I’ve started playing Icewind Dale (enhanced version) some time ago and I can’t wait to start writing about that one, but first a post on Red Faction: Guerrilla.

I’ve had this game on my backlog for literally years. Finally got around to play and finish it and it turned out to be pretty enjoyable and entertaining but not very meaningful.

The best part is the destruction. Everything is destructable and it’s apparently calculated in real time. Things go broke in different ways and to different degrees depending on how you destroy it. Destroying buildings is great fun and there are many ways to do it, various weapons to use or you could simply drive a vehicle through it. Aside from being cool and satisfying I’d also say that the destruction added to the immersion, the sense that it’s a real world with real buildings, not just indestructable facades like most games, or even buildings that are destroyable but in a limited scripted way, though it’s practically the only immersive aspect of the game, or maybe the real-time missions would qualify too, optional missions that start without warning or choice, as if it’s really happening in the world.

The world Itself is kind of boring, ugly and not very interesting or evocative, and the characters are forgettable and the story is mediocre at best even though I do appreciate that it has a simple unifying theme (free mars from earth control), which means you don’t really need to keep track of every detail in the story itself, the missions are mostly still going to make sense just by knowing the theme. The story does serve the purpose of giving some kind of sense of progression among all that destruction, although that mostly probably comes from the “RPG” aspects of the game, getting better gear, plus you get access to new areas as time goes on and you finish various missions.

Not much to say about the FPS aspects or the weapons, not an expert but to me nothing really stands out except maybe the gun that melts molecular structures which is kind of cool.

The game does have a jet-pack which is fun and not that common.

If I were to compare this game to any others I’d say… Just Cause 2 for the destruction (which is better in RF though I enjoyed JC2 overall more) and hmm maybe Borderlands for the world, a open and somewhat empty settler-ish world with off-road driving that’s kind of similar.

All in all I enjoyed playing this game, some moments a great deal even, but it still far from a game that truly hits home. It’s not evocative or thoughtful or beautiful or atmospheric or compelling, and doesn’t inspire or immerse; in short it doesn’t do any of things that I really enjoy in a game. At the end of the day Red Faction is just a mediocre FPS that happens to have really cool destruction (and a jet-pack) though that alone makes it worth trying out.