Red Faction: Guerrilla review

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Red Faction: Guerrilla review

Posted 06/02/2009 at 4:41pm | by Gillen McAllister

It’s no surprise that Red Faction: Guerrilla has been building up buzz. After all, it looks sexier than Saints Row, while incorporating some sandbox ideas that even Rockstar hasn’t cooked up yet. But it raises an important question: These days, can a game really survive on only one groundbreaking feature?

And Guerrilla's feature really is groundbreaking — every building and structure across the various sectors of a Mars colony shatters when struck by your hammer or crumbles when well-placed explosives go all kablooey on their foundations and support pillars. Red Faction is all about brute force — but in the tumbling wreckage, the smaller things, like a decent cover system and stealth missions, somehow get lost.

See, you’re a miner-turned-resistance-fighter. Your ability to use explosives (to mine for ore) and a hammer (to, uh, hammer things) proves very handy when liberating towns and combating the nefarious EDF forces that rule Mars with an iron fist. The dynamic between the resistance and the EDF prompts the game’s own twist on the genre’s notoriety meter. A successful attack on the EDF raises a parallel citizen-morale meter, and the higher it goes, the more of the nearby populace sets down tools and joins the resistance when they see you getting into a scrap.

The flipside is that if they’re run over, killed, or blown up — as NPC folk usually are in these games — the meter drops and you’re left to take down that massive EDF complex all by your lonesome. It’s a carefully constructed tool that’s designed to make you think before you hit the bomb trigger. While your recruits don’t have the personality of Halo’s UNSC Marines, this feature does make you treat the citizenry with respect — which is unusual in a sandbox game.

Sadly, while you won’t embark on killing sprees left and right, both the story and side missions toe genre lines, playing out as you’d imagine. Collect packages. Destroy structures. Take out convoys. The game’s open landscapes work against the latter — it’s hard to set up an ambush when you’re struggling to find exploitable cover areas and vantage points. And the sectors never lend themselves to the local quirks you’d see in Liberty City districts — one Martian mountain and town is pretty much the same as any other.

Yet, for all the attempts to wallpaper over the game’s central mechanic, Red Faction really does one thing spectacularly: the big badda-boom. And when it’s delivered, it’s delivered well. Be it evacuating the town of Dust as it’s annihilated by a carpet bombing or holding off a sustained EDF attack as bodies pile up around you, it’s frantic, seat-of-your-pants goodness.

So come here for the action, not the story. You’re certainly not going to care about the liberation itself, and the main character is as boring and as thin as tissue paper. The same goes for the supporting cast. Still, even if the plot doesn’t grab you, at least you’re getting some practical education — a few hours in, and you can tell at a glance what the best way is to topple a building. You’re a mini-Godzilla, and Mars is your Japan.

Red Faction is not a glorious revolution, nor is it some wafer-thin façade of the sandbox genre. Its foundation is strong, it’s fun in a mindless way, and its design intrigued us. But ultimately, it’s not something that’s been built to last.

On Xbox 360

+ Walkers are marvelous fun; destructive scenery is great-looking.

+ Plenty to do...

- ...but not plenty to see.

? Why is the storyline so deeply uninteresting?

7.0

 

Related

Platforms:
Xbox 360
Games:
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Topics:
action, open world, Red Faction, Shooter, thq, Volition
More like this:
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Biiiilly

August 11, 2009 at 2:19pm

This game should be 8.5 out of 10 not 7 that sucks, the guy who reviewed this is an absolute moron.
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dallasquake

June 18, 2009 at 2:12am

I Rave about Red Faction, due to the almost freedom of doing what you want in a semi open sandbox environment, and I Rave about Dead Space due to semi on the rails game play that can scare the crap out of you, yes I make my wife sit in the room and play her PSP or DSi while I play Dead Space on the 360. I love them both, and for entirely different reasons! I rave about Dan because he sure pisses the hell out of a ton of people, but at least he comes on here and tries to explain his reasoning, go to other websites, and they are so high and mighty that your nosebleed would cause you to pass out before they would even glance "up" in your direction, of course "up" being video game hell!! ROFL!!
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ciano22

June 15, 2009 at 1:28pm

COG2887 Just want to say that this game is a 7 and OXM does a good job on reviews and there magazine as a whole but dead space is def a 9 or higher great game. And to the person who said that they didnt no what the marker was or were the necro's were from obviously didnt follow the game.This Mag puts 2gether very good reviews and the demo disc is great
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DarkLotus07

June 12, 2009 at 2:12am

I have to admit that I'm starting to doubt the quality of your reviews. WHAT ABOUT MULTIPLAYER? This is not the first time multiplayer has been completely omitted from your reviews (i.e. Army of Two). It's disappoining to say the least.
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Tommybomb

June 08, 2009 at 11:58am

PS - I was referring to Dead Space
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Tommybomb

June 07, 2009 at 2:11pm

The lowest score for any of the games that apply to this issue is a 6.5 - and that's not even too bad of a score. I know many people would have liked for it to be higher - I can't say I'm one of them, since I've never played it - but the magazine describes a 6.5 as "an adequate game with something interesting to offer, but it has some truly significant issues." I guess whether or not you agree with the score depends on how much you value a coherent story and whether or not you're irked by errand quests.
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GODhimself37

