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Red Faction is a series known for its destructible environments. The first game ran on the Geo-Mod engine which is designed to allow the player to alter level geometry and this was pretty impressive technology for its time. Instead of altering an object to a damaged state, a new space would be created to the approximate size and shape of the damaged area. Developed by Volition and published by THQ, Red Faction was released for PlayStation 2 in May, 2001 and PC in September of that same year. For this review, I played the PC version. Before playing, I did consult the game’s PCGamingWiki page to see what, if anything, I would need to do to get this running on a modern system. I installed Dash Faction, an open source launcher that improves compatibility with modern systems and includes several bug fixes among other things. Red Faction has developed quite the following over the years and there are plenty of mods out there. I did install the 60 FPS Cinematics mod which contains the pre-rendered cut scenes running at sixty frames per second.
Set in the future, the Ultor Coporation runs a mining operation on Mars. The living conditions are terrible, the miners are treated like shit, and a disease known as “The Plague” is spreading throughout the colony with no known antidote available. The player assumes the role of a miner named Parker who came to Mars to start a new life. When the miners rebel, Parker takes up arms and helps lead a rebellion against Ultor. Red Faction may not showcase the greatest writing or voice work but I do enjoy the story. Red Faction does land in the sci-fi genre but don’t expect a lot of alien shooting action or laser beams flying every which way. It’s a tale about a simple miner who basically becomes a hero by the end of the campaign. A tale about a rebellion, about the downtrodden rising up and fighting back, sticking it to the man.
Red Faction is a first-person shooter. You run around and shoot enemies. What made this stand out for it’s time is the Geo-Mod technology which allows the player to alter the terrain. In other words, the game features destructible environments. However, despite the impressive technology for the time, I feel the game doesn’t really encourage the player to take advantage of it. You can use explosive weapons to blow through walls and destroy shit and the idea of being able to basically create your own paths through the environments is a novel concept. It’s cool. Also cool is seeing parts of the environments get destroyed from explosions during battles. But the fact is, not everything is destructible and the environments very much keep you contained. There was only a few areas where I actually could blow my way past obstacles like doors but it’s not really the norm. In fact, trying to blow your way through areas rather than take the already existing paths will often result in simply wasting ammo. It’s cool when you’re able to do it to progress or reveal a path or something like that but it’s rarely required or encouraged as far as I could tell. The good new is I did find a mod called All Geo. It removes the limitations on where the Geo-Mod technology is used. In other words, you can blow holes wherever you want.
Red Faction is like a lot of other first-person shooters but that’s not to say Geo-Mod is the only thing that makes it unique in any way. Even if you took out the Geo-Mod stuff, this would still be a solid shooter. You’ll get your hands on a lot of cool weapons as you progress including a flamethrower, rocket launchers, precision rifle, and an automatic shotgun among others. The gunplay is satisfying thanks to good weapon feedback and muzzle flashes, and blood puffs do appear when enemies are shot. Red Faction can be quite challenging but I feel it definitely lands somewhere in the cheap and frustrating territory once you hit what I’ll call the third and final act, and I did play on the Medium difficulty which I equate to Normal. You’ll go up against Ultor Guards and Mutants and when the Mercenaries arrive, that’s when the difficulty ramps up significantly in my opinion.
For the most part, I would say the enemy AI is actually pretty good. For its time, anyway. Enemies will typically run around during firefights which sometimes makes them tough to shoot and they can pick you off from distant locations. You do need to be mindful of your surroundings, check your corners, and try to stay behind things when the bullets start flying or you will get shot. What I really found humorous is how incompetent your allies are. Every so often, you’ll meet up with other Red Faction members and unless they’re major characters, they always die. Every single time. Once the Mercenaries show up, that’s when things get frustrating. I don’t mind a challenge that makes you think about your tactics, strategy or approach but what’s on display here, especially in the third act, often feels cheap. Some mercs wield Rail Drivers and will drop you in one shot, you’ll often turn a corner or enter a doorway and then get blown away before realizing what happened, multiple enemies can come around a corner and drop you immediately, and you’re always outnumbered and these later areas can be really frustrating.
