You Are The Resistance

“Yo” Snyder, Games Editor HJ Playbox

The setup to Red Faction: Guerrilla is as bland as it is predictable. Your character arrives on Mars to start a new life and mind his own business. You meet your brother, who just so happens to be be caught up in a rebellion against the oppressive EDF, who promises to find you honest work while at the same time explains why the Red Faction needs someone like you to help fight the EDF. As all of that was unfolding, I kept waiting for the brother to get killed so that my character, filled with revenge, would start blowing stuff up. Fortunately, that didn’t take long. Events unfolded predictably and emotionlessly, and the game finally started. Fortunately, blowing stuff up on Mars is a lot more fun the learning why you’re blowing stuff up on Mars.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is a very simple game. In fact, it’s so simple that it can easily get repetitive. However, taken in small doses spread out from each other, what you have is an exciting, fun, open world shooter with an amazing level of potential destruction for you to wreak. Missions can be very exciting as you drive a truck towards a guard tower. Leaping from the vehicle before it plows through the building, you start shooting at the remain guards, then blow a hole in the wall, enter the enemy base and use a nanite gun to disintegrate the supports for a radio tower which topples to the ground while you plant charges on the barracks building and with bullets whizzing all around you, you run off in the direction you came in while detonating your charges causing a large explosion and escape as debris rains down all around you. Fun? You bet. Fun to do over and over again? Well, that get a little old. But the solution is to not play the game for hours on end and just come back to it every now and then.

Red Faction has a huge open world map with literally hundreds of mission for you to do. Fortunately, the missions have a pretty good variety, and even similar mission types unfold in different ways. Still, there are only so many ways for you to blow buildings up or defend colonists or save people under house arrest, so despite the good variety, eventually you’ll find yourself going through the same motions. Nevertheless, the mechanics of the game are solid enough to make it fun even it does get repetitive.

Red Faction is a fast-paced third person shooter. Although you do have a button for getting into cover, it’s really not all that useful. You’re best tactic is to stay on the move. Controls for aiming your weapons are tight and responsive, it’s easy to switch between weapons, and the camera rarely is the cause of your death. The only time it’s problematic is when you have a ship flying overhead gunning you down. It’s hard to look at it while watching where you’re running at the same time. Vehicle controls are also responsive, and the vehicles drive a bit better than in GTA IV, although they still feel a little floaty when you’re in the air. Then again, gravity on Mars is lighter, so maybe that’s why it happens.

The other element that keeps the game fun is the game’s graphics and physics. The cutscenes aren’t great, but the in game graphics are solid with some nice lighting effects, especially for some of the fancier sci-fi weapons. I especially like the way things slowly turn to dust when you use the nano-rifle; it just looks cool (kinda like what happens to the Eiffel tower in the GI Joe trailer.) There is some pop-up in the distance as you drive and travel over the huge maps, but it’s not terribly distracting. Perhaps the biggest downfall of the game is how everything looks the same. I know you’re on Mars and that the colonists probably used prefab building units to build everything, but a little more variety would have been nice. Specifically, it would have been fun to have some lengthy indoor missions, to infiltrate an entire building as opposed to just blowing up small buildings. While some areas of the game like Oasis look slightly different, it’s just not quite enough. Then again, with all of the cool explosions and debris and smoke effects and the rest, you may be too busy to notice.

You know, all of the destruction and chaos I wreaked in Red Faction got me thinking about how Satan likes to use similar tactics. The Bible warns us that his goal is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10), which is pretty much all you do in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Granted in the game you’re a “good guy”, but my point is we all face a very real enemy who is waging a guerrilla war against our souls. Through subterfuge and deception he working very hard to turn us away from God. He wants us to believe that it doesn’t matter what we believe, that all roads can lead to the same place, that we’re basically good people and we don’t need savior, that needing a crutch of religion is a sign of weakness, that science is objective and the Bible is erroneous; and the list goes on and on. You know what the end results of all these attacks are? It’s just like in Red Faction; as each stronghold is slowly destroyed, eventually we loose everything. The end result is the theft of our eternal souls, eternal death in hell, and the destruction of our relationship with God. Why do I mention all of this in a video game review? Because blowing stuff up in a video game in fun, but the reality of how our lives can be destroyed apart from Jesus Christ isn’t any fun. I say all of this because I don’t want you to loose life, but rather enjoy it to the full in Christ. I want you to know the devil is clever and devious, but God is victorious because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to give us life and redemption. Don’t let Satan steal, kill, or destroy your life with his guerrilla tactics; if nothing else, examine the claims of Christ in the Bible for yourself and decide whether or not what he had to say makes sense.

I should also mention that Red Faction: Guerrilla also has a really fun online component. You can jump online and engage in a variety of matches, from full on destruction matches to more strategic capture and hold strategic point matches to your fairly standard deathmatches. Online you’re given access to some really nifty backpacks that give you some enhanced capabilities from speed to stealth (you turn invisible for a brief time) to strength (you can smash through walls) and much more. Like the single player game, the online matches are fast and action packed. Plus, it’s always fun to cause a building crash down on an opponent (sometimes the direct approach isn’t always the best). So even if you get tired of the repetitive single player mode, there’s more fun to be had online.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is a Grand Theft Auto IV/Crackdown hybrid. It contains many elements similar to those games from the large open world full of missions to the fast paced action and tons of destruction. Ultimately, however, Red Faction is a lot like a decent action film; it may be packed with adrenaline and explosions, but for the most part it’s pretty shallow. This game has a story of some sort to hang the action on, but the scenes that move the “plot” forward as so few and far between that you won’t care, and that doesn’t really matter because all you want to do is blow stuff up, right? Red Faction: Guerrilla is fun, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s not quite worth full price. If you can find it bargain priced for thirty bucks or less, it’s definitely worth it. But the overall shallowness and repetitiveness of the gameplay keeps it from really being worth the full price.

Score out of 7:

Graphics: 5 - The terrain of Mars looks good, if a bit bland. Nice explosive and lighting effects, and the physics are impressive. Buildings mostly look the same, as do the other characters walking around. Character animation is a bit stiff and not terribly fluid.

Sound: 5 - Explosions have some nice oomph to them, although they could have packed even more. Voice acting is bland, but the music does a good job of complimenting what’s happening on screen. Pretty decent overall.

Controls: 5 - Intuitive, tight and responsive.

Gameplay: 5 - Fast and destructive. In fact, the level of destruction possible is what makes it fun. The AI is decent, but not terribly challenging. Usually you get overwhelmed with numbers rather than smarts. However, things can get repetitive after awhile.

Story: 4 - Bland and predictable and not told very well. Half-way through the game things get mildly interesting, but it’s never really told in any compelling way. Then again, this game is about action and not narrative.

Content: 4 - You blow up a lot of stuff and kill a lot of faceless soldiers. There’s a little bit of blood and some language, but nothing on a GTA or Gears level.

Final: 5 - Red Faction: Guerrilla is a fun third-person shooter; surprisingly fun, in fact. Blowing stuff up is always a good time, but it can get repetitive. However, a fun single player and an equally fun online multiplayer make Red Faction a game that’s at least worth renting from GameFly, and if you can find it bargain priced, may even be worth owning. But don’t pay full price.

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