1:22 PM
Ryan (Entr0p1k)
I’ll be honest with you, I had never played anything from the Red Faction series before playing Red Faction: Armageddon. In fact, I’m not sure how, but I had never even heard of the series. I became intrigued by the promises of completely destructible environments. The fact that it spawned a swarm of SciFi spin offs such as Total Recall was just icing on the cake.
Gameplay
Even though I was completely new to and unfamiliar with the Red Faction style of gameplay, I was welcomed with open arms by the Geo-Mod engine. Red Faction: Armageddon is not your average, everyday shooter.
When the Red Faction series advertised completely destructible environments, they didn’t oversell. EVERYTHING is destructible! The ability to completely annihilate and later rebuild environments on a whim completely changes the dynamics of gameplay. Are your enemies turtled in behind cover? Just smash through it! Is your position open because of a previous rampage? Rebuild it! The world opens itself to your destructive / constructive will, allowing for complete creativity in combat.
Not only does Red Faction give you the ability to manipulate your environment, but also gives you quite and arsenal with which to do so. Every weapon has its own special use, some are specifically designed to destroy cover while others are meant to destroy enemies while leaving their structures intact. The choice is yours.
Not only does the game supply you with enough ammunition to kill a substantial army, but it also equips you with the Nanoforge. This contraption allows you to customize your playstyle even further through purchasable upgrades and abilities. All these powers and perks are incredibly fun to use, however, they are not without their downsides.
These upgrades are cumulative and your upgrade capacity is limited only by the amount of salvage you scavenge. If you have to dough, you can have the upgrades. This may sound great but what it means is that after a certain point, the game becomes incredibly easy. Enemies simply cannot compete with your supreme power, and this makes the last sections of the game rather unexciting. Even changing difficulties does little to ease this problem.
Difficulty aside, the gameplay experience of Red Faction is incredibly entertaining and definitely worth trying.
Video / Audio
Although the sheer destructibility of the world adds a sense of awe and amazement, the rest of the game leaves quite a bit to be desired visually. That’s not to say that the game looks awful by any means, it really just fails to amaze or captivate as its gameplay mechanics do.
On top of this, the individual physics of the environments combined with animations of weapon explosions causes some lag and tearing in areas of high action. This is to be expected in a game with such attributes, but it is still worth noting.
Story
Red Faction: Armageddon follows the unfortunate tale of Darius Mason, a freelance miner tricked by a malicious cult into releasing an alien Armageddon. Darius must rectify his mistakes while taking on hordes of both aliens and colonists who blame him for the strange outbreak.
The story itself is not incredibly immersive or intriguing. Darius himself is a well developed 3-dimensional character, unfortunately, he is the only one. Every other character introduced has absolutely no depth, this means that when they inevitably are killed off, the player feels nothing for them.
The game tries to supplement its obvious story flaws with collectible audio logs spread throughout the mines. These logs however, add almost nothing to the overall story and seem placed in locations that make no sense. Why is there a military log lying around in what looks like an abandoned underground house?
All in all, the story of Red Faction: Armageddon left absolutely no impression on me, and this isn’t a good thing. A forgettable story is sometimes worse than no story at all.
Content
Red Faction offers three modes for the player to choose from: Campaign, Infestation, and Ruin Mode. It’s a very good thing the game includes more than simply the Campaign as it is very short and can be completed in one sitting.
Infestation mode brings a Horde-esque survival mode to the game where players can fight alone or with friends against wave after wave of aliens. This mode features a bunch of maps to play on but there might as well be just one. After one playthrough of this mode, there is really no reason to come back. I found myself getting bored around the 25th out of 30 waves.
Ruin mode is legitimately a mode who’s sole purpose is to blow stuff up. The player can either chose point-based and timed setting or to just go about destruction just for the fun of it. This mode encompasses an interesting idea but really fails to hold up. The first few minutes are a hoot, but the luster of destruction falls very quickly.
Huevos Factor
It may be because I had never played anything from the Red Faction series before, but this game felt AMAZING to play! This feeling of amazement was rather short due to lack of content and the diminishing of difficulty over time, but you know what they say, “A candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”
Okay, that was incredibly cheesy, but you get the idea. This game is a real treat to play, but there isn’t much to it. My suggestion: Rent It.
