What's on your mind?
06-12-2016, 02:48 AM
With every sequel of Red Faction, I feel more and more disappointed in the series as a whole. I think it may be rant time.
The original game was INCREDIBLE, with cool Geo-mod technology so you could break through walls and stuff. Funnest part of the original Red Faction.
They changed Geo-mod in the next game to only apply to building structures and such, and the following game, Geo-mod was changed to be buildings where they have a more realistic falldown when you destroy parts of it, and to vehicles they added in. Fine.
Then for Apocalypse they changed it to be only buildings, but the weapons are so destructive, pretty much everything is obliterated. And since you need to walk through those hallway areas, they gave you the Nano Forge to fix everything you broke with your million blaster weapons that you rapid-fire everywhere.
Geo-mod was destroyed and changed to nowhere near resemble the original game, despite Apocalypse's claims that Geo-mod "Applies to everything".
NOT THE WALLS, NOT THE MINES, NOT ANYTHING BUT THE BUILDINGS, BUB. STOP FALSE ADVERTISING TO ME AND GIMME MY TUNNELING BACK!
Okay fine, so let's move on to the music.
The original game's music was INCREDIBLE, giving you in every situation a great feeling. The music allowed you to enjoy the game even more, as you locked-on your rocket launcher to one guy and watched him try to dodge to no avail. (Ha, I'm such a bad person... in video games!)
The next game's music wasn't up to par, but wasn't TOO bad.
Red Faction Guerrilla's music was pretty meh, in the few times they cared to give music...
Red Faction Apocalypse's music was basically them admitting they weren't even trying anymore. It was so uninspired, so BORING, so... lackluster, so dull. They tried to nab a riff from the original game for nostalgia's sake, but the riff starts the single song off, then it goes into "Let's put the player to sleep" mode, where it doesn't even loop that riff anymore.
EITHER YOU'RE TRYING OR YOU'RE NOT, GUYS. COME ON.
Okay, well the music was off. So what? What about the story then?
Okay, LET'S GET INTO THE STORY.
The original Red Faction storyline was AMAZING. A miner on Mars looking to survive from the oppressive Ultor, who knew of a plague that was killing miners, and did nothing to stop it. Miners were dying, and they got tired of it, so they rose up from the grassroots. One miner in particular (Parker) goes through the mines, trying to find a way off the planet to Earth, away from Mars and Ultor.
Red Faction 2 kinda rode off the success of the first, taking place 5 years after the original, and made the enemy a... dictator. That's alright, I guess. There were some twists and turns with the story, but the EDF is fully established here.
Parker? Who's Parker? A driver robot? I don't understand--
RED FACTION GUERRILLA. Let's get one thing straight: This story had SO MUCH POTENTIAL.
The EDF are now the enemies, 50 years after Red Faction 2. They've become what Ultor was, completely uncaring towards the people of Mars, especially the Miners. Okay, seems a little forced, but whatever. Bad guys now being the good guys is a decent twist... maybe. I mean, it's only been done thousands of times...
ANYWAY, there were a lot of great twists in this game, but the Nano Forge was just laying around in some old Ultor ruins, and turns out to be the most important thing you could ever get in video game history. (Kinda)
The Marauders and their role was interesting, but I wish they did more with the connections to the original game. You hear voices talking to Parker in the ruins at one point....... and that's it. Oh yeah, and places on Mars were named after the original Red Faction leaders, with the EDF headquarters named after the creator of the Red Faction. Is that all you're gonna give me? Fine...
RED FACTION APOCALYPSE'S STORY WAS SOOO BAAAAAAD.
Some random "Cultists" are trying to take Mars, while the somehow-established Red Faction try to defend. Cultists destroy the terraformer that gave the planet air and stopped the Mars storms, etc... Monsters are added in, because Syfy Games wanted monsters and the writers couldn't think of anything... you find out what the plague is, and the way the game ends is just ridiculous. The whole game plays out like a Syfy channel movie, and it might as well have been one, with how short the game was!
Here's a quick synopsis of Apocalypse, obviously having spoilers: Terraformer is gone, forcing everyone into the old Ultor mines, hero's boob-displaying ex girlfriend is around with obvious love tension, dude gets tricked by the bad guys into unsealing the monsters from beneath the planet, people keep dying, people blame the hero and rise up against him, chase scene ensues, people die, hero gets the girl, the girl dies, hero gets mad at monsters for killing her and moves on to fight the Queen, Queen gets rekt but doesn't die completely, Ex Machina tentacles come out of the ground to lead him straight to the Terraformer, he brings back the Terraformer, the air from the Terraformer kills the monsters. The End.
That's about 8-10 hours of gameplay at best. (I did it in 8, and I took my time...)
Okay, FINE, so I didn't like the story. But what about the way the maps progress? Surely they're better with time?
The original was a bit linear, but always had multiple paths to go through, and it didn't feel linear at all. There were so many twists and turns, that even though you knew there was one way to go, you found yourself checking out all of the rooms on the side, destroying walls for possible secrets, etc.
It was done very well, and the Geo-mod really helped with the fun. (And the hilariously overdone screams when people die.... IT'S A VIDEO GAME, OKAY? I CAN LAUGH AT THESE JERKS IF I WANNA!)
Red Faction 2 didn't do so much with the map progression. You're not in the mines, you're in a city, so it has a different feel to it. Alrighty, so... the game stayed a it linear, taking away some of the fun Geo-mod stuff that made the original's progression funner.
