Red Faction Playthrough

Channel:

proa007

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Published on July 17, 2021 3:00:31 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7PmmHpaBBY

Game:

Red Faction (2001)

Duration: 1:45:42

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2

2001, PS2. Rating: 3 out of 4 stars

Red Faction's big selling point when it came out was the Geo-Mod engine, which allowed for environments to be blown up and potentially create new paths. It was a great concept that got used to marginal effect in the final product (unless you're a speedrunner; then it is a great concept used to great effect). The game itself, which is a dystopian sci-fi game set on Mars with Parker, your everyday working miner, caught up in a fight as the Red Faction fights against the Ultor Corporation, who are exploiting and killing miners with impunity. And so on. The narrative is used as a pretext for a lot of gunplay and getting to drive around in cool vehicles and cause more pandemonium.

The game itself runs and operates fine and handles reasonably well. Platforming can be a slight chore at times, but overall, it handles well. The single-player is quite short and everything after Capek feels a bit tacked on. Some very good setpieces before, during and after, but the final third of the game feels more like an epilogue. It also is quite frustrating at times with the merc enemies being able to one-shot kill you with the rail driver, which is an irritating weapon at the best of times.

Visuals are decent, though some of the facial captures during the FMV scenes are unintentionally hilarious. So is some of the dialogue, particularly when Parker is talking. The NPC characters speaking are of variable quality with some hamming it up while others do the expository work. The soundtrack is pretty good overall with a nice sense of dread hanging over the proceedings.

By no means a classic, but a pretty good game in its day and it holds up well enough even if it ends well before gamers might well expect.

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0:00 The Revolution Starts
13:22 Geothermal Plant #4
22:24 Finding and Escorting Gryphon
39:06 Finding and Chasing Capek
55:00 Capek's Domain
1:00:26 Communications Tower
1:09:24 Race to the Space Station
1:21:35 Space Station
1:28:46 Route to the Merc Base
1:32:16 Merc Base and Masako