Game Review: Red Faction Guerilla (Xbox 360)
Developer: Volition
Publisher: THQ
Release Date: UK Jun 5th 2009
Genre: 3rd Person Shooter
Age: 16+
I really do wonder, why in this day and age, so much of the attention of game makers, goes into the graphics and level design, camera angles, etc. when still, be it Gears of War, Call of Duty or Halo - rockets and explosions do minimal or more often absolutely no damage whatsoever to the scenery, save a scorched decal applied to the wall. Battlefield: Bad Company made a good effort to incorporate a level of destruction, and for the most part this was decent, with dents in the ground, and buildings able to be skeletonized (although a frame always remained in tact).
Previous red faction games had limited destruction (which even years ago were state of the art), but now they are in the current generation and Voltion need to pull something amazing out. Surprising then, that the first noticable difference (apart from being 3rd person now) between RFG and it's predecessors, is the lack of destructible terrain. You can fill rocky cliffs and precipices with rockets but not do a button of damage.
The thing is, I didn't notice this fact until after many hours of play. Reason being is because of the incredibly detailed and lengthy depths to which you can take down everything else in the world. Everything.
Yes, everything man made in this game is fully and completely breakable. 2, 3 or 4 storie buildings can be reduced to rubble with a vast array of weaponry. Not just rubble, but pieces of the building - this isn't just removing a wall and spawning some bits of rock in it's place - the wall has struts, supports, bricks, and some walls are even load bearing and will cause other bits to collapse after a few seconds. You really feel, whether you are using a hammer, rockets or mines, that you are taking apart a building - the splintering bits of metal and brick, the pipes, the objects in the building, and any neibouring buildings that your demolished structure happens to land on.
It's a beauty to behold everytime you get a giant smoke stack to collapse, shattering into a garage and breaking through three floors - all in realtime, no scripting - I really haven't seen anything like it before. What's more, a small section of wall I destroyed at the start of the game remains broken throughout my game - so it would seem that any changes made to the game world stick. Nice.
When you get down to it, that's really most of what this game is. The AI - seems smart enough, stealth isn't out the equation completely - I have sneaked past a few guards to covertly bomb a target, but things frequently get very messy, very quickly and any hostile action against the guards will soon result in your being swarmed by suicidal armoured cars and wave after wave of relentless troops. But they flank, take cover, close up distance and lob grenades, so I wouldn't say the AI is by any means poor.
It just often feels like whatever tactical plan you come up with to try and bomb and enemy supply depot, is going to turn to shit in no time at all. I typically get spotted and end up jumping out a window, whilst detonating the mines behind me - and getting out by theiving a car or just hammering through a wall and making a break for it. Fortunately, you can aquire an upgrade that shows guard locations on your mini map, which makes excursions like these slightly more tactical.
Aiming is a little bit ropey sometimes, although generally I can deal with it - and a lot of the weapons have either large splash damage, or enough fully automatic fire to take out who you need to, and I have the sensitivity low. Later on in the game, you gain access to Aliens style mechs, of which there are three types, and they are a hell of a lot of fun to use, as you mash up troops, cars and buildings like hot butter. Even the regular hand held weapons rock bells, the nano rifle for example, which disintegrates structures and enemies alike, or the rail driver, an old favourite from previous games, with the ability to scan and shoot people through walls - a bitch in multiplayer!
So the game is open world, and you are initially confinded to one area of the planet, with others parts opening up later on. There are various side missions, hostage rescues, bombing runs, escorts, sieges, etc. which are all a lot of fun, save maybe the vehicle recovery one. These side missions will help you get more morale and support in the local area - so inhabitants will occasionally help you fight off the EDF troops (although the companion AI can be less than helpful sometimes). Eventually, completing the main missions will vanquish the EDF from that area, and you access further areas of the world, and reducing the amount of enemy troops in the completed area - making side missions slightly easier.
It's all nicely presented, with the people going about there business, getting pissed off when you 'liberate' their vehicles from them, nice red dust textures over everything - it's a pretty good representation of what Mars could be like someday, but really, nice graphics should be a given these days, and I feel I'm wasting more page space mentioning that 'it has good graphics'. The vehicles look nice and sci-fi-ey too, especially later on in the different areas.
The story is incorporated into the game fairly well, you go to Mars for mining work (explaining your competence with explosives and destruction), to find that the once liberators the EDF, have gone a bit facist and so after they kill your brother you join up with Red Faction, and begin a campaign of demolishing, well, pretty much everything. It's a fairly entertaining romp, but nothing ground breaking in the story department. You'll hear radio stations report the recent news - which includes propoganda laden statements about the local area. In fact, any missions or side missions you do, will soon after be reported on by the news, albeit distorted to make your Red Faction look like the bad guys. It's a nice touch.
Onto multiplayer, where you have a variety of modes and customisation options. The 'backpacks' are mostly absent from single player until late in the game, but are a key aspect of multiplayer. There are about 10 different types and they litter each level for anyone to pick up and use. The backpacks give your player special powers - such as the jetpack, invisibility pack, or the Rhino pack, which lets you charge through walls.
A number of game modes keep things fresh. Wrecking Crew mode is a pass-the controller affair, for those without online play. Simply pick your weapon, backpack, and round limit - and see who can do the most damage in a minute. Sounds simple, but you can really start racking up points by tactically destroying one side of a tower so it falls on another - multiplying the score.
Standard online games are here too, with team anarchy (slayer), free for all, capture the flag, and a variation of territories, where you capture points by using the handy reconstructor gun, which rebuilds broken things - handy for restoring the walls that were protecting your base!
Siege mode, sees your team attacking and trying to destroy key buildings of the enemy, whilst they can repair any buildings that have not been levelled. Then you switch to defence. It's pretty good, and probably the most rounded of the multiplayer modes - the kind of thing the game engine was made for.
I enjoyed RF:G a lot, and although most of this is simply the stunning quality of the Geomod 2.0 engine, and blowing stuff up, it really doesn't get old. The multiplayer gives this game a lot of extra life, but if you're after the kind of story and atmosphere of Gears of War or GTA then the fun of destruction alone may not be enough to satisfy you (I don't see how you couldn't like this though!). The fun of both in single and multi player, outweighs any minor flaws with the game, it's simply stunning to play, stunning to watch, and you won't see anything like this for years to come. It feels ahead of it's time, and I hope other developers take note at what Volition are doing.
Verdict:
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