Video game review: Red Faction Armageddon (2011)

By Darragh|Video Game Writing, Writing|Be the first to comment!

Red Faction: Armageddon

I played the original Red Faction yonks ago and found it mildly entertaining, despite the fact that my aging PC (remember Pentiums?!) struggled to run the game. Fast forward about a decade and Volition have released, or are about to release, the series’ fourth iteration, Red Faction: Armageddon.

I compiled some thoughts for Rave Magazine, which I’ve got quoted below.

Incidentally, I have to point out that Volition made one of my favourite games ever – Freespace 2. If anyone from Volition ever reads this, please make another Freespace!!

RED FACTION: ARMAGEDDON
[MA15+]
Developer: Volition/THQ
Platform: PS3/360/PC
Hell on Earth – well, on Mars anyway

Driven underground after the destruction of a structure vital to controlling the unpredictable weather of Mars called the Terraforma, humanity ekes out an impoverished and largely depressing existence on the red planet in Red Faction: Armageddon. Darius Mason, the man who failed to defeat the zealots who destroyed the Terraforma, keeps himself occupied by undertaking dubious mining exploration contracts in order to survive. Just when you think things can’t get worse for him, Mason is tricked into opening up the seal to an ancient temple, unwittingly unleashing hellish, insectoid beings known as The Plague into the underground caverns humanity now calls home. As Mason, you must battle your way through a series of underground tunnels to contain the alien threat. In addition, Mason must contend with the game’s primary antagonist, the clandestine Adam Hale, who seems to have orchestrated the release of The Plague for his own sinister purposes.

Red Faction: Armageddon, the fourth in Volition’s Red Faction series, is a moderately enjoyable thirdperson shooter that is all about the player’s ability to cause as much destruction as possible using a variety of futuristic weapons. Thanks to Volition’s Geomod engine, the player can wreck serious havoc on the built environment. The game gives the player a bunch of cool weapons with which to do so. Starting with the standard pistols, shotguns and assault rifle, you eventually get to play with a variety of high-powered weapons like the singularity gun, which can create miniature black holes that suck enemies and other objects into nothingness, but it’s the magnet gun that proves most enjoyable. It can shoot magnetised projectiles at two different objects, causing them to move from point A to B, and once you realise that you can fire entire buildings at enemies it becomes the game’s major selling point. There’s something deeply satisfying about firing a giant piece of metal at a pesky alien. This manipulation of buildings and structures is vital to the game’s mechanics. And if you accidentally destroy something you need to use? No problem, Mason can use his nano-forge to recreate everything.

Separate to the main campaign, Red Faction: Armageddon’s other modes prove mostly enjoyable. Infestation sees you and up to four others take on wave after wave of enemies while ruin mode allows you access to all game’s high-powered weapons and puts you in an arena filled with buildings and lets you run riot, gaining points for how much destruction you cause. For all the smashing fun, Red Faction: Armageddon is let down by a plodding and uninteresting plot that doesn’t meet the standards seen in the likes of Halo or Half-Life. It’s difficult to feel drawn into the game, with the player asked repeatedly to simply kill enemies and occasionally fix some infrastructure. Suspense is largely missing and a linear structure sacrifices intrigue for destruction. Still, Red Faction: Armageddon is not a failure as a game and those who can take joy from blasting enemies and buildings into purgatory will find plenty of it here.

***

DARRAGH MURRAY