Red Faction II

"Destruction of the Commonwealth"

Red Faction 2 is a recently released port from PS2 onto the GCN. I had the opportunity to play this game a few months ago and I was stunned at how amazing it is. It has (for all you FPS junkies out there) ideas from Perfect Dark, Timesplitters and Duke Nukem all wrapped into one.

Gameplay - 9

I thought the gameplay was great in this game. Wide variety of guns available ranging from pistols, assault rifles, grenade launchers, rocket launchers and small explosives. Most guns also have a 2nd function, much like in Perfect Dark. For one gun, the R-Trigger button is for burst fire as the L-Trigger is for automatic fire. For another the R-Trigger is for automatic and the L-Trigger is for small grenades. For a few of the weapons you could hold 2 of them to blast away opponents. The thing I like about this is when you have 2 pistols, you can't just hold down the R or L buttons and it fires, you must rapidly thrash those buttons to fire the guns. I think it's great, makes you feel like your actually pulling the triggers to the guns.

The multiplayer is also stunning. One game can hold 6 players/bots at a time. Different multiplayer modes are the traditional deathmatch, capture the flag, bagman, arena and regime. You can also build your own bots to specific stats so you can make a bot as easy or hard as you want them to be.

Single player is better than I thought it would be. It is a pretty long game. First time through it could take about 5-7 hours on easy. Medium isn't significantly more difficult and hard is well.....hard. Levels are also split up into sections. For example if you want to fight a boss at the end of a level or you want to replay a fun part in the middle of a level, just select the section nearest to the specific part you want to be at.

Graphics - 8

Graphics could have been better. The movies they show in the game aren't heart stopping but they hold their own. The character designs are done well, some more into detail than others. The gun designs are also done well, makes you feel like you are an actual model of a real military gun, thats always good.

Sound - 9

I liked the sound alot. Guns sound great and the voice-acting is especially well. The sound is clear and amazing when it comes into full swing with 8 people blasting away at each other with a different gun. When you blow up street lamps they fall and crackle so you hear that. Seems like they made sound an important part of the game, since almost everything makes a different sound when fired upon.

Overall - 9

-Once again a great FPS, one of my favorites to date.
-This is in my opinion a game you should buy. This isn't just fun for a FPS junkie, but if someone is looking for more variety in their collection, Red Faction 2 offers alot.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/08/03, Updated 04/08/03