The Pc Version (Red Faction (PS))

Member Name: mambo123

Product:	Red Faction (PS)
Date:	31/10/01 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ability to drive vehicles, Ability to tunnel, Rail Driver

Disadvantages: Bad Conversion, Poor Longetivity

Sigh, yet another first person shooter game.

Although I freely admit to being an avid fan of the FPS genre, I am getting a little bored of them. This game sees you, a miner who is to escape from a high security prison like mine. There are guards a plenty, and later on in the game, Mercs to blow apart. Sounds just like any run of the mill fps.

Admittedly the game does sound very average, and well yes it is. However. there are some very distinct differences between this and it's fellow counterparts.

The first noticeable difference is your ability to 'tunnel' through the level by the use of your various weapons/explosive devices. This is a brilliant idea, though the gimmick soon wears off when you start to realise that you'll hardly ever need to use it. When I first heard about this feature, I thought about how easy the game would be to get through, simply avoid all the baddies by tunnelling past them. This however is not the case. I felt that despite this feature the game is so restrictive, the term 'linear' plays a big role in this game. What's more I never enjoyed the storyline, it was boring and may as well have never existed (a la Doom, where you are placed in levels which you have to escape from). A friend of mine told me that he got bored playing it so he made a tunnel at least a mile long. When he looked back after a while all the textures were corrupted, a bright orange in colour. So to sum up, the main feature of this game which places it aside from the other fps', is simply a gimmick, and a pretty pointless one at that, it could have been implemented so much better.

The next difference to this game from others is the ability to operate vehicles that you come across in the game, be it a mining vehicle to tunnel through the rock walls, or a submarine to travel through water at speed, and to fend off any other subs or strange marine creatures. The vehicles are a good feature, and
well devised. They perform how you would expect, and have great weapons to destroy enemies and blow holes through walls. However, I felt it a little annoying at how little ammo you get in each one. The mining vehicle at the start of the game seems like a brilliant idea, till you get a message saying that maintenance is needed, maybe I missed the point of this, but I couldn't see anywhere I could bring the vehicle to get maintenance, therefore you dump it and then realise how pointless it was. The sub is armed with torpedoes, you get around 20 of them, and though this is easily enough to deal with any enemies in your path, I also wanted to have some fun blowing massive chunks out of the walls. Also another stupid feature of the sub is that when you near the surface and see infantry ahead you cannot kill them. I could see no reason why the developer decided that if you shot a torpedo to exit the water and try hit a target outside it, why the torpedo would then explode at the surface. I though games like this were supposed to be fun, the developer has taken a lot of this fun away, and for what reason?

Next, are the weapons. I think this is the only real reason why I like this game. The weapons are brilliant, at least most of them are. However, it takes a while for you to get some of the best weapons so I decided to replay the game and cheat to get all weapons at the start. This made the game a lot more amusing. Probably the best weapon in the game is the Rail Driver. It is essentially a rip off of the Rail Gun in Quake 3, where you shoot individual bolts of light, and you are quickly introduced to the world of one shot kills. What makes this weapon stand out from the rest is your ability to zoom a short distance, much like a sniper rifle. The scope that you look through is green and the enemies appear to glow red. This is also a very effective weapon to kill enemies standing on the other side of walls. Stick the scope on and you'll se
e them standing there glowing red. Shoot where they are standing and bam, they are dead. There are 2 types of Rocket launchers, always a favourite of mine. One more powerful than the last. Also there is a Sniper Rifle, Assault Rifle, some explosive devices and the standard weapons that you're kitted out in every other game.

Now, I thought I'd comment on the enemy AI. The AI appears at first glance to be dire, as you easily fight your way past guards. In fact I found that you get hit more times trying to avoid fire by strafing than you do by crouching or standing in one place repeatedly firing till the enemy drops dead. However later in the game you realise that the AI does change, though still easy to kill you notice that the enemy tried to come at you together rather than one at a time. They sound the alarm as soon as they see you, and they pathetically try to get away before you serve them their last blow. At times the game is comical. I threw a explosive charge at an enemy, he then preceded to run around like a loony, his friend beside him then started to back away, till eventually he took aim and blew his friend into smithereens, I was astonished at how clever this was.

Now the sounds. Why is it that the developers feel the need to help the player by giving the enemy stupid catch phrases that they say before firing the first round? "It's just you and me miner", had me in stitches when I blew the guards head off before he had a chance to fire. The weapon sounds are fairly good though, despite after just a day of playing my game now decides to not play any of the weapon sounds, something to be addressed in a patch perhaps? The music is used effectively, just before a big event a piece of music will blast out of the speakers to signify that something is coming up, I guess this can be slightly chilling at times.

The graphics are reasonable, though there is an unnecessary amount of fog at times, which on
modern day pcs is a little out of the ordinary. Some of the textures could do with a little smartening up, and the colours often look a bit too washed out. There is also often a lack of detail, which made me feel that the developer was rushed to release the game.

Lastly the specs of the game are an important aspect to a lot of people:

Windows 95/98/ME compatible CPU with DirectX 8

Pentium II or K6-2 400MHz Processor

3D Graphics Accelerator Card with 8MB VRAM

64MB RAM

4 x CD-ROM

900MB of free Hard Disk Space

DirectX certified sound card

100% Microsoft compatible mouse and keyboard

I think these recommended specs are a little low. Personally I wouldn't want to play it on anything lower than a Pentium 3 500mhz. Also a 8mb 3d Accelerator would do a very poor job. And lastly I would recommend at least 128mb of RAM for this game, as RAM is so cheap now a days I suggest upgrading a little.

All in all, this does make a reasonable console game, but when compared to other FPS? on the Pc, it doesn't cut the mustard. It comes with a level editor and Multiplayer modes via lan or internet, and also comes with a few extras like the amusing glass house, which shows the player the potential for the engine.

I am glad I bought this game in EB because it now means I can take it back with their 10 day guarantee. I fear for the longetivity of the game as I soon got bored with it. I am sure others will feel the same.

Summary: