Red Faction: Guerilla Impressions

Red Faction: Guerilla is exactly the game you would get if you mixed Grand Theft Auto’s missions with Assassin’s Creed repetitiveness, plus Red Faction’s destructibility. Seriously.

Sporting a GTA mission style, Guerilla incorporates a variety of themed missions, a la Assassin’s Creed. On the map, there are yellow, green, and blue icons to go to. Yellow missions are the main missions – ones that run the length of a typical GTA mission. Unfortunately, this is the downfall of Red Faction: Guerilla. There are only a handful of yellow missions per zone, (2-4 in most cases) which is fairly disappointing as the mission claim from the demo comes mostly from the green missions.

Green missions are the type that you would relate to Assassin’s Creed. There are a variety of mission types, ranging from “Heavy Metal” to “Demolitions Master”. Demolitions Master mixes it up a bit – giving you different objectives and requirements in order to blow up certain buildings.

For example, it once required me to stay in a certain area, while there was a building in a valley below me. There were two pipes that led down to the building. I was only given remote explosives, and explosive barrels. The objective was to throw remote explosives onto the barrels, and then throw them down the pipes to the building. This mode is easily my favorite green mission type.

“Heavy Metal” gives you some sort of mech or vehicle and the mission of destroying 30 enemies/vehicles in order to win. Other missions include rescuing Red Faction members, defending and attacking areas with the Red Faction AI, and rescuing cars. Yes, in a game about blowing shit up, you rescue cars. Speaking of vehicles, mechs are not that easily available. I have yet to run into an area that has a mech every time you visit it. It seems for the most part they are used solely for missions, but they may be available later on in the game.

Blue missions are what make the game so satisfying, however. Instead of receiving a goal for going to the icon for each blue area, it’s simply an EDF building that you must destroy, plain and simple.

RF:G is a game about indirect combat, the name even says so. Charging into a group of enemies will easily get you killed, as they come in swarms and your ammo is limited. The AI on both sides can be a bit sluggish, with enemies fully embracing your hammer in their face, and comrades killing you because they shot your mines. The biggest gripe with this is that Guerilla uses a morale system, and if your teammates die, you lose morale. The AI will come to your aid without you even requesting (or needing) it and stupidly run into the enemy and get themselves killed.

Having all of the destructible terrain (buildings only, sorry) calls for a pretty large map. Guerilla definitely delivers that. While I may also be tired of open world maps, a game like this fits it. However, there are a few big problems I have with it. So far, there has only been 1 “base” per zone where you can respawn. Having a large zone to traverse makes it frustrating when you die, as you must respawn a fair distance away from where you were.

Missions thankfully checkpoint you before they start, however that’s all you get. If you fail a mission and it’s long, expect to repeat the whole thing over again. There are also a lot of twists and turns to take on the roads, and in most cases you cannot simply travel in a straight line to get to a destination.

There are a lot of flaws in Red Faction: Guerilla, but going up to buildings and hitting it with a hammer until there’s nothing left is one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had in a long time. I wish there was a mode solely for destroying buildings without a timer or people shooting at you. Blowing up buildings is fun, but damn that hammer is satisfying. Multi-player discussion and the rest of the game will be discussed in the forthcoming review.