Despite the frustrating later encounters, I would take these over the stealth sequences in the middle of the campaign. You’ll have to sneak your way through some areas and you don’t have access to all your weapons and can die easily once you’re detected. I don’t really mind the concept of stealth but the way it’s implemented here makes for very trial and error gameplay which just isn’t fun. I felt like if I didn’t take very specific paths, I would just end up getting detected. I preferred the running and gunning, blowing things up, and set pieces. You’ll get to pilot aircraft and submarines and shoot down foes, drive vehicles, and even man the gun in the back of one and use it to defend it from enemy troops and aircraft in an on-rails shooter sequence. Red Faction offers better action than stealth and the set pieces make for nice breathers from the typical run and gun action.
The environments are primarily linear but sometimes there’s multiple paths to a destination which is nice. I was also impressed with the size of some of the areas on display. The game often conveys a cool sense of scale. As indicated before, many environments are somewhat destructible so you can blow holes through walls and the terrain. But not all areas allow you to do this and you’re typically told when to blast around a door required to progress. Ultimately, in my opinion, the Geo-Mod stuff is underutilized in the campaign. There will often be rooms and areas off to the sides which typically house resources like weapons, ammo, medical kits, and suit repair kits and you’ll often encounter friendly along with other non-hostile NPCs that may scream for a guard if they detect you as hostile, and medics will heal you. The story will take you to many different locations around Mars including the mines, labs, different facilities, and a base among others.
Red Faction does come with a multiplayer component and supports LAN. Through Dash Faction, I was able to find several servers but only a few were active with players. There are multiple game types and it was the Deathmatch servers that seemed to be the most active. I actually joined a server and played in a few maps and it was a lot of fun. Dash Faction does include a multiplayer map auto-downloader and the maps I did play on were quite enjoyable and destructible which is really cool. The action is fast-paced and fun with everyone running around shooting at each other and blowing through parts of the environments. It gets quite intense. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try any of the other game types.
Playing Red Faction now, it definitely looks dated, even with the graphical quality improvements of Dash Faction. Nevertheless, despite its age, I think it holds up rather well. The environments are detailed, the character and weapon models don’t look too bad, and visual effects like smoke and explosions look great in my opinion. The soundtrack fits the game well with a mix of ominous, dramatic, and intense tunes that compliment what’s happening on-screen nicely. The audio work in general is decent although I do wish certain weapons sounded a bit more powerful. On the technical side, I’m happy to say that I did not run into any problems.
I like Red Faction and I feel it could make for a cool destruction sandbox if it actually was. The Geo-Mod technology, what I’m assuming is supposed to be the game’s selling point, seems lacking unless you cheat and like to mess around. If you cheat and give yourself weapons and ammo, you can have a blast destroying shit and messing with the terrain. From what I played of the multiplayer, the Geo-Mod stuff seems presented better there than it is in the campaign. Regardless, the campaign is still a good time if you enjoy first-person action. There’s plenty to shoot, the arsenal is cool, the gunplay is solid, the game conveys a pretty good atmosphere, and it offers a good challenge. Personally, I don’t much care for the stealth segments and I feel the last third act or so can be more frustrating than fun but if you like challenging shooters and enjoy getting your ass kicked, Red Faction has you covered.
I would recommend Red Faction because it’s fun. It’s a fun shooter with a solid story and a pretty strong community surrounding it from what I can tell. A community that has created numerous mods ranging from visual enhancements to new campaigns. There’s plenty of mods out there and that means plenty of reasons to keep coming back. Not only that, the multiplayer is still active as of this review and a lot of fun based on what I played. Despite some of the game’s issues, there’s certainly more good here than bad and I think it is one of the better shooters of its generation. Definitely check it out.