Red Faction Guerrilla puts you in the shoes of Alec Mason - an ordinary mining worker looking to settle on Mars only to end up getting sucked into a large scale conflict between the Red Faction and EDF. From a third person perspective you will shoot and blow up anything in your path to try free Mars from the grasp of the EDF troops. Do you enjoy causing mayhem? Open world games take your fancy? Then look no further.
The Singleplayer in Red Faction Guerrilla constantly provides entertaining and enjoyable tasks for the player from the 20+ hour long campaign to the side missions; you will almost always be having a good time. The world map itself is vast however many vehicles can get around at fast speeds and the game early on gives you the ability to instantly warp to a safe point on the map at any time. However a problem with this is that the safe points are often too far apart however this is a minor issue. A more annoying issue caused by the large scale of the map are the delivery missions. You will come across various vehicles scattered around the world which have transmitters inside them and need taking to a certain location (these are side missions and are totally optional). Problem is, when the game puts you in a slow moving large truck and asks you to literally travel from one end of the game world to the opposite end - this is not fun! Yet I have to say that this is one of the only mission types which I personally completely avoided. The rest of the side missions are generally varied and enjoyable.
The story for the singleplayer side of things helps the game to move along however isn't going to win any awards. Due to unforeseen circumstances you end up fighting for the Red Faction and have to push the EDF out of Mars by raising the morale of the miner population through missions, tasks, and blowing up important EDF structures - that’s pretty much all there is to it. Some main characters are introduced early on however never really get fleshed out and as a result are completely forgettable. . Frustration may set in at times due to the game's steep difficulty even on Normal however the game never punishes the player for switching to Casual at any point, but personally I much prefer to battle on even when things get difficult. However all of this never really takes away from the core of the enjoyment gained from the game - blowing shit up.
Red Faction's Geomod 2.0 engine is absolutely superb at allowing the player to destroy the environment. Although alot of the world is expectedly rather barren there are buildings scattered all over the place varying in size and design. These buildings are your playground. Blowing off the lower side of a large tower only to watch it slowly topple down onto another building/enemies causing huge destruction in its path is a true sight to behold. There really is nothing like it in a shooter yet - the closest thing to it is Battlefield Bad Company's destruction however this is a much more preset style and doesn't hold a candle to the Geomod technology. Every time you blow up a building it will react in the way you expect it too. Take out its supports and it will collapse. On the rare occasion when the destruction doesn't go as planned it's always just as cool to watch.
The game knows exactly what it does best and capitalizes on this - destruction. Everything you do in Red Faction revolves around the destruction in some way or another. It truly adds to a unique and interesting game concept meaning no battle is ever the same. There’s even a side mission type where you have to destroy a building in a select period of time with the tools provided for you, ranging from throwing mines onto explosive barrels then rolling them down a tunnel to blow up a building at the bottom, to being given a ton of explosive canisters and a pistol with a couple of shots to take down a tower. It's always an absolute ton of fun no matter what you're doing. Not only that but the destruction stays identical even in the game's multiplayer mode.
Red Faction isn't going to try taking you away from the big hit multiplayer shooters such as Call of Duty; however it does offer alot and is again, a ton of fun. The game features a variety of modes often centered around the game’s destruction such as siege where one team must destroy a building and the others must defend, to the standard affair of Capture the Flag - there's something for everyone. The game also offers a standard levelling system which offers over 100 levels of rather average unlocks such as new badge icons, colours, sledgehammer models, and player models. Although they don't really change up the gameplay like weapon unlocks do, they always offer something to strive for and add to the enjoyment of the multiplayer. Mix in 16 players, full destruction, weapons such as a missile launcher that can take off an entire side of a building or a rifle which dematerialises whatever it hits - and you have an absolute huge amount of fun.
Graphically the game is very good looking. The explosion effects and destruction all look superb, and the character models are detailed with a large amount of high res textures all over. The framerate also stays surprisingly consistent even when theres huge amounts of mayhem on screen. The game will not blow you away graphically but there’s a ton of detail and it stays pretty throughout.
The sounds in Red Faction are all a standard affair. The voice overs are well done and convincing however the majority of conversations take place over a radio communication system, which prevents the voices you hear from gaining a larger amount of personality which could have been achieved if mixed with the characters themselves on screen. The guns all sound great and the booms of explosions never get old. The music is what you'd expect with more ambient tracks playing during travel and faster ones when the action flares up.
Overall I recommend Red Faction Guerrilla to anyone who's a fan of third person shooters, destruction, or just having alot of fun. The game will always put a smile on your face throughout the large amounts of mayhem it throws at you, and no matter what mode your playing will always offer a great amount of enjoyment. There is also an absolute ton of game here for your money - with a very lengthy singleplayer and a robust multiplayer this is some of the best bang for your buck available recently on either platform. As you can see I've thrown the word "fun" around in this review constantly - and that really is exactly the best way to sum up RFG. It truly offers heaps of fun and hours of enjoyment.
Red Faction Guerrilla gets an official Game-Pad 9.0/10
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