Be honest now. There's only one reason you want to play this game. You get to blow stuff up. Forget the vehicles, forget the promise of the good, solid story (which, to be honest, isn't actually that hot, especially the weak ending). You're aching to buy this game primarily to blow seven shades of concrete out of the nearest wall, with a bit of wanton glass shattering on the side. But without decent gameplay layered on top of the destructible geometry feature of the Geo Mod engine the game uses you'd be looking at nothing more than a glorified technology demo. The question you're asking is "So is it any good?" and the answer is further on in the review. You don't want me to spoil things right away do you?
After coming up with the idea of levels you can blow great chunks out of, the lads at Volition decided to set the game in a Mars-based mining facility during a revolution. See? Mars has lots of rock, and a mining facility has lots of explosives and other mining equipment, making it the perfect setting for showing off the Geo Mod engine. Clever bunch of people these Volitions guys aren't they? Parker, a miner for Ultor Corporation, gets caught up in a miners revolution and ends up blasting his way through guards, then later Mercenaries, as well as the odd wall of course. Just the odd wall? Well, yes, because after being pushed as the main selling point of Red Faction, the destructible geometry feature is woefully underused in the single player game. Twice you have to blast through the rock beside a locked door to continue and beyond that there aren't many times when the Geo Mod feature contributes to the experience.
In the Red Faction demo I watched in awe as a vehicle drove into a hole I had just made in a bridge falling to its doom. I hoped other such opportunities for creative destruction would present themselves in the full game, but no. The only time when the GeoMod technology is fully shown off is when you drive the tunnelling machine through a wall (which was available in the demo) and when you play around in the stand-alone glass house level, also available in the demo.
The single player does have its high points, the most notable being the weapons. There are 15 of them and though most of them are standard, if oddly satisfying, FPS fare (sniper rifles, a shotgun, pistol and machine guns) there are a few notable exceptions. The Rail Gun is just as lethal as the one from Quake 2 and 3 but the thermal scope that lets you see people through walls to skewer them is guaranteed to become your favourite weapon in the game. There is also a riot shield that's handy for blocking shots but bashing people with it isn't particularly effective. The enemy AI is also better than you tend to see in FPS games though not exactly remarkable. They'll strafe and hide as if they've actually got this idea of self preservation into their heads, though it's rather odd that armed guards will flee and shout "I'm unarmed" before turning on you the next moment and opening fire again.
