| Keep Digging Straight for Black Mesa Research Overall, I'd have to say that, while Red Faction presents a pretty nice package, and should be a lot of fun for hard-core gamers to get into, Red Faction simply isn't the best FPS title to come out after the likes of Max Payne. If I had to pin-point one reason for it's failures to claim the genre, I'd say the played too heavily into the hands of the (original) Playstation 2 version. The reduced polygon count, reduced texture depth, and odd scale are all tell-tale signs of a console game brought to PC. Still, though, if I had my choice, with the map editor and multiplayer capabilities, I'd still choose the PC version any day. If you're the type of gamer who loves playing with FPS games just for the new experience and different multiplayer communities, then you should enjoy Red Faction. If you don't buy too many games and want the all-time best FPS, I'd go with Max Payne for single player or Half-Life for multiplayer.
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| Graphics
- Sound - Gameplay - Depth
- Multiplayer | Reviewed
by John Del Percio |
GRAPHICS
93 % |
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The graphics in Red Faction are pretty nice looking, especially when talking about the GEO-Mod and the glass and weapon effects. Unfortunatlely, many of the textures are a bit out-dated, and the models suffer from an extreme lack of polygons.
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SOUND
84 % |
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The sound is not phenominal. Many of the sounds are a striking reminder of Half-Life, or are simply unrealistic. The weapons make up for this a bit, though with some highly realistic firing action, but when I'm tearing through some submarine station, I want the big hydrohlic steel doors to sound menacing, not whimsical.
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GAMEPLAY
95 % |
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While the single player game lacks much in the way of a story, and both single player and deathmatch don't feel incredibly different from every other FPS that's been released, the maps were very well designed, and I had fun battling the pretty elusive enemy AI. One thing of note is that with Red Faction, status-quo won't last too long. The GEO-Mod engine really gives me a lot of interesting ideas for mod-making, and even map making, so I'm sure there will be some interesting third party mission packs and mods in the very near future. Anyone feel like making a Counter-Strike where you can shoot through walls? Goodbye, Half-Life!
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DEPTH
75 % |
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Nearly no story development, no terrible complexity or strategy involved in gameplay, really, it's not one of the deepest games ever to come across a screen. This score won't bring down the overall, though, since depth isn't needed to have a really fun game.
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MULTIPLAYER
92 % |
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While Red Faction deathmatch isn't any more interesting than every other deathmatch to come before it, nor is it's CTF, looking at the way some of the maps are designed gives me some excellent ides for third party maps. The net code is solid, I almost never lagged for an extended period of time, and the community is growing by the day. I see a fairly bright future for the Red Faction online community.
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As I mentioned in the review, I was a bit dissappointed with the story development and overall "complete" feeling in game considering Volition's past ventures. Worse, the slightly below-average graphics and sound (and that miserable scale) made the game feel a bit "cheap." Still, though, even with those down-points, it was a very good game to play in terms of its overall entertainment value. I'd like to take another look at the game next year when the online community has built up some interesting mods and see how great the game is then. Something tells me it is going to get a bit of a boost after the holiday season.
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