Red Faction Armageddon

Mars, it’s big, it’s red-ish, it’s full of aliens and jerks in cult religions that want to kill you and rule the big red wasteland… wait what? Well whatever, welcome back to Mars with the final installment of Red Faction. After fighting for the planet time and time again (as well as blowing the crap out of about everything built and anything that moves) the planet is doing a bit better. It’s got some cool buildings, some roads not made out of dirt, cool technology and weapon, and the air is much cleaner than it used to be. Well, all that goes to hell right after the start of the game… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Red Faction Armageddon is a third person shooter with role-playing game mechanics published by THQ and Syfy Games. The player is given control of Darius Mason (What’s with this family and blowing shit up and saving Mars?). Rather than the open ended/free roaming feeling that RF: Guerilla had, RF: Armageddon shoves you down a set linear path similar to the early RF games. This is done to drive the player onwards quickly with the narrative tale that unfolds with the grace of a house of cards on top of a washing machine. Lets jump right into that story now…

            Darius Mason, son of the awesome guy from RF: Guerilla, joins as a mercenary engineer for the Red Faction to deal with Adam Hale, son of a jerk terrorist guy that was killed by Darius’ father, who wants to blow up a terra-former to bring an end to all the happy progress that has been made over the last few games as he is the “true ruler of Mars” and hates the Mason family for ruining his fathers attempts at eco-terrorism. Did that confuse you? Good, cause I don’t understand it either. Well, that goes badly, Adam Hale blows the crap out of the terra-former in what appears to be a suicide bombing, Mars starts to suck again and most of the people flee underground with Darius blaming himself and the people blaming the Red Faction for failing to stop Hale. Darius goes out to work for some money and ends up being tricked by the not-dead Adam Hale into unleashing a whole army of bugs and creatures that apparently were always sealed within Mars with an easily broken pillar of metal. Now, blaming himself once more for causing Mars to become a bigger ball of suck, Darius goes forth to try and rectify his mistake, kill the crazy bugs and crap that are ripping the people apart, re-kill Adam Hale for good, and keep up his relationship with some random attractive woman named Kara. Do you understand the story yet? No? That’s probably not a good thing cause that’s as clear as it ever gets. The game does not build characters up so you feel anything for them other than being forced to hear them talk to you or stare at them during a cut scene. The “dramatic” finale of the game feels so tacky and out of place that I’m certain it’s just done for shock value similar to what Modern Warfare has been shoving in our faces per game. The story itself is predictable, simple, and rushed, the characters are weakly connected to the player, and the ending is ok at best, not satisfying but not empty, it’s just an ending.

            Lets move right along to the game play. It’s a shooter of course, so it’s most likely going to be one of those “super soldier” games where you run at hordes of crap and take the damage like a cool guy while killing things in mass or a take cover and fire at key targets kind of game. Well, no, it’s a poor mix of both. The game lazily introduces you to cover and destructible environments but that only helps against human enemies, which there are VERY few of. The majority of enemies are quick teleport-jumping creatures and bugs with long range attacks that have pinpoint accuracy or explode dealing an area of “F you” destruction to your cover. This is made worse that finding cover means very little as the bugs can just flash jump behind the player and start firing away. In simple terms, you will die very quickly on the harder settings to “What the hell just killed me?” as a bug teleports behind you and unleashes 2-3 salvos into your back, which you can’t deal with since 3-4 other bugs are in front of you doing the same thing. Fun. This is supposedly addressed with the super simplified aim system of “snapping” to targets. Holding the right mouse button will “snap” the players aim and camera at the nearest killable target to the current cursor allowing easy “right click left click” kills. This of course is done poorly as it takes away any player “skill” other than aiming half-assly and holding mouse buttons to kill a target that consumes 50% of your current weapon clip or several clips. It’s all very action-based, lots and lots of “what the hell am I going to do now” moments as you see a wave of bugs coming forward and the rare occasion of an actual person with a gun. It’s mindless shooting fun… I guess if you’re into that.

            The game also gives the player the “Nano forge”, a wristwatch equivalent to being a time shifter (From Singularity), a Jedi (Push, shockwave, drain life, shield bubble), and whatever the hell that guy from FEAR was (Adrenaline mode for faster fire rate, cause being angry makes your gun shoot faster). You can rebuild destroyed buildings and structures (most of them anyways) to rebuild paths you may accidentally blow up so you can always have more “cover” to hide pointlessly behind. The Nano Forge is also the players “level up” system, using “Salvage” to upgrade various attributes and abilities. It’s fun to get crazy upgrades, but then they simply make the game “easier” instead of having a real impact. Things die slightly faster or you can take slightly more spikes to the face before restarting a whole area. All this following the “linear” game play route makes RF: Armageddon more frustrating than it should be. The player may push a button to have a magical “Go this way” line appear on the ground, this of course has to be spammed pretty often in certain areas due to the cluttered similarity of Cave 1, Tunnel 1, and Cave 2-5. If a game has to have a “Go this way” path highlighted to the player, it’s clearly not conveying the objective in an understandable way. It all feels like playing an “on the rails” shooter (which ironically, has an on the rail section that is really fun) with the illusion to roam about and get the rewards of ammo that the player may or may not need and some piles of salvage for upgrades that make the player slightly stronger. It’s just… tedious. But at least the powers and cool guns make it enjoyable in small doses (Singularity gun, it shoots black holes… then explodes…  that’s awesome!).

            Shifting gears, lets talk about the graphics. It’s pretty, you know, pretty as a cave or tunnel with old ironwork and murderous cult gunners and bugs can be. Mars is a big red ball of rock, dust, and storms; the tunneling underground of Mars is the same minus the storms and light. The biggest change in scenery would be walking through the nest of the bugs (gross, everything is all… sticky looking) or getting to pilot some type of vehicle (which is generally forced and over powered as hell) through a small section. Gunfire doesn’t feel as powerful as it should visually, lacking the whole “Hell yeah, I just shot a rocket at that” feeling. It causes several of the guns and creatures to lack that responsive feel and recoil from firing/being shot. Decent quality, very science fiction particle effects, but overall not as breathtaking or appropriate as other games.

            Lets go over the sound quality. Voices are actually rather clear and appropriate at most times, characters will chime in with their personalities at set intervals (no random chatter) to try and build a sense of who everyone is. Guns sound… well like guns. Explosions sound kind of smaller and less amazing than the previous games. Bugs sound like gross squishy bugs and make “pew pew pew” noises as they fire spikes or whatever at the player. Enemy humans taunt the player in humorous fashion and make a satisfying “ARRRGGG” if you hit them mid sentence. The music is… ignorable. It’s there, but gunfire and bugs screeching or making squishy noises drown it out. It’s not the most pleasing audio sensation, but it’s appropriate enough.

            So the end of Red Faction isn’t the masterpiece it could have been though it’s not a sour note at all. It’s simple enough, it’s fun in short bursts, has an ok story, and is generally interesting to play. It’s got a pretty fun multiplayer but it gets real old after about 2-3 days. It’s good… but not worth the current price. Rent it if you want to play “another shooter” or wait for the price to drop down some more. If not, it’s best just to remember Red Faction for the good ol times, blowing up a large structure with a few well placed explosives, watching it crumble with 10+ enemy units within it, and walking away like a cool person.