Red Faction (PC) a review by: Quikhax
It takes a certain FPS/FPP game for me to become immediately addicted to it. Fun gameplay combined with a decent futuristic story, level design which lets me suspend my disbelief and truly allow me to immerse myself in the world I am a hero in. The music, the atmosphere, secondary characters, they all must combine into this amazing package which lets me seperate myself from the real world for an hour or two. Deus Ex, F.E.A.R., Half Life, TRON 2.0, they all seem to find that perfect balance that gets me addicted to a FPP game. Some games however, although based on a cool license (like Aliens vs Predators, Doom3) just seemed to be lacking a bit and for that reason I guess I never became a fan of it like I did with the previously named good games. I think I can now add Red Faction to the epic and good FPS game list, and since I am almost done with my first adventure on Mars, I hope Red Faction 2 will be at least as decent as it's prequel.
The story is simple (I won't sell you the game here, there are detailed story summaries all over the intertubez) but the world and background really lets you suspend your disbelief and makes you feel like a desperate, fed up miner on Mars. Survival is essential, revenge on oppressors fun. Speaking of revenge and killing, the combat in this game is FUN! I mean really, really fun! The weapons arsenal is fairly average (yeah, it has it's own version of BFG =p ), still the hate for the security force on Mars, and a fairly big variety of enemies makes fighting never dull.
The musical score of this game is a bit lacking. It is perfect in a sense that the music doesn't dominate the audio experience of this game. However it is not a soundtrack I can honestly throw on my iPod and listen to going to work. I don't think the reason for this is that the soundtrack is dated. I can listen to my Donkey Kong Country soundtrack anywhere and that was made back in SNes days, same with many old soundtracks like Deus Ex or TRON 2.0 (amazing music score for it's time!). Red Faction soundtrack just never caught my attention for me to give this game extra points for music.
One thing that bugs me a little is the lack of non-linear puzzle solving in this game. Yes, there are "stealth" levels, but they completely throw you out of the pace of previously seen combat. Perhaps I am a bit (or a lot) spoiled by Deus Ex. I love it when I have many options of completing a single level, hacking, fighting, sneaking, etc you get the idea. I think (by playing the "sneaking" levels) the designers hoped to capture some of that magic into Red Faction. The potential is there, for whatever reason however, the "sneaking" levels seem like something they rushed to add to the game, they are simple, a little boring and all the time a thought kept going through my head: "Does this add anything to this game? Were these levels really necessary? Am I having fun doing this?" and the answer unfortunately
was always: No.
I am finishing this game right now and I can honestly higly recommend Red Faction. It is a game that went completely under my radar back in a day and I am happy it did. I can now play it for the first time and see how well this game holds up over the years. It truly reminds me of the magic that made epic FPS games back in the days of old.
Now, I am off to finish Red Faction, the sequel is already installed and waiting for me.
Gameplay: A-
Fun: A-
Music: B-
Replayability: C-
Graphics: B-
OVERALL: A-
