Red Faction II

"BAM BAM BAM!!!, I pretty much decribed this insane action FPS in 3 words."

Red Faction 2, is a first person shooter with non-stop action around every corner often times you keep hoping that it will slow down, but it keeps giving more! Not a bad thing at all. It’s one hell of a wild ride.

Story: (9/10) One hell of a cool story, haven’t seen many FPS with good story lines, but Red Faction 2 defiantly delivers! Red Faction takes place in the far future on Earth this time around (RF1 took place on Mars). You have joined the Red Faction in order to try and stop a mad dictator from taking over the world. Basically you’re typical “Rebel against the evil guy” type plot. For the most part, RF2 throws in some nice plot twists along the way. Defiantly the one of the best stories for an FPS since most of the time in an FPS, you’re just mindlessly going thru levels shooting stuff, you don’t even know what’s going on, RF2 makes sure you know what’s happening. 9/10.

Graphics/Visuals: (8/10) The environment are pretty detailed, could have been better, but nonetheless they still look good. Cinematics look good as well character models. But the blood and gore doesn’t look very realistic, you shoot a rocket at someone and chunks of him go everywhere. Kind of like in Quake, but that doesn’t really ruin the game that much. Another problem you see often times in the game (especially when bullets are flying everywhere and explosions are going off), is the frame rate will slow down, and things will get “laggy”. But that usually happens when there is a lot of action, and it’s not THAT bad. Gave it an 8/10 for those minor faults.

Game play (8/10) First off, let me say that this game is jam-packed with action, you’re pretty much always fighting or blowing stuff up. Enemies come at you in hordes, and they keep coming, makes the came fun, but sometimes you just wish there was a minute or so where you’re not fighting an army of soldiers. Along side from running around on foot, you also sometimes get vehicles to ride and cause some mayhem with. Such as a tank, submarine, and a mobile-suit. They’re really fun to use, and THQ, made them really easy to maneuver with. There are many high-explosive weapons as well, just as you start out you, a rocket-launcher; it pretty much drops you into the middle of a war! Usually in most FPS games, you start out with something lame (pistol, melee weapon), and get better weapons as you progress, but you instantly start with a rocket-launcher and get high-powered weapons thru-out the game. Because a good soldier isn’t going to fight with just a pistol right? They changed the health system as well, since you are genetically enhanced, you have the ability to regenerate health. Which makes you really hard to kill! But you have to be resting in order to heal, kind of like Halo. THQ also made it where you can throw grenades with one button, meaning you don’t have to fumble thru a bunch of guns to throw one grenade, again this was most likely taken from Halo as well. This game gets pretty challenging at some points, the boss fights in generally are not easy, since you aren’t only fighting a boss, but the minions of the boss! The geo-mod system hasn’t really improved much, you can pretty much blow up anything, and it will make a hole, this is essential to the game play since often times you’ll blow your way past a door. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, and that’s what THQ did.

The multiplayer is also very fun. Although you can’t keep wishing that it was online, RF2 would had made a great online game for the PS2, There are different modes, such as your classic Free for all and capture the flag. Also there is an interesting mode called “Regime”, where someone is a dictator with a big hat, and the others must kill him or her, it’s actually pretty fun. Once you kill the dictator, YOU become the dictator, and you have to run or kill everyone. It’s really unfair to judge this game because of the lack f online multiplayer, but you just wish it were there. Overall I give the game play an 8.

Sound/Audio: (8/10) The audio is pretty strong, nice sounding, clear, and LOUD! The voice acting in the cinematics are mediocre, but still ok. The sound track itself is pretty good; it gives the impression that you’re some one-man army fighting for a just cause. Personally one of my favorite soundtracks for an FPS. But at times the sounds can get repetitive, but the game is still fun nonetheless. I gave it a final 8/10.

Replay (3/10)Replay value isn’t very good, after you complete the game once, there isn’t anything else you can really do. Since you pretty much unlock everything your first time threw. But you can always try to beat the game on a higher difficulty.

Judgment (8/10): I’d rent this game, because once you beat it, there isn’t much to do. Except multiplayer of course, in that case, you can always rent it whenever a few buddies come over. I give it a final 8/10, it’s a nice strong game that could have been better, you most defiantly don’t want to miss out on it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/16/03