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I think the first two Red Faction titles show the series has potential. The first game is the debut of the Geo-Mod technology, geometry modification, or in other words Red Faction’s brand of destructible environments. I think it was impressive for its time even if it is underutilized in the campaign. Red Faction II features destructible environments as well but with a clearly bigger emphasis on action. After that, we wouldn’t see another Red Faction game for about seven years and that game is Red Faction: Guerrilla. It does take the series in a new direction by shifting to a third-person view and placing the player in an open world setting.
Developed by Volition and published by THQ, Red Faction: Guerrilla was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in June, 2009 and for PC in September of that same year. A remastered version titled Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered (because somebody thought that was clever) was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in July, 2018 and Switch in July, 2019. For this review, I played the remastered version for PC. The game’s Steam page claims the remaster features reworked graphics, improved lighting and shadow rendering, and supports 4K resolutions. While that may all be true, it still looks like a 2009 game to me and I have played through the original before.
Set in the future, Earth is running low on natural resources and is putting pressure on the Earth Defense Force (EDF) to acquire the resources of Mars at any cost so the EDF forces Martian society into a permanent state of unfree labor. As a result, the newly reformed Red Faction arises to revolt and end up going to war with the EDF. The player is put in the shoes of Alec Mason, a mining engineer, who arrives on Mars to reunite with his brother Dan and start a new life. After Dan is killed by the EDF, Alec joins the Red Faction and helps them drive the EDF off the planet. The remaster comes with the DLC which includes the Bonus Mission “Demons of the Badlands” which is an additional campaign. Set in the past, the player assumes the role of Samanya, a character who does appear in the main campaign. The plot attempts to flesh out the universe and her backstory, showing why she left the Marauders. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish this campaign due to some kind of glitch or bug that rendered it impossible to see what was happening and I was unable to find a fix. I was basically checked out by that point, anyway, so I wasn’t too broken up about it but it’s still disappointing.
As you can probably guess from my last statement, I wasn’t too invested in the storylines. It definitely feels like the gameplay was the primary focus during development which I can’t say is a bad thing. The mission briefings and some cut scenes drive the plot forward but many characters are not fleshed out enough for me to care. I enjoy the Mars setting and the sci fi stuff but I feel the story fails to be engaging and it doesn’t touch on anything that we haven’t seen before. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the first game. It’s another tale of rebellion, about the oppressed rising up and fighting back. You don’t need to have knowledge of the previous games to enjoy this but there are several nods to the first game that series fans may appreciate.
Guerrilla does come with a multiplayer component and a mode called Wrecking Crew which supports multiple players but in my experience, the multiplayer was dead so this review will only focus on the campaign. Unlike the previous games, Guerrilla is a third-person shooter set in an open world. Once again the player can destroy shit and destruction is easily the game’s highlight. From what I understand, Guerrilla does run on a newer version of the Geo-Mod engine but you don’t actually get to modify the terrain this time around. Only buildings, structures, and objects. You can smash and blow up shit up and watch buildings and structures crumble to the ground and I think it’s still pretty impressive to witness today. The physics on display in Guerrilla are excellent, overall, even if they are wonky from time to time.
Unfortunately, the destruction is all Guerrilla really has going for it and I would say it does carry the game. This is a third-person shooter so you will spend a lot of time running around shooting bad guys but I can’t say the action or gunplay is anything special or innovative. But that’s not to say the action is bad. As far as a third-person shooters go, this one is pretty standard but the shooting action is complimented nicely by the destruction. Mars is split up into different sectors and as you progress through the story, you’ll liberate each one. Each sector features side missions and EDF property like buildings and structures that can be destroyed. Completing missions and destroying EDF property will increase morale and higher morale means more ammo from ammo crates and more salvage, the game’s form of currency. Higher morale also means more colonists will join you in a fight. They typically join in when you’re under attack and even though they can often get in the way, it is cool seeing them fight alongside you, making every firefight feel like a war zone.
Mason can get around Mars on foot or by vehicle and some vehicles are weaponized and if a colonist gets in with Mason, they will man the gun. Although, I noticed that sometimes they refuse to shoot which may or may not be a bug. The game does include a great variety of vehicles ranging from standard cars and trucks to tanks. You can also pilot walkers and use them to stomp, smash, and blow things up around the environment. The formula goes like this; complete missions and destroy EDF property to raise morale and drop EDF control in the sector and then complete the sector’s final story mission to liberate it and move onto the next sector. Rinse and repeat until you beat the campaign. Needless to say, it can get repetitive but the destruction always remains enjoyable. When you destroy EDF property, it often results in salvage that you can pick up. Salvage can be spent at upgrade tables at safehouses on new weapons and upgrades. Salvage can also be acquired by destroying ore deposits scattered around the world and is awarded to you for completing missions. As you complete missions, you unlock new weapons, upgrades and equipment for purchase. You can purchase and equip one of many backpacks that provide different benefits like thrusters, additional damage, a cloak for stealth, and one will allow you to instantly replenish health.
The game features a good variety of weapons including an assault rifle, shotgun, several explosive weapons, an arc welder that will electrocute foes, and singularity bombs among others. One of my favorite weapons is the Nano Rifle. Shots from this will disintegrate whatever they hit making it extremely fun to use against enemies and to destroy things. Since the gunplay and shooting action isn’t anything special, the explosive and more interesting weapons are what really stand out here. You can lay down mines as traps, use destruction to your advantage during a battle, and even fire spinning metal blades that can be upgraded to explode. Mason also carries around a sledgehammer that he can use to smash shit and I found using it to destroy things to sometimes be mesmerizing. Simply smashing the lower support of a building or structure and watching it come toppling down is good stuff.
As I mentioned before, I feel like the gameplay was the primary focus of development. You can easily ignore the story and still enjoy the game because the heart of Guerrilla lies in the action and destruction. In fact, it’s easy to spend more time completing side missions, destroying things, and just messing around than progressing the story. Furthermore, most story missions are not anything special. You’ll typically have to destroy things, retrieve things, defend people or vehicles, and kill specific enemies. Most missions aren’t layered and the objectives are pretty straightforward and simple. Go here and destroy this, go here and retrieve that, go here and kill these people, man the gun and protect the vehicle from enemies – that’s the gist of it. From what I played of the DLC campaign, it does come with some new weapons and vehicles but it mostly feels like more of the same. There is no salvage so completing missions will unlock new weapons and upgrades for immediate use.
One thing I like about Guerrilla is the side stuff. I would say most of the side missions are enjoyable. Not all, but most. Transporter is easily my least favorite. You simply have to drive a vehicle to a safehouse within a time limit. Others are more action-oriented. You’ll have to rescue prisoners, destroy a certain number of vehicles and EDF forces, stop convoys to capture or destroy specific vehicles, kill couriers and retrieve their data, defend areas from EDF assaults, participate in guerrilla raids, and the Demolition Master side missions will require you to destroy things with specific weapons. Another fun side mission type is Collateral Damage. These are rail shooter sequences of sorts where you man a vehicle’s gun and must destroy a certain amount of EDF property and defend the vehicle from attackers. But I found that sometimes these missions can be frustrating. Killing colonists acts as a penalty and crashing causes damage to the vehicle and the driver will often crash and drive into colonist vehicles, sometimes killing people and damaging the vehicle in the process and you have no control over this. So when you fail the mission because he crashed, that can be annoying.
Guerrilla comes with multiple difficulty levels and I played on Normal. Now I did play the original once before on the same difficulty and remember it being more challenging. But I can’t say I had the same experience this time around. It wasn’t a cakewalk but I can’t say I really struggled at any point. I think this time, it was the weapons I chose to bring that really dictated how easy or difficult the missions would be. Plus, I made sure to purchase the armor upgrades as soon as they became available. On the Normal difficulty, some parts can definitely be challenging and it is easy to die if you’re not careful. Plus, enemies aren’t the only dangers you have to worry about. You can die if a building collapses on you. Despite the assistance from colonists, I found the EDF will eventually overwhelm and drop all or most of them at a certain point, leaving you to fend them off by yourself. They can be relentless and will come after you in vehicles, tanks, and even gunships. There are different enemy types and tougher ones appear the further you progress and I do think some feel a bit spongey. After a while, the traditional weapons just don’t cut it so I would bring more devastating stuff to easily drop foes and destroy things but the more devastating weapons don’t come with tons of ammo, even with the ammo upgrades so there is a balance there. Luckily, ammo crates seem to be everywhere.
As I mentioned before, this remaster still looks like a 2009 game in my opinion. There are definitely some visual enhancements here that are nice but I can’t say it’s an extremely noticeable facelift. That said, I do still think the destruction and visual effects all look impressive, even today. As for the audio, I wish some weapons sounded more powerful and there’s only a few songs in the soundtrack that really stick out to me as memorable. When music is present during gameplay, the tunes heard are typically of the ambient and moody quality. For its time, I would say the audiovisual presentation is good. Some aspects look or sound better than others but, overall, it’s good. On the technical side, the game did run smooth but I did encounter several crashes and I couldn’t get the the visual glitch or bug I encountered in the DLC campaign to go away. Even after exiting and re-launching the game, it would eventually come back.
In my opinion, Red Faction: Guerrilla is the best game in the series up to this point. It’s far from being an amazing third person shooter but the action combined with the impressive destruction and physics make it extremely enjoyable. I can’t say the story is anything special but it’s easy to invest a lot of time destroying things and running around shooting and blowing up bad guys. It’s the kind of game that can be enjoyed in long sessions or short bursts. It’s the kind of game that hooks you in with its gimmick and holds on for a while and when you finally get bored, you just move on to something else and maybe come back to it later when you’re itching for some more destruction. That’s how I look at Red Faction: Guerrilla. A fun a action game carried by its destruction elements and physics. It’s a destruction sandbox. If you’re not destroying everything, you’re playing it wrong. I am disappointed with the crashes and the bug I encountered in the DLC campaign in this remaster but, overall, I enjoyed my time with this.
I would recommend Red Faction: Guerrilla. I don’t know if the remaster is worth playing through if you already beat or completed the original but that would be up to you. While there are visual improvements, it’s not a huge leap as far as I can tell. But if you haven’t played the original or remaster and are interested, I would say definitely check it out because it is a lot of fun. If you’re looking for a good story and/or some kind of incredible third-person shooter, this ain’t it. But if you’re looking to destroy shit and shoot some bad guys, Red Faction: Guerrilla should be right up your alley.