Red Faction: Guerrilla

Xbox 360 preview by James Frazer, published on Sunday 26th April 2009

I like destruction. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of creating a great big mess, be it with tools or your own bare hands. Dust, dirt, debris, carnage - I love it. Red Faction: Guerrilla offers exploration at the other end of the scale usually found in videogames - hunting down keys to doors that resist knives, guns and rocket-propelled grenades - by offering destructible level scenery. Doors are for people that don’t have hammers or want to conserve their grenades for the enemies waiting on the other side; for everyone else, a straight path to objectives can be cut with explosive devices and sheer brutality.

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The much acclaimed Geo-Mod engine wasn’t emulated quite the way some expected back when the original Red Faction launched. A system that allowed players to bypass checkpoints by blasting their own route through a map didn’t seem to appeal. What came about instead were obstacles that weren’t as useful for cover as they first appeared, letting bullets penetrate thinner and softer surfaces, thus debunking Hollywood legend that car doors and wooden boxes offer ample protection during firefights. Certainly in my gaming experience I can only really remember Mercenaries, with its catalogue of bunker-busting payloads, offering anything near to total carnage.

And so we come full circle, back to the very game that pushed this gameplay quirk into the limelight. Some very impressive and award-winning titles have blessed consoles since the first Red Faction hit shelves in the summer of 2001, so Volition, Inc will have to pull out all the stops if Red Faction: Guerrilla is to be remembered as anything but a next-generation traipse down nostalgia lane.

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Taking place in a very, very large open world, apprehension regarding how the game would stop players from venturing away from the main action is quelled from the outset. The entire map is a series of canyons with steep sides that cannot be traversed, and no amount of explosives or hammering will yield a satisfying route out. Thankfully no invisible barriers or obscene “cheap” methods of confining the gameplay appear to exist in this one-level demo. The aim of the mission is to acquire a piece of machinery being hoarded by armed guards. Whilst the location is fairly nearby, 10 minutes are given to achieve the goal, giving ample time to dick about with the hammer and see what can be smashed to smithereens.

Shattering masonry, be it walls, buildings - generally any structure - rewards such thuggery with Salvage points, which when collected can be traded for items later on in the game. It should be interesting to see how this pans out, since science labs and indeed entire complexes such as a solar plant can be eradicated on the demo level, surely offering an achievement point or two.

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Guerrilla feels a heck of a lot like Volition, Inc’s other stellar series, Saints Row; the on-screen response and movement of the characters are strangely familiar, as is the twitchy handling of the vehicles on offer. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the Saints Row series is damned good fun, and that’s exactly what Red Faction: Guerrilla is - entertaining. There’s no ground broken, we’ve seen all the core gameplay elements before; what we’re left with is a bag of accustomed old toys arranged in a manner that offers little surprise yet an enjoyable experience nonetheless.

I have three reservations after this quick blast through. For one, vehicles are far too generic. It’s not clear when driving them that we’re on rough terrain, they don’t bounce around nearly as well as the land cruiser on Mass Effect and feel uninspired. The intelligence of non-player characters also leaves a lot to be desired, with enemies and allies alike often running around in circles when meeting a corner section of chain-linked fencing or walls, taking cover in the open and turning away from the heat of battle seemingly unaware of the dangers of doing so.

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My last thoughts are with the mission structure, which hopefully won’t be as linear as Mercenaries 2 (travel, set off an air strike, drive back) and have enough variety so players aren’t spending 15-20 hours smashing everything in sight. After all, I’ve spent a similar amount of time doing the same with guns in Saints Row 2.

Comments

Philip Morton
wrote on Tuesday 28th April 2009

I really liked the original game, but I’m not sure this one is going to be worth playing. Judging by the video I just watched, it looks like a crappy version of GTA on Mars with destructible terrain, nothing more. With a third person perspective as well, it seems like a Red Faction game in name alone.
Mike Akerman
wrote on Tuesday 28th April 2009

Really enjoyed the first game but from playing the demo I have to agree with Phil, hope they can make it a bit more compelling before release!
Anthony Karge
wrote on Tuesday 28th April 2009

The second was fairly generic but extremely fun and well-made, much in the vein of Project Snowblind. I think both are very underrated just because they weren’t The Next Big Thing.
Fraser
wrote on Tuesday 28th April 2009

Don’t just file this one away as a GTA pretender, it’s not trying to be. The open world aspect will hopefully just encourage wanton destruction, and I’m glad they’re trying to do something different with the series. After all, the premise of a workers’ revolution is still in place, and although the basic action is quite bog-standard, it’s the way the game allows players to approach each situation in many different ways that will give it some real weight. Bit of a dark horse, this one.
Ben
wrote on Wednesday 29th April 2009

I’m going to have to echo Phil’s comments too, I was left really cold by the demo. If they wished to reinvent the series then I couldn’t think of a more dismal way to do it than this. Shame really since the first was very enjoyable for its time.
Matt Wadleigh
wrote on Wednesday 29th April 2009

I’m still going to give it a shot. I’ll admit I haven’t loaded up the demo, but I did play through the other two Red Faction games (though I stand in a small crowd in thinking that RF2 was better than RF) and I feel like I almost owe it to a series that really entertained me to give it a shot. I will admit that I’m hesitant from some of the stuff that I’ve read on the changes to the game (which of course includes this rock solid preview), but hopefully once we get our hands on the full product it’ll all work out.
James
wrote on Wednesday 29th April 2009

I’m in the same camp as you Matt on the case of RF2.
Joshua Kramer
wrote on Thursday 30th April 2009

Red Faction was the game that caused me to, due to its sheer mediocrity, finally drop the PS2 for the Xbox. I remember clearly that epiphany - I was playing through some drab tunnel environment, annoyed with the chugging framerate and the fact that I couldn’t play co-op with a friend. Then it hit me - “why the hell am I not playing that new Microsoft FPS (you know, the one starring that guy in the green armor) that everyone is raving about?”

So I bought an Xbox and Halo and was blown away by the quality of both. RF: G would have to be pretty damn amazing to redeem the franchise in my eyes.
Benny
wrote on Thursday 30th April 2009

Wasn’t Red Faction a really early PS2 game though? Bit early to drop it no?
Philip Morton
wrote on Thursday 30th April 2009

Yeah, Red Faction was released on May 22, 2001 according to Wikipedia. The Xbox wasn’t even out then. ;)
Joshua Kramer
wrote on Thursday 30th April 2009

“Wasn’t Red Faction a really early PS2 game though? Bit early to drop it no? “

I dropped it, then picked it up again sometime later - I think when they released the new slim model. I never was impressed with the PS2 though. SotC was one of the few games on the system that really blew my hair back.