Breakdown:
Gameplay
9.0 |
Even though I was completely new to and unfamiliar with the Red Faction style of gameplay, I was welcomed with open arms by the Geo-Mod engine. Red Faction: Armageddon is not your average, everyday shooter.
When the Red Faction series advertised completely destructible environments, they didn’t oversell. EVERYTHING is destructible! The ability to completely annihilate and later rebuild environments on a whim completely changes the dynamics of gameplay. Are your enemies turtled in behind cover? Just smash through it! Is your position open because of a previous rampage? Rebuild it! The world opens itself to your destructive / constructive will, allowing for complete creativity in combat.
Not only does Red Faction give you the ability to manipulate your environment, but also gives you quite and arsenal with which to do so. Every weapon has its own special use, some are specifically designed to destroy cover while others are meant to destroy enemies while leaving their structures intact. The choice is yours.
Not only does the game supply you with enough ammunition to kill a substantial army, but it also equips you with the Nanoforge. This contraption allows you to customize your playstyle even further through purchasable upgrades and abilities. All these powers and perks are incredibly fun to use, however, they are not without their downsides.
These upgrades are cumulative and your upgrade capacity is limited only by the amount of salvage you scavenge. If you have to dough, you can have the upgrades. This may sound great but what it means is that after a certain point, the game becomes incredibly easy. Enemies simply cannot compete with your supreme power, and this makes the last sections of the game rather unexciting. Even changing difficulties does little to ease this problem.
Difficulty aside, the gameplay experience of Red Faction is incredibly entertaining and definitely worth trying.
Video / Audio
7.5 |
Although the sheer destructibility of the world adds a sense of awe and amazement, the rest of the game leaves quite a bit to be desired visually. That’s not to say that the game looks awful by any means, it really just fails to amaze or captivate as its gameplay mechanics do.
On top of this, the individual physics of the environments combined with animations of weapon explosions causes some lag and tearing in areas of high action. This is to be expected in a game with such attributes, but it is still worth noting.
Story
5.0 |
Red Faction: Armageddon follows the unfortunate tale of Darius Mason, a freelance miner tricked by a malicious cult into releasing an alien Armageddon. Darius must rectify his mistakes while taking on hordes of both aliens and colonists who blame him for the strange outbreak.
The story itself is not incredibly immersive or intriguing. Darius himself is a well developed 3-dimensional character, unfortunately, he is the only one. Every other character introduced has absolutely no depth, this means that when they inevitably are killed off, the player feels nothing for them.
The game tries to supplement its obvious story flaws with collectible audio logs spread throughout the mines. These logs however, add almost nothing to the overall story and seem placed in locations that make no sense. Why is there a military log lying around in what looks like an abandoned underground house?
All in all, the story of Red Faction: Armageddon left absolutely no impression on me, and this isn’t a good thing. A forgettable story is sometimes worse than no story at all.
Content
6.0 |
Red Faction offers three modes for the player to choose from: Campaign, Infestation, and Ruin Mode. It’s a very good thing the game includes more than simply the Campaign as it is very short and can be completed in one sitting.
Infestation mode brings a Horde-esque survival mode to the game where players can fight alone or with friends against wave after wave of aliens. This mode features a bunch of maps to play on but there might as well be just one. After one playthrough of this mode, there is really no reason to come back. I found myself getting bored around the 25th out of 30 waves.
Ruin mode is legitimately a mode who’s sole purpose is to blow stuff up. The player can either chose point-based and timed setting or to just go about destruction just for the fun of it. This mode encompasses an interesting idea but really fails to hold up. The first few minutes are a hoot, but the luster of destruction falls very quickly.
Huevos Factor
8.5 |
It may be because I had never played anything from the Red Faction series before, but this game felt AMAZING to play! This feeling of amazement was rather short due to lack of content and the diminishing of difficulty over time, but you know what they say, “A candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”
Okay, that was incredibly cheesy, but you get the idea. This game is a real treat to play, but there isn’t much to it. My suggestion: Rent It.
Breakdown:
| Gameplay | 9.0 |
| Video / Audio | 7.0 |
| Story | 5.0 |
| Content | 6.0 |
| Huevos Factor | 8.5 |
Total | 7.7 |
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