Bitching aside, the best thing about the single player game is that it's often just plain fun. I know, "fun" is the biggest cop out description a games journalist can come up with, but no word better describes the more frantic moments of Red Faction, and the odd stealth mission in between these action packed encounters serves to break up the game and stop the action from becoming tiresome. Once you build up a hefty arsenal and the Mercenaries turn up, who are more intelligent and resilient than the guards you're initially fighting, things get interesting. You need to pick the right weapon for each encounter depending on what the enemy is armed with and even if you get that right you're in for a challenging, adrenaline fuelled fight each time. It's a shame the mercenaries are just about the only interesting enemy though, and almost all the enemies are similar looking humans; only a few unimpressive Mars Plague Mutants turn up half way through to mix things up a bit.
While the single player experience proved enjoyable but unremarkable, the Geo Mod technology really comes into its own in multiplayer. More areas of the levels are destructible than in the single player, which is particularly useful in Capture the Flag games since you can create new routes to the flag with some carefully placed explosives. This makes for some fast paced and tactically challenging games - you try changing tactics on the fly when the enemy is frequently changing the layout of your base with explosives. In Deathmatch Geo Mod lets you open up secret areas or new routes. I admit I wasn't too impressed with the flow at first. Then I slapped my forehead as I realised that the whole point was that you could create new routes by blasting open dead ends, therefore giving the level all the flow of any other good deathmatch level. The only problem with multiplayer is that a few weapons, such as the Heavy Machinegun and Rail Gun, seem a little over-powered, and at times you can get stuck in a Geo Mod created hole, but with all the other plus points to the Multiplayer I'll let those ones slide. The levels are varied and well made, particularly the massive, Ancient Japanese themed CTF level that could easily contain 20 players and still play well.
I'm sure I'm not the only games reviewer who wishes every game was either great or dire rather than often just being "in between". It'd make reviewing games so much easier. Red Faction is one such "in between" title. The Geo-Mod technology is cool, but terribly underused in single player, though it adds a lot to multiplayer. The story, gameplay and levels aren't overly inspired but the gameplay still often manages to get exciting, especially towards the end with the exception of some woefully uninspired boss encounters. Good badgood.. bad ah hell, let me just see if I can sum this up in the usual two sentence Verdict.
The Verdict: While not as great as it obviously wants to be, Red Faction is an enjoyable if often uninspired blast. Don't be in a hurry to get it unless you're desperate to see more of the Geo Mod technology, and even then don't expect to see a lot of it in the single player levels.
By Pete Closs
Editor
[Red Faction was developed by Volition and published by THQ.]
