Games Completed in 2011, #24 – Red Faction: Guerrilla

I thought Red Faction was really neat, what with their revolutionary tech at the time of being able to blow a hole in a wall and then go through said hole. Red Faction II did all of this as well, but tried to mix up the gameplay too much and also annoyingly threw in waves of zombie monsters. While the main mission stunk, I did enjoy myself in the local multiplayer against bots; yes, this was around the time that everybody and their brother were playing Halo over the Internet, but I lacked such a connection, and so it was bots for me. No big deal. I got really good, especially on Deathmatch, and you’ll just have to take my word on that.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is not Red Faction III. Still not sure if that’s a good or bad thing though. This time, the game is set on an open-world Mars and is not a first-person shooter. Instead, it’s a third-person action adventure title (with some driving, too), and our main dude Alec Mason is out for revenge over his brother’s murder, as well as to bring down the oppressive Earth Defense Force. That harkens back a bit more to Red Faction‘s plot where a no-name miner begins the great uprising. As Mason moves forward with his retribution plan, he’ll befriend some folk and make many enemies and destroy a bleep-load of EDF property, slowly whittling down their numbers and resources.

I originally played the game for a good amount of time upon initial purchase, but stopped after some of the Dust missions proved too hard and frustrating. Mission instructions were not very clear, and the moment you were caught out in the open and not hiding behind a crate, you were most certainly dead. It was when–many months later–I switched the difficulty from Normal to Casual that I saw myself advancing better. And I’m totally okay with that. There’s no reason to not to if it’ll help me experience and play a game I bought with hard-earned Space Credits. After the difficulty switch, it was a quick run through the remaining missions, which all lead up to an underwhelming finale that saw Mason rushing towards his target, throwing like ten sticky bombs on it, and blowing it up nice and good. And so:

Red Dawn (100G): Liberated Mars.

You’re welcome.

It’s an okay game. The truest fun comes from exploring the map, seeing some building you want to crumble, and then doing it however you want. The missions and driving aspects are less fun, often punishing or too nit-picky on how they want things done. After beating the game, I went back to clean up some Achievements, but there’s several for collecting things like ore deposits and radio tags that I just don’t want to go for. Too big of a map for such trivial thingies. Oh well. Online multiplayer is fun and something I expect to revisit from time to time, but waiting ten minutes for a game to start is not fun. So it has its pros and cons just like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood‘s multiplayer.

Let’s end this post with a quote taken out of context from Red Faction: Guerrilla, but something all of us gamers can understand completely, yes? Here it is:

“If the EDF didn’t want us shooting these explosive barrels, they shouldn’t leave them around so much! Right?”

Damn skippy.

Testing the fields and busting tanks in Red Faction: Guerrilla

I gave the demo for Red Faction: Armageddon a spin the other night, and there’s not too much to talk about. It’s basically Red Faction: Guerrilla, but with a pinch of horror and a really neat new weapon, the Magnet Gun. Instead of taking place above ground on Mars, we’re now beneath the regions of Tharsis, deep below the dusty soil, where horrible abominations breed and lurk. It’s different enough from its predecessor in terms of locale, but the game seems to play very much the same. You run, you shoot, you obliterate things in your path.

I then had the itch to go back to Red Faction: Guerrilla after the demo was over, especially because I do enjoy causing massive amounts of in-game destruction. It’s just that the main story and main story missions have always given me grief; I can’t seem to get past the first few missions in Dust, unfortunately, but at least I have the freedom to drive around, blow structures up, and mine for ore.

I also played some more online matches and many rounds in Wrecking Crew, which is just an excuse and exercise in weapons of mass destruction. Matchmaking for online games is pretty slow and will probably severely slow down once Red Faction: Armageddon comes out, but I did get in several rounds of Team Anarchy. I held my own most of the time.

Anyways, here’s what I was able to unlock Achievement-wise after going back to the game for a bit:

Can’t Get Enough (20G): Played every mode on all maps in Wrecking Crew.

Field Tested (10G): Earned 1,000 XP in Multiplayer.

Tank Buster (10G): Blew up 100 small hydrogen tanks.

It’s still a hit or miss for me in terms of fun, but there’s something about Red Faction: Guerrilla that keeps calling me back. I dunno. Probably a deeply buried love for the original two PlayStation 2 games; heck, I spent countless nights battling AI bots in Red Faction II because I enjoyed it so very much. Maybe I’ll look up an online strategy guide and see if it can kept me (and Alec Mason) combat the EDF.