Released: 20010522 Publisher: THQ Developer: Volition, Inc. Genre: First Person Shooter

Review by: King_Mightystud

Red Faction (originally slated to be called Descent 4), is a first person shooter (with action and other elements) made by Volition (makers of Summoner). RF is truly a unique gaming experience. This is very refreshing, in a world of FPSs that for a while seemed to be merely slightly modified clones of each other. RF takes all the best attributes of regular PC FPSs like Half-Life, Quake 3, and Unreal Tournament, reshapes them and puts them in a package specially suited for the PS2.



I was really hyped up about this game, and when I got it I was not disappointed. Actually the in game physics, such as blowing through walls, blew me away. The artificial intelligence is amongst the best I've ever seen. Enemies will call for reinforcements, run, hide dive into crates and then try and trick you into not killing them by yelling "I'm unarmed" then coming back with weapons and reinforcements later. If you hide in one spot too long, a guard will eventually find you. The amazement with which I looked at this masterpiece was equal to Goldeneye (N64) when I first played it.



Special effects like breaking glass, shattering light bulbs and the general shot up look a room gets after a firefight are outstanding. This game doesn't make the same mistakes as other FPSs on the PS2 (like Unreal tournament). Red faction is not a PC port over. Volition realized that you can't do that effectively. Instead they gave this game an excellent single player mode, one so high in quality that I've never had this much fun playing a shooting game by myself.



Note that a perfectly good 2-player mode is available (while 4 player multi tap is not), but I felt the one player mode is the games primary strength. The game allows you to add AI opponents to the deathmatches (up to 5 of these I think). There are also some awesome two player cooperative modes here.



This game starts of with an excellent movie. You play as Parker, a futuristic Joe-average miner on Mars. The workers in these mines begin to grow discontented with the slave like working conditions, and the way they are treated by their bosses (it reminds me of working on reviews for ConsoleCity actually). The workers at Ultor mining corporation must work long hours under armed guard, and after work they are forced to stay in cramped and dirty rooms with no entertainment. A disease is running rampant, but the corporation does not care.



Some of the workers orchestrate a rebellion and your character is seen as a kind of hero. I will try not to spoil too much of the story for you all, but this game just goes on and on. Every time you think that the game is coming to a finish, there is more still to do. With every twist and turn, the player is drawn more and more into the game, until you find yourself playing deep into the night (as I often have).



The graphics in this game are excellent. It isn't so much the normal graphics and FMV (which are none the less on par with the best games on the PS2). The main graphical feature of Red faction is the revolutionary physics engine, known as Geo-Mod technology. It is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and you'll have to see it for yourselves to believe it. This engine allows you to realistically destroy almost any object in your path. I mean literally blow tunnels through the earth, find hidden passages in walls, whatever. You also control many cool vehicles in this game like an ATV, mini submarine, and giant drilling machine.



Of course ALL of the weapons and goodies you'd expect to find are here. You've got the Rail Driver, the heavy machine gun, various sniper rifles and missile launchers etc, etc (you know the rest). Many of these weapons are found in strategic places, like after a boss fight, or hidden in the most unlikely of places. The ability to blast though objects is essential to finding all the goodies. However, unlike the run of the mill first person shooter, this game gives you the option of meeting objectives in different ways. For example you could go through the door and fight the enemies, or you could blast a hole through the wall and go through that, or you could try and avoid some of the enemies with self-made tunnels. There is certainly a lot more here than mindless shooting.



There are many stealth and role-playing elements incorporated into this game. Doing things like using a disguise, keeping your weapon concealed unless there are no cameras or guards watching, and dragging bodies so nobody will find them are often necessary.



I cannot stress enough how much I liked the save anywhere, anytime ability in this game. Since this game can get quite hard, especially near the end, and the poor control with the analog will get frustrating, it's a massive relief to load up the game again and not have to do everything over. The auto aim ability in this game, is decent, but doesn't always work properly.



There are of course drawbacks to this game. For one thing the analog controller is not as well suited to this style of game as a keyboard and mouse would have been, if the makers had made the game compatible. Once you get used to the analog, it works really well, and the control problems do add to the challenge. The control is not nearly as bad as certain other games.



Another thing is that on line play is not possible, but I wont count that a huge flaw, since it is expectable, and Red Faction more than makes up for it in other areas. The storyline is great, but I feel it had the potential to be even better, if Volition would have gotten farther away form the generic Sci-Fi story line. The frame rate is not always 60fps (more like 30fps), but the gameplay is so seamless and involving that this did not bother me in the least.



The voice acting in Red Faction is satisfactory, but not outstanding. The spoken dialog can be a little predictable at times, and sometimes repetitive. The music is good, and it captures the mood of the game very well, but again, I wasn't blown away by it.



Unlike certain other games on the PS2 (which I will not name at this time), Red Faction is well made from top to bottom. There is virtually no detail that went unnoticed by the developer. That said it's still a PS2 game, in a genre that is best played on the PC. Therefore I cannot in good conscience give it the 9.9 it would deserve if the PS2 were the only platform on earth. Still, I'd say this game is a must have. If you plan on buying a First person shooter on the PS2, this is the game to get!



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