Red Faction (2001)

The opening scene is memorable and following 10 minutes of game play are probably the peak of this game to be honest.

Red Faction is a game I just never got around to playing. I remember it being highly touted in a PC Gamer Magazine that featured it's demo (and the demo was kind of cool, blowing up terrain in the miner tunnels of mars). However, once you get out of the mines the whole terrain destruction thing feels like a cheap gimmick. Most of the levels are "concrete and steel bunkers" meaning unless you find bare earth, you cant blow stuff up.
I found the game to visually look a bit reminiscent of Half-Life with it's industrial setting. At least, I feel that was what they were trying to go for.

Overall the game feels like a Mix of Quake 1/Quake 2 type levels, some inspiration and industrial aesthetic in league with that of Black Mesa from Half-Life and the frantic gunplay and violence of Soldier of Fortune However, the game doesn't measure up to any of those. Past it's chief technical marvel at the time the game doesn't really offer much else we haven't seen before. The guns are ok and service (the pistol is pretty OP in the whole first half of the game because almost everyone has a lotta ammo for it) you can stick to one or two of them and pretty much fall back to a maybe a third if you run low on ammo but ammo is pretty plentiful and you don't really need to worry much over it. Most of the guns aren't really that creative or interesting and dont really have alot of cool or imaginative secodnary fire attacks. The rocket launcher has an infrared scope (not sure the point?) and the railgun has a short distance x-ray scope. (It might be the first time that was done in a game, while cool these 'rendered modes' feel more like some dev's engine pizzazz rather actual gameplay features.)

The game also offers occasional vehicles with different weapons and abilities. Some of which feature awkward vision and controls. This digging machine made me think of the late 90's Battlezone reboot with its weird green camera effect, combined with the whole space miner setting

not too much more to say really. It brought back memories of many 2000's to mid 2000's shooters that were mediocre but tried to do something different (Tron 2.0, Judge Dredd etc) It hasn't aged well and doesn't really have much relevance now to new players who might be curious. Terrain/Land destruction is not the main attraction here but it does exist, albeit somewhat rudimentary. A few years ago, I played a game called Chaser (2003) that feels like a spiritual successor to the core concept of this (no terrain destruction tho), and it had considerable improvements in the cutscenes and some of the visuals as well as the basic plot was a bit less contrived, so maybe that affected my appreciation here.

I would say skip this. if you are looking for something historically relevant for it's engine and is also a lovely looking game with great weapons, and decent gameplay, play Unreal instead (or any of those other games I mentioned) This doesnt beat it by a long shot.

This short review is coming from a 2022 perspective and someone who has not played it before. I used the DashFaction mod to add modern support however it could not fully save the game. The whole game is just running through corridors shooting people, nothing really beyond that. The enemies are difficult to shoot as they are constantly strafing all over the place.

The vehicle sections are quite boring as well as the 5mph ATV sections where you slowly and unenthusiastically drive through caves.

Posting a more in depth review to my website. I'll make some quick points here.

Red faction is a pretty decent game overall. I played it for the first time ever this month of June 2020 and completed it (hard difficulty), so I can imagine how this game was received when it was released back in 2001. Very innovative for it’s time. For the most part, the map and level design for this game was awesome. I never felt like the maps got stale. Toward the end of the game when you fight Masako’s mercenaries, the game does suffer from overbearing repetition and copy and pasted areas. Masako’s Lair was an absolute shitfest. The shooting mechanics are actually pretty decent for a throwback game. I do like the auto aim system in the game, though it’s not perfect. At times the shooting in general just feels really slow and clunky, and outdated but I understand this is a game from 2001. At times you can just go nuts and massacre an entire line of enemies if your sights are lined up. The Rail Driver is the single most powerful weapon in the game lmfao. Absolutely bonkers whoever decided to put that in the game.

Hendrix was a beast lol. Eos, Hendrix, and Parker were absolute beasts. These three were the driving forces in saving the miners. All in all, this was a solid experience. I recommend anybody who still loves the PS2 era or just wants to throw it back and try a game from the past to give this one a shot. If I was rating this when it released, this game would have been 5 stars. Don’t let the 4 stars fool you, this game is for sure a PS2 classic.