Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Red Faction: The Revolution Was On PS2


I know most of my readers have seen Total Recall, The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about a revolution against oppressive rulers on Mars. It is truly a Sci Fi classic. The video games attached to it, not so much. For a long time there really wasn't a console game that took the spirit of Total Recall and made it feel new, fresh, and evolved for folks who weren't fans of the movie. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Volition develops a Martian masterpiece, and THQ publishes it. That game was Red Faction.

The plot of Red Faction centered around a guy named Parker who went to Mars after being sold on a new start by the Ultor Corporation. Instead of riches and adventure, though, folks were shoved into mines, beaten and experimented on by the good folks at Ultor. Slowly but surely, the miners began to plot an overthrow of those in power, and that's when Parker got tangled up in the whole mess.

Red Faction, in a lot of ways reminds me of the original Half Life, especially in it's completely cinematic feel, but that's where those similarities end. Red Faction's "Geo Mod" technology gives that game a deeper feel because of the ways a player can manipulate the environment to avoid groups of enemies. Also, the variety of vehicles and weapons in Red Faction is a pretty good for a FPS in that day and age. If that multiplayer on the console version wasn't local only, it would've been a true pioneer, but as it stands Red Faction paved the way for a lot of story driven games in the FPS genre. It's a great game, and since it came out in 2001, it's dirt cheap. You kinda owe it to yourself to give this pioneer a try.






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