Review: Red Faction: Guerrilla

written by Blain Newport on Monday, January 11, 2010

Developer: Volition Inc.; Reactor Zero (PC port)
Platform: PC
US Release: September 2009
Genre: Third Person Action
Price Paid: $10
My Score: 3 of 5


Red Faction: Guerrilla PC started strong. I loved wrecking stuff with the hammer and blowing it up with demo charges. But the game never really picked up from there.

Compared to the immediacy of demolishing a building with your hands, everything else was a chore: killing enemies, dealing with vehicles; performing various challenges.

Even the challenges that were about blowing something up usually weren't much fun because of strict time limits that made a lucky break the only way to complete them. I've already talked about the horrors of the driving challenges.

The rub is that I don't know how much of this is the PC port's fault. Is it the fact that the game runs at hyperspeed that wrecks the feel and pacing? Most people complained that the game went on too long, but after futzing to get it stable, doing almost every side mission, and spending a fair amount of time just screwing around to entertain one of Matthew's kids, Steam says I've played it less than 14 hours.

I haven't played the DLC which is included with the PC version, but it's never occurred to me that it would be worth my time to do so. It would be fleshing out a story I didn't care about in the first place.

My first impressions of RFG were gleeful, and I will always remember them. But the rest of the game never lived up to the promise of the tutorial.