The tragic disintegrating protagonist pandemic claims another victim.
Red Faction Armageddon Review
Red Faction is a D List scifi action game
franchise with two important facets: Scenery deformation and disappointment. The
original game was a First Person Shooter that was effectively a launch title
for the Playstation 2 and featured the unique gameplay element of deformable
scenery, allowing players to blast natural formations of rock (But no man made
structures) with explosives and see real time damage. However, its story of
Martian miners seeking freedom from an autocratic mega corporation was a
hackneyed and laughably acted pastiche of Total Recall, to say nothing of its
clunky and awkward gameplay. The sequel abandoned the Martian aesthetic and
became an even more trite exercise, dropping even the scenery destruction and
ending up as a totally run of the mill Halo would-be. The third game, Guerilla,
was where things took a strong turn in the right direction. Abandoning much of
the pre-existing concept, the team at Volition made a third-person, Sandbox
based game which shifted the emphasis over to the destruction of buildings as
its unique quality. As a freedom fighter battling the dictatorial rule of the
Earth military on the red planet, players were charged with destroying enemy
real estate with an impressively realised physics engine and some very fun
toys. It still had flaws, but Guerilla definitely remains Volition’s strongest
offering in their fifteen year history, next to the hilariously silly Saints
Row 2.
Armageddon returns to the series roots by
providing a linear path through mostly underground areas and makes use of the
same engine as Guerilla. It focuses on Darius Mason, the grandson of Guerilla’s
protagonist, as he battles the machinations of a moustache-twirlingly evil
doomsday cult and the alien menace they unleash on Mars. As a result the game
abandons all pretences of its anti-authoritarian roots and thus most of what
made its plot unique, leaving it a much poorer experience as a result. It’s
just as well that in exchange for all these lost elements, there’s some fairly
solid gameplay here.
Luckily Darius is also Cole Macgrath, Starkiller and every other third person action protagonist.
Mostly players will pilot Darius through
repetitive tunnels made diverse only by slight shifts in ambient colour
schemes. The main time sinks are murdering bone-stupid aliens and murdering bone-stupid
human enemies, mostly the former. Thankfully the aliens are fairly agile, so
they can be relied upon to surround you consistently, but their lack of real
variety in attack methods makes them largely forgettable. At the very least the
stealthy enemy variant has some nice sound design. Vehicular combat sections
offer a pleasing change of pace as you plow through buildings in some nicely
designed power armour and other futuristic motors, but the tactical diversity
these stages put you up against amount to nothing more than, “See enemy. Shoot.
Circle strafe.” Ad infinitum, while on foot things are at least a little
interesting.
Yes, the game truly glimmers when the
player is making the most of its more creative weapons, primarily the
delightfully fun Magnet Gun, that allows you to creatively maim enemies with
the physics engine. Anything struck with the first shot from this weapon will
be pulled to wherever the second shot is placed, and with a modicum of
creativity this simple concept can be employed to enact pleasingly violent effects
on Darius’s enemies. It actually manages to be significantly more enjoyable to
use than practically any weapon in the game, and given that it is found fairly
early on, has infinite ammo and adapts to almost any combat situation, it does
overshadow the rest of his arsenal. This says alot, seeing as they are mostly
fun and less constraining when compared to Guerilla, which could be downright
abusive with how little ammo you could carry. The brother mechanic to the
Magnet Gun is the Nanoforge Gauntlet, Darius’s main utility weapon. Aside from
most of the game’s RPG-style unlocked abilities revolving around it, it allows
players to reassemble destroyed buildings by simply standing nearby and
pointing it at them. It’s a natural extension to the demolition engine, and can
be very gratifying to use, even if it’s not utilised to it’s full potential in
terms of set pieces or possible puzzles. It’s unique, empowering and fun to
use, and really that’s enough
Tragically the main attraction from
Guerilla’s engine, Demolition, is underplayed by design. While still present,
fun and a large part of the game, the prevalence of underground environments
means that there is a distinct lack of massive buildings to destroy in the
single player campaign, which were easily the most gratifying highlight the
previous game had to offer. Also, while Guerilla had a good plot reason for
destroying buildings, Armageddon has to shoe-horn in the element by implying
that the aliens breed by Corrupting buildings. It’s another silly plot thread
in a greater tapestry of narrative goofiness.
In fact I’m tempted to label the entire
game as a playable SyFy Original movie, because that’s certainly what Volition
wants me to call it. They proudly wear the badge of working with SyFy, and a
prequel movie was produced by the channel to accompany the game. This should
display the average calibre of intelligence to expect in this game, as it is
easily the most stupid iteration of the series with a bar already set low. At
least there is some Joss Whedon-esque snarky dialogue to keep your brain
trickling out of your ears. Just don’t be surprised if the plot resolution
leaves you in a bit of a manic fury. Or that could be just me.
Who wouldn't want to be part of this rich cinematic lineage?
In terms of multiplayer there’s a distinct
absence of Deathmatch, other directly competitive modes or co-operative
campaign modes. Instead Volition has included a fairly basic version of the old
Horde mode concept introduced by Gears of War 2, and a very welcome return by
the competitive demolition multiplayer introduced in Guerilla. The take on
Horde mode, called Infestation, has a group of players fend of waves of
monsters in large maps and occasionally protecting objectives from them, but
offers nothing in the way of unique weapons or set pieces that aren’t found in
the single player campaign, and without the promise of unlockable content
hanging over the mode it’s unlikely players will be interested in it for long.
Guerilla had a functional if uninteresting
competitive death match mode that is absent here, but the real draw was
Wrecking Crew. Wrecking Crew was a competitive hotseat style multiplayer mode
where players took it in turns to use specific equipment to destroy a layout of
buildings in a limited period of time. Both casual and competitive players
could get into the fun, and many a match was ended as players watch the last
precarious remnants of a destroyed building teetering on the edge of collapse,
seeing whose favour the match would end in. It was a simple and ingenius idea
which encouraged play at parties and made the game a group event that anyone
could enjoy. It was a brilliant way of promoting the game among friends, and is
still the most enduring thing about Guerilla.
Except perhaps this video.
The new version of Wrecking Crew in
Armageddon is Demolition, and tragically it is code-locked as Downloadable
Content, although the price for unlocking it is quite reasonable now. The thought occurs that
Infestation mode should have been locked out and Demolition should have been
playable out of the box, to help the game get promoted between groups of
friends. Or it would be, if Demolition wasn't a single player only, stripped down shadow of Wrecking Crew's greatness, where the player can only take on a linear succession of levels and demolish as much as possible within a time limit. The customization options and competitive gameplay is gone, replaced with so much nothing. It’s yet another sign of some of the really poor choices that went
into making Armageddon and kept it from greatness.
Because that is what Armageddon could have
been. It had some well executed ideas hidden away within it, but alas it
stumbles. Even so, it didn’t deserve the brutal lashing it got from the
critics, and now it’s pre-owned price has become quite reasonable it’s not too
hard to recommend. Fun weapons, solid physics and a few good ideas mean that
this is a game you can enjoy. Just leave your brain at the door.
Cheaper, better options: Red Faction: Guerilla, Dead Space.
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