Red Faction Guerilla -Review

Developer:Volition

Publisher:THQ

Version I played: X-Box 360

This game is good. Not epic, but good. The story is decent, but not gripping or compelling. I will probably forget all the characters in a few days. The game-play is very fun and enjoyable. Destroying things didn't get old, ever. Destroying things in creative ways is always entertaining and sometimes challenging. It's not the hardest game ever, but there are many places that are very challenging, and likely to make you rage quit for periods of time.The last Mission I rage quit and didn't try again for a couple weeks, Then I went back and beat it. And I'm playing it on Normal difficulty. Playing it on X-Box 360, btw.

A good short description of this game would be "Grand Theft Auto on Mars". Simplistic, but gives a good general idea. It's a third person shooter/driving game. And you play a criminal, even though your crime is resisting a tyrannical government. There many parallels between this game and the GTA series. The driving in RF is at old school early gen GTA levels, Except for the tanks and mechs. Those are epic and more fun than many GTA vehicles. The gun-play is actually better than many in the GTA series, though it's not as realistic as say GTA 4 or 5. It's awesome when Red Faction teammates randomly drop in to help, even though they are next to useless in combat. Never jumping in a vehicle with you, and often getting themselves run over by you. My favorite guns were the Nanorifle, Pistol, and EDF Enforcer. A lot of online guides say the Gauss Rifle is one of the best weapons in the game, but I just never saw that to be true. The only down side to the Pistol is that it has low ammo, and in the second half of the game, no enemies carry them, so it's hard to find a steady supply of ammo. The Enforcer doesn't have the best damage, but it's the best at run and gunning as it homes in on people, and can often shoot people around obstacles. You also have a pretty steady ammo supply for it the second half of the game. Another downside to all the EDF weapons is that you can't upgrade them any, but they still manage to be very useful as is. Staying in a heavy vehicle as much as possible is also usually a good idea. Being in an APC or Mech can make many areas much easier than on foot. There are a few places where the opposite is true, but not often. The combat mech is my favorite vehicle in the game. Feel like an absolute beast in that. The hammer is fun, and brutal, but also sometimes becomes the only weapon you use, as almost every soldier dies with one swing, and many heavy vehicles don't take that many hits from it.One thing I really wished this game had was the ability to shoot you handheld weapons out of vehicles, ala GTA and Saint's Row.

The missions in this game are pleasantly diverse. It's not always the same few goals in different order and repeat, as in some open world action games. There are also many side fun things to go off and do. The most fun of those, to me, are the Demolition Challenges. These are also some of the most challenging parts of the game, but I enjoyed them a lot. Figuring out how to destroy things fast enough or in the right order, stays fun throughout all these. The story never gets boring, but as I said before, it also never truly gets engulfing to the player. There are a few supposed surprise twists that either aren't really a surprise or we just don't really care that much. The game does a good job of helping us hate the EDF (They should be hated. And perforated.) The actual storyline does a good job of this, but to me, the randomly coming across the EDF soldiers lining up civilians and gunning them down one by one, does this even more. I wanted to defeat the EDF, and see what happened next in the story, but at no point did I find myself not being able to think about other things until I find out how it ends, as the very best stories do. It is a good thing that the game-play i so fun. Finding out the history of the Marauders and Mars itself is very interesting. The same for the sci-fi tech of the world itself.

I'm glad I played this game, and I recommend anyone to do at least one play through, also. You could spend hours just randomly going around and destroying random stuff,and have a good time. So all the other cool parts is bonus.

Overall: 8 Plot: 5 Game-play: 9 Graphics: 7 Music: 6 Fun: 9 Booms: 10.