Red Faction Satisfaction

It's been a while since I've written a review mainly due to the holidays, but also because I haven't played any games that were really worth my time and energy to play all the way through.  Until Xbox released Red Faction Armageddon for free with an Xbox Gold membership.  Now I haven't played any previous games in the Red Faction world, but this game showed so much promise and had so many things that I liked that I felt like I had to write something.  It is definitely a game that developers should be looking at to expand on and it feels a little before its time, the same as Bullet Storm did when I did that review here.  So here it goes!

The Bad:

1) It was an xbox 360 game and well it shows.  Glitches were fairly common. Floating or spinning bodies or wreckage.  At one time I was leading a caravan but instead of the vehicles driving they were doing somersaults.  I even had a moment where I would fire missiles from my mech and they would just sort of float slowly toward the target and never land or explode.

2) Everything is able to be destroyed, even the bridge you're standing on. Numerous times I'd try to melee and hit the bad guy but the impact would crush the bridge under me and I'd fall to my death, or use an explosive gun with the same result.

3) Game mechanics were often off.  To run you'd have to hit the sprint button 2-3 times or you'd run for a short distance and it'd stop and not start again.  Melee would go to cut scenes which were fun, but that caused issues with accuracy and melee performing when you needed it to.  Same issues happened with the mechs.  Auto/snap aiming was annoying as it often went to the wrong target. I found myself not ADSing for a lot of the game just for that reason.

4) The story was good and I liked it quite a bit but there were some pretty cheesy and bad choices made.  For example, "Sam are we safe?" "For the time being" chit chat with other character. "We are now being watched!" let's take this moment to make out now that we aren't safe anymore. Oh no she's dead, smh... Mostly ok but still little things like this make you go, you were an elite soldier wtf.

5) The cultists are a big part of the story but a small part of the game play.  You confront them in the first level and the last level, but they are silent pretty much the entire 3/4 of the game.  They were one of the most interesting aspects of the game.

The Good:

1) I really did like the story line.  A soldier feels responsible for a terrible event slash failed mission.  Becomes a civilian engineer and is used by a terrorist group to unleash an alien apocalypse.  He jumps back into soldier mode to try and save the people he cares about and eventually the planet. Simple easy to jump into and no back story really needed. The setting (Mars) is interesting and handled well and their is a variety of bad guys and characters.

2) The gear is awesome! First you get to pilot multiple types of mechs where are always fun. But they idea of having a wrist item that releases nanobot that build and fix things and can juice you in to berserk mode or create a protective barrier was pretty sweet.  The enemy destroys your cover, no problem take 2-3 seconds to rebuild it.  The guns were fairly generic but there were a few that stood out.  One disintegrates anything it shoots, another melts things, one creates a black hole that sucks in bad guys and then explodes, and finally a unicorn that shoots rainbow farts (have to beat the game to unlock this one).

3) Upgrades - You don't need them to win but it sure makes the game easier.  You can control, to a degree, the speed at which you level by picking up mech pieces after destroying things. You then use them after you reach 1000 to upgrade your character. Shields, abilities, impact, health, reload speeds, and firing speeds are all in the realm of upgrades.  After you beat the game you unlock Game Plus.  Game plus opens up cheats and of course your rainbow pooping unicorn.  Again, equally fun to play second time round.

4) The environments.  I really hate games where you are restricted to buildings that look the same and landscapes that are the same.  Here you get sandstorms, caves, colonies, colonies in sandstorms, a different fire planet and technologically advanced planets, magma flows, and tunnels to sews and junk piles.  The changes keep things interesting and progression feeling natural.

5) The squish factor.  Seriously the funnest aspect of the game and most games is the satisfaction of the kill.  Did you get 10 bad guys in one black hole launch.  Did you blow up that tower and take an entire room of badies out?  The squish factor in this game is lovely.  The environment is just as dangerous to your enemies as it is to you.  Step carefully!