus is, it's a third person shooter first and foremost, and Volition fuck it up. The funny thing is that it's not the actually shooting mechanics that's the problem. Whenever you destroy an important building (which you should be doing all the time), the EDF will respond. Their numbers will range from 15 soldiers to....maybe...57,000. That all sounds fun, but then you find out that Mason isn't made to fight that large of a number. This leads to unnecessary frustration and controller chucking as you die from being overwhelmed numerous times. The game says you need to use hit and run tactics, but there are plenty of missions where you have to stay in the fuckin area or you fail. In that case, shouldn't I be able to fuckin defend myself against this insanely large horde of soldier who are pissed off at me because I just destroyed their favorite Starbucks? I find myself hoppong in and out of vehicles just to stay alive, and that's not fun. Did I mention they too have vehicles, some of which can fly? I could have put the game on easy and called it a day, but somehow I would feel like less of a man if I did.

BLOW ME!

If they had made the gunplay fun, I would have heartly recommended Red Faction, but as it is, it's just generic. The missions lack variety, destroying shit will get old, and shooting sucks balls. Therefore this game is going right back to Gamestop. I don't see where all this high praise for it came from. Maybe they were all just so fasinated with the level of destruction. I bet after a few weeks of playing, most of them will feel like I feel. At first, any game can seem like 'the shit' (except X-Blades, oh God no!), but give it time to marinate, and you see the game for what it really is. If you still like it, then good for you; it was money well spent. If not, well then...I FUCKIN CALLED IT!

Rating: Meh

NOTE: Notice how I totally neglected online play. My credibility just went down a few notches.