Red Faction: Guerrilla

"Fighting the good fight, Martian-style..."

Red Faction: Guerrilla is one of those rare open world games that brings something new to the table. Arguably, many open world games are merely shallow imitations of the game that brought the genre to glittering heights: Grand Theft Auto, and its sequels. Take The Godfather: The Video Game, or Scarface: The World Is Yours, these are examples of solid open world games that don't quite nail the presentation. For a number of reasons, these games are called knock-offs: unpolished graphics, repetitive missions, control issues, and so on. Mainly, they don't seem as immersive as other, more respected pillars of the genre. Other games succeed and become respected in their own right because of a different angle, such as Crackdown, which essentially allows the player to become a god through the gameplay without cheats (although there were still cheats for those lacking commitment). So how does Red Faction: Guerrilla perform compared to all of the rest? What does it bring to the table? Wonderful, unrestrained destruction.

Gameplay: There are almost no glitches, or at least none that are game-breaking; avid glitch finders are sure to find something at some point, but if I can enjoy the game without any serious issues, so can you. One minor but unavoidable complaint involves the vehicles. Driving them is smooth, but it's just too easy to get hitched on a small rock by the side of a road or caught on a wall that you've crashed into. This is usually fixable by simply jogging between forward and reverse for a bit, but this is a problem that should have been ironed out.

Graphics: The graphics are silky smooth throughout the game, and the cut scenes are almost CG movie-quality. Watching stuff blow up is a blast (pun-intended), but also leads to another minor issue. Crashing into buildings and knocking them over can stutter the frame rate, and being too close to explosions (aside from killing you) can also lead to a few hiccup-moments. The art design is also good, but nothing exceptional, and the buildings are too modular and utilitarian to be interest-grabbing.

Sound: The music fits the game, but that's about it. It isn't particularly memorable, and the voice acting grates at times. Sound effects at least succeed, and a good explosion can drown out the radio chatter.

Story: The goal in this game is to help the Red Faction revolutionary forces liberate six different sectors on Mars from the tyrannical Earth Defense Force. To that end, each sector has an assortment of missions that, when completed, chip away at the EDF's influence in the area. Once their influence hits bottom, a climactic final battle ensues, and you can move on to the next area. Repetitive and linear, but it gets the job done, and the cut scenes keep things cohesive. On the bright side, once you finish the main storyline you can still play on and blow more stuff up for kicks.

Setting: The sci-fi setting is a unique twist to open world games which are usually grounded in the realistic now or near past, but by itself is a little uninspired. The flaw here is that nothing feels vitally important. You can destroy whole enemy bases or slaughter enemy troops, but the "why" doesn't really provide much incentive. Generally silent (unless you hijack their trucks) civilian NPCs typically run away from any violence, and the destructible buildings, even the larger ones, are for the most part empty. The roadways that web the game world have the expected ever-present traffic and vehicles to hijack, but the game's Mars seems almost as dead as the real-life one.

Multiplayer: Most open world games lack any multiplayer or cooperative feature, but not only does this game have these, it has a robust assortment of modes and customization options. It's basically all of the manic chaos of the main single-player game, but with friends. There are the same graphics hitches, but there are plenty of people online and so far the connections haven't faltered. Of course, with multiplayer on the Xbox 360 comes another small annoyance: multiplayer achievements. There's nothing outlandish or really hard to get, but be prepared to invest a substantial amount of time into the online modes if you want to get everything.

Overall: If you like sci-fi anything, open world games, and the ability to reduce your environment to charred rubble, look no further. Red Faction: Guerrilla isn't mind-blowing or an absolute must-have-no-matter-what, but it does all of the right things right. Rampant destruction is the game's driving force, offering even more incentive for progressing from place to place than the story alone. Bored? Grab a hammer, a rocket launcher, and a big vehicle, and charge an absurdly overprotected enemy base. The near total destructibility of everything shakes gameplay up, too. If you need a moment to recover, smash a wall and make a new door to safety, or cave the roof on the attackers with a mine. Of course, your enemies can do the same thing, and prolonged firefights with heavy weapons tend to level any structures in minutes, forcing you to stay alert. In any case, if you want a mission-packed, well-crafted open world gaming experience, seriously think about Red Faction: Guerrilla. At the very least try out the demo, and see if you agree with me that this is one entertaining game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/09/09

Game Release: Red Faction: Guerrilla (US, 06/02/09)