[JemyM]

Red Faction: Guerrilla continued...

Gameplay
As I hinted in the introduction, Red Faction: Guerrilla feels like a game from a very different era than it's prequels. Half-Life 2 proved a few years back that physics was cool, and I know few games who take this more seriously than RFG. Ignoring the destruction mechanics for a moment though, Red Faction: Guerrilla feels very much like a game I played before, but not thanks to the prequels. The core mechanics of the game is now a 3rd person character, a free-roaming environment filled with a mix of storymissions and generic missions, vehicles and unlockables, a cover system, turrets that overheat but never run out of bullets etc is the vanilla game these days. Beyond the Mars setting, the look and feel of the game and it's interface will instantly remind you of games like Grand Theft Auto, Just Cause, Assassin's Creed etc etc. The generic missions also reminded me of Far Cry 2.

I guess the only mechanic that I need to speak about then is the destruction. In the prequels destruction presented alternate ways to bypass problems, or sometimes a puzzle. Destruction in RFG is no longer an optional way to bypass problems, but rather the main point of the game. You need to destroy a lot of stuff to bring the game forward. You smack down or bomb buildings with whatever tools you have to pump a couple of vital values (explained below). I guess that if you have a primal impulse that makes you feel warm inside whenever you destroy something, this is for you. For me, I never really saw the point. Sure, I could tear down every building in the game, I just never felt the reason to if it wasn't to earn the three main values that matter in the game; Control, Morale and Salvage.

Reducing Control is an important task in the game, which means reducing EDF's control over an area. Doing missions can reduce control, but you can also do things like blowing EDF buildings up. Once control is gone, it's easier to move around. Control also unlock storymissions so it's the route you have to take if you want get forward in the main plot.

Next to Control you have Morale. Doing things that increase morale among workers or the Red Faction will make people more willing to help out in fights. I never really saw any other bonus to this than NPC's joining me when fighting the EDF. Most of the time they were cannon fodder, drawing fire off me, which could be quite helpful.

Destroying buildings into scrap gives you Salvage, which is the games currency. You use salvage to buy upgrades, better weapons, armor, jetpack and other useful items. You can also earn salvage by smacking down ore deposits, rusty vehicles scattered around the planet and completing missions.

There are many ways to tear down buildings, you have explosives that can be attached to buildings and blown, you also have an extremely powerful hammer (an obvious Hammer & Sickle reference) that easily turns concrete to dust. You can also unlock more powerful hightech equipment later on that makes destruction easier and faster. You can also use a vehicle, especially the heavier ones, and simply drive it into buildings, which I found to be the fastest way to take one down. There are also plenty of walkers that you can use for the same purpose. Tanks exist in the game, but they aren't accessible for the player except when specifically given to carry out a mission.

I played the game on normal and much of the game was quite easy, although there were a few missions that I had to replay numerous times. There are some missions that simply doesn't work that well thanks to the gameplay mechanics. When you have to run up on pipes and continously get stuck between them you begin to question why you need to run up pipes in the first place. Another time you have to race against the clock, passing waypoints marked with a yellow cylinder. If you pass the cylinder rather than drive right through it, you have to turn your vehicle around and make sure your vehicle really pass through. Since the goal is to get to the end as quickly as possible, this was very poorly done.

Collectables & Achievements
Like all games of this kind, achievements involves doing X # times. Destroy 250 crates, mine 300 Ores etc. etc. There seems to be less than 250 crates which meant that finding the last ones didn't mean searching a needle in a haystack, but there seemed to only be 300 Ore. I find that kind of achievements to be pointless and a waste of time. More rewarding are the 36 radio transmitters that gives you a short hint on what happened on Mars between RF2 and 3. Among those I also found the strongest reference to RF2, if not the only one.

Final Conclusion
If destroying generic buildings in an up-to-date physics engine have an appeal to you, RFG might be your game. If you are looking for a deep and immersive storyline, strong atmosphere, advanced and intriguing missions, tactical thinking, the joy of exploring strange and alien places etc, RF3 is probably not for you. I played both RF1 and 2 before RFG and in hintersight, none in the series really stood out. Destruction is no longer a tactical option, it's now the core gameplay, in a game I played so many times before. Without anything else setting it apart from other games of the same style, there are other games I would play first, with a lot more variation in gameplay and more interesting and immersive story.

I am interested in the idea of bringing proper destruction to the game, but I cannot say that any of the RF games have sucessfully pulled it off and made it interesting. I will still have a look at Red Faction: Armageddon once it arrives, but I do not expect much.

Red Faction Guerrilla: Demons of the Badlands
Demons of the Badlands is the supposed first of three promised DLC's for Red Faction Guerrilla, but I believe it's the only one that was ever released. The DLC is a prequel to the main game, in which you play one of the NPC's. There isn't much to speak about here, the DLC have only have 3 story missions, the rest is the same old generic missions from the main game, except this time you are doing it from the Marouder perspective. You do get some background story to the events in the main game, but overall it didn't feel that interesting. It only took me 2-3 hours to finish at the most.