During those rare moments when someone isn’t trying to open up a new studio in Toronto, I usually like to spend my down time playing a nice 3rd person sand-box action game. The last one I got my hands on was Red Faction: Guerrilla. The 3rd game in a little known franchise made by Volition Inc.; and (like all of Volition’s recent games) it appears that the main development goal of Red Faction was to try and rip off Rockstar’s GTA franchise as much as possible without being called out for it.

Which brings me to Red Faction: Guerrilla, or as I personally like to call it, Grand Theft Auto: Mars.

Now, I know what you are about to say, “Bryan you idiot! This is a 3rd person sand-b0x action game, and Grand Theft Auto (GTA)  is the standard for that genre. Automatically, any 3rd person sand-box action game is going to be compared to the GTA franchise!”  Which is true; I can not deny that fact. However, there is a fine line between resembling GTA and being GTA, and Volition tripped over that line while working to put Red Faction: Guerrilla in stores.

Still don’t believe me? Well, let’s take a closer look at these two games. We might as well start with the main character. This is Alec Mason.

He is the protagonist of Red Faction: Guerrilla. Professionally, he is a hard working miner who recently immigrated from Earth to Mars for some honest work. He seems like a honest looking guy, but there is something about him that is familiar. I don’t know why, but it feels like I have seen him some place before…

… nope, nothing is coming to me right now. Oh well I am sure it will come to me eventually.

Anyhow, where was I? Oh yeah! I was talking about the similarities between Red Faction: Guerrilla and Grand Theft Auto 4. From start to finish, the similarities show up early and often in these games. Even the introduction of each main character is similar. In Grand Theft Auto 4, you arrive on a freighter ship were you are picked up by your cousin, and taken to his house in New York City. In Red Faction: Guerrilla, you arrive on a passenger transport ship where you are picked up by your brother and take to his house on Mars. And a similar beginning is… well…. just the beginning when it comes to the things that these two games have in common. Both games have:

• main characters who come to these new lands looking for honest work, only to be sucked into crime after the first mission
• violence that is glorified because you are the “hero”
• main characters with back grounds and experience that aid well in the blowing of stuff up
• main characters who are ultimately driven by revenge
• useless side missions that add nothing to the overall experience, and don’t effect the outcome of the game
• large city maps that need to be unlocked slowly as you proceed throughout the game
• vehicles that are used as the main form of transit around the game spaces
• automobiles that can’t turn while breaking
• the ability to take any civilian car you want in the game space (even if it is being occupied by a non-playable character), and any military vehicle that is not being occupied.
• missions that usually start with you driving half way across the game space before you can actually start working towards the completion of the mission
• missions that force you to drive all the way back to the objective again if you die
• nearly identical combat that consists of running around in a 3rd person perspective, shooting people with guns, or getting up close and hitting them with blunt objects like a sledge hammers or a baseball bats
• sound and graphics of comparable quality

So what’s the difference between these two games? Well, one takes place on Earth, and the other on mars.

GTA4 had a deep story that made you feel like Nico was right to rampage through the city in a way that most psychiatrists would call psychotic. Red Faction on the other hand had a story with all the depth of a tea-spoon.

Also, Red Faction contains a level of persistent and dynamic destruction that has never been in a game before. And by a level, I mean to say that everything in the game will come crashing to the ground at the swing of your hammer. For example, look around you right now. Just take in your surroundings for a second. Now imagine what it would be like to take a sledge hammer to everything in that room. Imagine the destruction you could cause. That’s the level of destruction you have in Red Faction: Guerrilla.

This game also has multiplayer, but unlike other games, it’s not that fun to play Red Faction’s multiplayer. That is unless your idea of fun is to play the same arrangement of team deathmatch and objective games that you will find in any title today. The multiplayer in this game just feels uninspired. You only get 5 different multiplayer modes, and their objectives range from shooting people to blowing up buildings. I don’t wish to call out the programmers who made this multiplayer, because it is done very competently. Except for some minor lag, my experience was satisfactory; but that’s the problem. It was satisfactory. I was not blown away by it. I have to ask myself why do I want to play this generic stuff when I could easily put in a Call of Duty game and get a far better multiplayer experience? 

On top of that, Volition pulled a big jerk move by locking 4 of the 5 multiplayer games until you reach a certain level of experience. I had to play through all of the boring deathmatches until I got to the multiplayer modes that I would actually consider playing on my own time. I don’t know about you, but if I was forced to do that again, I would simply hit the eject button and put in another game.

In the end, Red Faction: Guerrilla is a decent game (even for a GTA clone). The graphics are average, and the sound is passable; but the destructive capabilities that you can wield in this game make up for the games other short comings. The single player campaign is where the game truly shines, and a big positive is that the campaign will continue to expand for a while. 3 story driven campaign expansions/DLC packs have been announced for Red Faction: Guerrilla (the 1st being released on Thursday, August 13, 2009). Therefore, if you enjoy Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row, or just blowing stuff to pieces: then play this game. It will never be the greatest game you have ever played, but you’ll have a bit of fun playing it.

Red Faction: Guerrilla gets a 7.5 out of 10.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.