Last year THQ released a new 3D shooter onto the gaming market by the new of Red Faction. Originally released for the PS 2 platform and eventually for the PC, Faction told the story of a mine revolt set on Mars. Playing as a miner named Parker, players battled the evil Ultor Corporation, and became involved in a secret resistance movement.
The game featured solid action and graphics and introduced the new Geo-Mod technology that allowed players to damage, destroy and alter most aspects of the gaming map. To this mix the game allowed players to operate a number of vehicles and thus became a fun and popular game, and was one of the best-attended LAN events of any game launch I had ever arranged, and won my best new Technology award from Galaxy Gaming News.
With a new year comes new products and PS 2 owners have been presented with Red Faction 2 as the latest entry in the series. I do want to take this moment to apologize for the lateness of the review, but THQ has ignored numerous requests for interviews, information, and supporting materials that have forced me to write this as a review of the PS2 game and a brief overview of the PC version.
Red Faction 2 is loosely associated with the original as it mentions the incident on Mars and sets the story around nano-technology from Ultor. Cast as an enhanced soldier named Alias, players lead a team of soldiers in a series of missions bent on defeating a dictator named Sopot and his minions using a vast arsenal of deadly weapons and vehicles.
While it is a sequel, offers little new in terms of features and is hampered by a storyline that is not as engaging as the originals. I found myself not caring about my character the way I had for Parker, and was dismayed that certain segments of the game played on a rail not allowing me the freedom of movement and combat options that I had enjoyed from the original. I also noticed that in some scenes, the collateral damage caused by combat had been curtailed from the previous game, as I was not able to create the carnage in Red Faction 2 as often as I had in the original.
A pc version of the game is due in the near future and I for one hope that the game will be enhanced by some of the options available for the pc, as I found the PS2 control system to be cumbersome even when remapping buttons, and look forward to being able to crouch and move easier with mouse and pc control. The original game also had some great multiplay aspects as the Geo-Mod enhanced both Deathmatch and Capture the Flag variations. With some attention to detail and multiplay, Red Faction 2 can be a fun pc title. As it stands now for the PS2, Red Faction 2 was a briefly fun game that lost my interest very quickly.
3 stars out of 5
