Red Faction: Guerrilla Review

One of the early surprise hits of the PS2 was a little known shooter from THQ. It was called Red Faction. The game took place on the planet Mars in the not too distant future where you played as a miner. Not long after you start the game a rebellion unfolds and you find yourself leading the resistance against the Ultor Corporation. Red Faction was a cutting age shooter in ways as it was the premier example of destructible environments for its time.

The GeoMod (short for geographic modification) engine is back, this time though the game takes place in a third-person perspective instead of the first-person that the original and its sequel used. I really am not very fond of the change, it seems inappropriate to change the mechanics of the game this fundamentally in a series that was popularized as a FPS. That said, it does provide for an easier use of weapons such as the hammer that the main character wields in the demo.

Basically the demo is compromised of destroying structures, retrieving a mech-like vehicle and a chase scene at the end of the demo. You will have a mixture of weapons to choose from. The most affective for bringing down structures is the C4 which is remote charged. The hammer does a good job in its own right. You can also pick up weapons that enemies drop, ride in vehicles and cause all sorts of havoc with explosive barrels. I found the controls to be a little on the clunky side, although they still have a couple months to work on this.

I’m not sold on Red Faction: Guerrilla. In fact, I wasn’t all that impressed by the demo. If you want to give it a try you will have to pre-order the game first (which kind of takes away the point of having a demo). I would recommend against pre-ordering the game until we get a full review of the game up after it launches on June 9, 2009. While I don’t want to judge the game too harshly without playing the entire game, if a demo gives you a taste of what the game will be like, Guerrilla left a bad first impression.