Red Faction®: Armageddon™

Старушка тянет в ностальгию!

Hope someday Volition returns from the ash and show to us Red Faction Remake. The game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ good btw

В целом нормально.

For some reason I had better memories of this game when I played it on console in the past, perhaps because I didn't play it for long in hindsight. The beginning was kinda fine, albeit there were already signs that it wouldn't bode well, the longer it goes the more non-sensical the story and overall progression felt, like some things were happening for the sake of something happening rather than for a story that is unfolding. To put it mildly, it felt like things were happening at random, the player is basically going through levels where some just don't feel like they have much to do with another, some may share the same enemies but the purpose, or rather the story each level is supposed to be telling, is blurry. The only thing that keeps the story together is the aliens which are spreading everywhere, and really just the aliens themselves, everything other than that barely makes any sense in the way it is presented. I kinda didn't pay much heed to what lead to the alien outbreak initially as it was just the beginning, in hindsight it should have already been a bad sign about the game (not much of a spoiler, but how the protagonist caused the outbreak and anything associated with that interaction), the more it went on the worse it felt to play though. I could only take so much of it, after the first major boss fight and everything that lead up to it I think I am just done with the game. Not just the intro to the level and how the boss fight ensued, but also the boss fight itself as well as the remainder of the level where enemies really seemed to be spawning out of nowhere (particularly with the vision that highlights them) and obstacles seemed to be arbritrarily placed rather than in any more meaningful way. To put this into perspective, it almost felt like AI made the game with how loosely tied everything felt and how seemingly arbritrarily events kept happening (including not just unnecessary but at a certain point rather excessive comedic relief, same with suspense), even though this was well before what we understand today as generative AI was a thing. The combat itself was kinda fine, albeit also not exactly, even when taking the boss fight aside (which came with more issues than just combat as mentioned above). The vehicles are not fun to play with. each kind of vehicle just feels clunky to use, overall when it comes to movement as well as aim for certain ones (the four-legged walker felt off vertically), they simplified vehicle combat a lot with unlimited ammo (overheat) and basically no consequences due to the shields they have which are unlikely to go down to receive actual damage, basically they are just overpowered for the sake of getting through the levels which just takes value out of them (e.g. each section in which the exoskeleton was made available was basically just a boring walk in the park). On foot it certainly felt better, though in hindsight maybe I might have to be a bit more critical about it. It offers a certain variety of weapons, but I fail to see the appeal behind weapons which are designed to do more damage to structures than the enemies themselves (inversely they do less to enemies), the opportunities to make sufficient use of them felt inadequate (it might be worth pointing out that the instances in which repairing was necessary could have been better, aside from specific objectives it felt like it saw too little use), for when they are needed there might have not been enough of a reason to bring them along over other weapons. Those aside it did feel good to still have a variety to choose from to fit different possible preferences the player may have (assault rifle, shotgun, dual pistols, grenade launchers, plasma cannon, rocket launcher, heat-vision rifle, I could keep naming more and there would likely still have been more had I gotten further into the game unless there are less newer ones later on). Though there might still be some parts I may be unable to put fit my finger on which could still have been better. To give a little more insight on the boss fight, some things just don't seem apparent at all and the player seems to be getting confusing signals with little explanation (to clarify other game aspects were far less confusing, granted the game itself is quite linear with its progression through levels). The first phase of it is a chase where the boss itself can't be damaged (let's not talk about how easy it would be for the boss to kill the player rather than mindlessly chase them to get into melee range), even though there is little to suggest it couldn't be, all we can do is slow it down (even indirectly still not damaging it) while being on rails at a set pace. Why again are we on rails and being chased that way? This is the kind of senseless logic I meant earlier, the overall composition just feels weird. Later comes the second phase, the player is still being chased, but they are off the rails and their path of limited distance has multiple blockades which requires to destory certain targets (which at certain points are highlighted), after getting past the third blockade there is basically no more path forward and it is game over as the boss rams them. The targets are hanging generators, which conventiently are over the path of the boss, but require specific timing in order to damage the boss as otherwise they do no damage as the drop down (the highlighting doesn't really help identify the timing window, it also didn't seem as simple to estimate based on the position of the boss where at times it seemed like it should have done damage yet it didn't), yet even with all three dropping on the boss it is insufficient so the boss wil ram the player to death again (or rather it simply walks over the player and they die). What the player has to do in addition to that is to attack the boss directly to make up for the remainder of HP that wasn't removed by the hanging generators, as if they should know that they can now directly damage the boss as opposed to earlier where they couldn't (there wasn't some kind of shield or anything that could explain it, just because an HP bar popped up and the boss got into a damaged state leading up to the second phase isn't sufficient to imply that the player can damage it directly as opposed to other means, e.g. dropping things on it which were insufficient, there weren't some kind of highlighted weakpoints or the sort that would imply the boss being directly damagable when the player was constantly being chased without being able to damage it before). Even after the player has won that boss fight, neither did it feel good (insert unnecessary suspense and comedic relief), nor was the section that came afterwards making it any better (a rather mindless section for a vehicle). I guess generally I am not going particularly into details aside from the last part, for some aspects I may still only have barely touched upon them and the review might not necessarily read that well, but what I am trying to say is that overall the game just didn't feel particularly good to play, and I doubt that if I had continued to play that it would have gotten much or even any better than that.

badman game

The destructable building tech that Red Faction games are known for is intact here with lots of fun ways to destroy things, but notably, the geo-mod technology that let you alter the terrain itself is entirely absent. I used the magnet gun for most of the game, which made for a mostly fun way to kill the...natives? Ancient aliens? The story line is appropriately bad for a SyFy-produced game, and strikes the same tone as their in-house hopefully intentionally terrible movies. If you were hoping to be fighting some oppressive corporate types this time around, you're out of luck here, as the vast majority of your enemies are bug-like alien mutant Martians, interspersed with occasional camps of ornately armored cultists. The magnet gun is fun enough to get through the hackneyed story though, and the whole thing wraps up in a little over 6 hours, so it doesn't overstay its welcome. However, by the last few hours there aren't as many parts of the environment to destroy or use to wrangle enemies with the magnet gun, so that part's less enjoyable. Still, if you're looking for a quick, mindless 3rd-person shooter that also happens to say "Red Faction" every now and then with nary a mention of corporations or labor uprisings but plenty of supernatural cultists and technology that is so out-of-place that it may as well be magic, you'll be satisfied with this harmless outing.