Unfortunately, five bucks only gets me 2 nights at Family Video for anything besides a fucking DS game. And trust me when I say, I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty pitchfork than play most of the games on the DS. But I digress.
Here's how we're gonna do this; I'm going to break the game down into three Separate, but equally important groups; The Story, The Graphics, and the Gameplay. Not that hard to do, and it works, so I'm not complaining. This way, you'll get a good, quick look at just what is either Absurd or Brilliant. Or Absurdly brilliant as the case may be.
The Story
I've already said that I may or may not finish whatever game it is I'm reviewing. And that's the case here. I didn't get to finish Red Faction: Guerrilla. But that's partially the Game's fault; It's too damn fun. But, I DID get far enough to gather an idea as to what the main plot is (read: past the first mission).
Basically, the story revolves around Alec Mason, an offworlder who comes to Mars to work. He's picked up by his brother, Daniel, and taken to a run-down area for Alec to practice blowing shit up - and trust me, I've never had so much fun in a TUTORIAL. It's here that you learn that your first weapon is a simple tool. A crowbar!.. I mean a SLEDGEHAMMER.
Stop! Hammertime!
You also get the Remote Explosives, which are just what their name says; You throw 'em, and then press the button to make shit go boom. You're only able to throw two at a time at this point, but trust me when I say that it's well worth the tedious wait to throw two mines, blow shit up, then repeat.
So you finish demolishing the marked buildings (Don't stop there, blow everything up. Everything.) and you get a Cut-scene. Your brother dies at the hands of the EDF, or Earth Defense Force, and then you're thrust into the actual game after a Cinematic fight sequence where you're recruited into the Red Faction; a Terrorist Organization that's trying to rid Mars of the EDF, who're helping their cause by being dicks.
That's the basic story. You're a revolutionary. Now go Revolutionize.
The Gameplay
Not much can be said about the gameplay in Red Faction more than this; GTA IN SPAAAACE!!! You know how everyone makes that joke of, "Where else can they go with the franchise? Space?" Well, this is that joke. Only instead of sad and pathetic, this is actually funny and awesome.
The game is well-polished and feels complete. It's not annoying to play when Characters alert you over your radio as to what's going on, what they want you to do, etc. So don't expect to have your cousin help you smell like big Martian Titties or go Bowling on the Left Nostril of the Face on Mars. Don't even expect to get drunk.
Actually, that's one problem I have with RF: G, and even then it's only a nitpick more than a problem. While it gives you the opportunity to steal most of the vehicles in the game (Flying craft and, as far as I could tell, Tanks are out of the question), and do MOST of what you can do in GTA, it doesn't have the same versatility. But I guess that what it lacks in the number of vehicles and weapons, and even in side missions (There's only about 7 different types), it makes up for in interactive environments.
The controls for Red Faction are a bit odd, and definitely take some getting used to. Most players will find the system of backing out of a menu in-game to be a bit confusing, since instead of hitting the Circle Button (Like most games I've played have) to back out of the In-game Weapons Swapping menus, you have to hit the X button. It's nothing big or too annoying, but it's definitely weird for a few moments. And even then, after a few hours, I still found myself accidentally swapping weapons when I wanted to just leave the menu.
However, that's not the end of the problems I had with the game.
Oddly enough, there were a few bugs that I ran into while playing. For instance, at one point, my vehicle flew 700 virtual meters into the air when it got hit by a single rocket. Now, that was an armored vehicle from the professional military forces on the planet. When I got hit by a rocket in the Dune Buggy? The thing moved slightly to the left. Coupled with the slowing and speeding up of the vehicles depending on the slope of the terrain, the occasional bug makes driving fun, but a bit complicated and stressful; especially when you're being chased by every mutha fucka on the planet after blowing everything up.
Them Duke boys done got themselves in a whole dish o' trouble.
Speaking of blowing everything up, there's one problem I have with the actual demolition portions of the game; and that's the physics. The physics work beautifully in almost every aspect, including the way a building collapses on itself when you take out the support beams. But the main problem with these physics is that you have to destroy EVERYTHING on the bottom of the building - all of the support beams, all of the walls, and ESPECIALLY the doorways (Fucking Doors...) - otherwise, you'll have to take potshots after it SHOULD collapse, to make it collapse so that you can collect the salvage.
Now, Salvage is what this game uses as currency and Experience Points. The more Salvage you earn, the more upgrades you can buy for your weapons, health, etc. Hell, they even give you a jetpack later in the game. And you can obtain Salvage in two ways; Mining Ore Deposits, which relinquish much more salvage per piece-o-stuff than regular salvage pieces, and blowing shit up. Guess which one is my favorite.
Exactly.
The Graphics
Okay, so we've touched on the Gameplay, the story, and now we're on to the graphics. Long story short (Too late), the graphics are nothing but spectacular. Ever seen a building blow up in your face? Yeah, it happens a lot in this game, and it's just fucking awesome to watch. So awesome, in fact, that I actually found myself hard-pressed to look elsewhere when looking at the images on my screen. Thankfully, I found something ironically impressive.
Common sense says that if they spent so much time on the buildings and explosions so that all of them are able to be on screen at once, they had to cut some corners here and there. Thankfully, corners were merely trimmed, as opposed to hacked to pieces by way of the environment itself. The textures and tiny little details on the ground itself are impressive to look at as you drive by, and you can tell that, while not as detailed as the buildings and explosions, some real thought went into the way the wind affects the dirt around you. For example, there's mini-twisters scattered throughout the town/area of Dust. It really adds a lot to the experience when the environment itself is moving and acting in a way that's convincing.
War never looked so pretty!
All in all, Red Faction: Guerrilla was a great rental for five bucks. The Gameplay is polished (Albeit not to a perfect, gleaming shine), the graphics are exciting and interesting to look at and really add to the experience, and the story is fun and interesting enough to keep you entertained while doing the story missions. If I can find a copy on the Used Games shelf, I'll pick it up, and so should you. I give it an eight out of ten ( 8/10 ).
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