June 07, 2009 at 10:44am

I'm gonna have to agree with them on the whole review thing. I just rented Dead Space and I loved it. Everyone i would talk to about Dead Space would rave about it but i never bothered spending the money to go out and get it because i trusted your reviews so much. I never believed them until i actually tried it, and i would have to say it was pretty epic. A couple story issues and a little repetitive in the whole, "oh we fixed this part, but oh sh*t ANOTHER thing isn't working", but i would give it a solid 8.5
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Poopypants9915pee

June 07, 2009 at 2:08am

I must say that I agree with everything they're saying in this review, but I don't agree with the score. The reason I disagree with that score is because they appear to have forgotten about online play and wrecking crew mode. So if you were going to get this game only for the single player then you can just go off this review. Otherwise, be smart and look at other reviews. I personally would give RF:G a 9 altogether.
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Tommybomb

June 06, 2009 at 11:54am

Wait a tick, Dan...I'm with you when it comes to differences in opinion, but when it comes to past review scores you can't say you guys haven't given it some thought. I remember a reader mail that was published way back - I'm talking before your time, may have even been before xbox live. It asked if you - and when I say you, I mean the publication as a whole - would change any of your review scores if you had the chance. The basic response was that you would leave all scores untouched, except for Halo 1, which you would have elevated to a "9.999999..." I'm not saying anyones right or wrong, I'm just stating facts and I personally trust your scores completely
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edfromred

June 05, 2009 at 3:01pm

I find OXM's reviews to be very succinct and reliable. The Red Faction: Guerrilla quibbles the reviewer pointed out seem to justify the score I wished I had read their Dead Space review before buying it. DS was a thrilling, pee-pants-scary experience, but it had major flaws: Convoluted story...I still have no idea what the Marker was, what was behind the necromorphs, and that Cult/Religion in the game was a confusing mess. It was also too short, I finished the game in a day and a half. It was a non-stop scare fest with stunning sequences, but replay value was nill. I ended up trading it in the same week I bought it and getting Left 4 Dead, which I have played continuously ever since.
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insidiae

June 04, 2009 at 4:22pm

Why do gamers/developers/producers have the perception that a '7' is somehow an end-of-the-world awful score? The whole point of a rating system is to differentiate the quality of games. If '7' and below now means "so bad it's unplayable", then I guess we better start rating everything on a 7-10 scale. Just because you don't agree with a score doesn't mean you can't still enjoy the game. And as long as you like it, does it really matter what a reviewer thinks?
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Dan OXM (not verified)

June 04, 2009 at 2:07pm

I never said OXM has never made a mistake. It would be ridiculously arrogant for any person or outlet to suggest that they were incapable of making mistakes! What I said was that OXM scores are explained and justified by the text, and if you personally don't agree with the text, we are not "wrong" because of that -- we just disagree based on different criteria. That's different from saying "OXM is never wrong," which I did not say.

The scoring system changed before FNR3 was scored. Under the 100-point scale, nothing ever got a 10. Would some of those 9.5+ games have been rounded up? Quite possibly; I can see where Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Halo 2 might well have been 10s if we were on the current grading system. But FNR3 was the first game to be scored on the new grading system; the system was not changed to support FNR3. The system was changed, and then we reviewed FNR3.

I know it matters and I think it's worth discussing -- but I also feel very strongly that the facts should be clear, or it's gonna get out of control fast.

I still wanna play Dead Space.

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Grognard66

June 04, 2009 at 12:24pm

7 is not a bad score - I'm hoping I end up liking it more than I would personally rate a 7 though! That being said, I thought Dan Amrich was way out of line on the last podcast. Yes, reviews are opinion, but it is supremely arrogant for him to think that OXM has never made a mistake and that review was deeply flawed (regardless of the score). Even IGN (which deserves a reputation for arrogance) devoted most of one podcast to "reviews we've screwed up". Just because reviews are an opinion doesn't mean that, upon further reflection, your opinion isn't wrong. Wreckless, Fight Night 3 and Dead Space are all notable examples of reviews OXM would probably wish they had reviewed differently if they were humble enough to admit they aren't infallible. I would love to hear an OXM roundtable podcast where they talk about reviews they probably would score differently today if they had to do over again. I get the distinct impression that they are too insecure to do so though, considering they went to such great lengths to defend the Fight Night review (even going so far as to redefine their score system). Admitting you screwed up doesn't necessarily mean everything you've ever done is without merit - it just means you're human, modest and can learn from your mistakes.
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Tommybomb

June 04, 2009 at 3:40am

I just looked on Metacritic and the average for this game was an 88 - I would like to apologize on behalf of OXM for their score not being up to that standard. They are clearly morons because their opinions differ from everyone else. ARE YOU F**KING KIDDING??? First of all, listen to their podcast from last week - that may open your eyes a little. Before or after you do that (I honestly don't care which) write your own review and get back to me, and watch me bash YOUR opinion! That will never happen because I respect any opinion that isn't my own, no matter how slanted - but that's just me.
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ill sue y4

June 03, 2009 at 12:39pm

A 7!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your kidding, a 7? This is another fine example of OXM's crappy reviewers. This is just like the Dead Space review.
 
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