Red Faction Guerrilla? It was OPEN-WORLD! If you went out of the areas you're supposed to be, you'll get chased by the EDF a la Grand Theft Auto until you went back to a safehouse. Personally, I thought the progression was pretty great. You went to every area in good time, with missions that were unique to each. The Marauders chasing you down was a great touch... Also, destroying things got you Salvage, which was used for upgrades and weapons, giving you a REASON to shoot that nuking weapon at that building, and not just for fun.
RED FACTION APOCALYPSE WAS SO LINEAR, AND YOU COULDN'T DO A THING.
Okay. You're trapped in the mines with a giant maul and explosive weapons... but you can't destroy any of the wall? And you're gonna make the progression "One room to the other to the hallway to the next room"?
No.
I'd rant more, but this thing is lagging like crazy as I type this for some reason, so I'm done.
TLDR; THE RED FACTION SERIES TOOK A BAD TURN AFTER THE ORIGINAL, AND NEVER GOT BETTER, ONLY WORSE.
The original game was INCREDIBLE, with cool Geo-mod technology so you could break through walls and stuff. Funnest part of the original Red Faction.
They changed Geo-mod in the next game to only apply to building structures and such, and the following game, Geo-mod was changed to be buildings where they have a more realistic falldown when you destroy parts of it, and to vehicles they added in. Fine.
Then for Apocalypse they changed it to be only buildings, but the weapons are so destructive, pretty much everything is obliterated. And since you need to walk through those hallway areas, they gave you the Nano Forge to fix everything you broke with your million blaster weapons that you rapid-fire everywhere.
Geo-mod was destroyed and changed to nowhere near resemble the original game, despite Apocalypse's claims that Geo-mod "Applies to everything".
NOT THE WALLS, NOT THE MINES, NOT ANYTHING BUT THE BUILDINGS, BUB. STOP FALSE ADVERTISING TO ME AND GIMME MY TUNNELING BACK!
Okay fine, so let's move on to the music.
The original game's music was INCREDIBLE, giving you in every situation a great feeling. The music allowed you to enjoy the game even more, as you locked-on your rocket launcher to one guy and watched him try to dodge to no avail. (Ha, I'm such a bad person... in video games!)
The next game's music wasn't up to par, but wasn't TOO bad.
Red Faction Guerrilla's music was pretty meh, in the few times they cared to give music...
Red Faction Apocalypse's music was basically them admitting they weren't even trying anymore. It was so uninspired, so BORING, so... lackluster, so dull. They tried to nab a riff from the original game for nostalgia's sake, but the riff starts the single song off, then it goes into "Let's put the player to sleep" mode, where it doesn't even loop that riff anymore.
EITHER YOU'RE TRYING OR YOU'RE NOT, GUYS. COME ON.
Okay, well the music was off. So what? What about the story then?
Okay, LET'S GET INTO THE STORY.
The original Red Faction storyline was AMAZING. A miner on Mars looking to survive from the oppressive Ultor, who knew of a plague that was killing miners, and did nothing to stop it. Miners were dying, and they got tired of it, so they rose up from the grassroots. One miner in particular (Parker) goes through the mines, trying to find a way off the planet to Earth, away from Mars and Ultor.
Red Faction 2 kinda rode off the success of the first, taking place 5 years after the original, and made the enemy a... dictator. That's alright, I guess. There were some twists and turns with the story, but the EDF is fully established here.
Parker? Who's Parker? A driver robot? I don't understand--
RED FACTION GUERRILLA. Let's get one thing straight: This story had SO MUCH POTENTIAL.
The EDF are now the enemies, 50 years after Red Faction 2. They've become what Ultor was, completely uncaring towards the people of Mars, especially the Miners. Okay, seems a little forced, but whatever. Bad guys now being the good guys is a decent twist... maybe. I mean, it's only been done thousands of times...
ANYWAY, there were a lot of great twists in this game, but the Nano Forge was just laying around in some old Ultor ruins, and turns out to be the most important thing you could ever get in video game history. (Kinda)
The Marauders and their role was interesting, but I wish they did more with the connections to the original game. You hear voices talking to Parker in the ruins at one point....... and that's it. Oh yeah, and places on Mars were named after the original Red Faction leaders, with the EDF headquarters named after the creator of the Red Faction. Is that all you're gonna give me? Fine...
RED FACTION APOCALYPSE'S STORY WAS SOOO BAAAAAAD.
Some random "Cultists" are trying to take Mars, while the somehow-established Red Faction try to defend. Cultists destroy the terraformer that gave the planet air and stopped the Mars storms, etc... Monsters are added in, because Syfy Games wanted monsters and the writers couldn't think of anything... you find out what the plague is, and the way the game ends is just ridiculous. The whole game plays out like a Syfy channel movie, and it might as well have been one, with how short the game was!
Here's a quick synopsis of Apocalypse, obviously having spoilers: Terraformer is gone, forcing everyone into the old Ultor mines, hero's boob-displaying ex girlfriend is around with obvious love tension, dude gets tricked by the bad guys into unsealing the monsters from beneath the planet, people keep dying, people blame the hero and rise up against him, chase scene ensues, people die, hero gets the girl, the girl dies, hero gets mad at monsters for killing her and moves on to fight the Queen, Queen gets rekt but doesn't die completely, Ex Machina tentacles come out of the ground to lead him straight to the Terraformer, he brings back the Terraformer, the air from the Terraformer kills the monsters. The End.
That's about 8-10 hours of gameplay at best. (I did it in 8, and I took my time...)
Okay, FINE, so I didn't like the story. But what about the way the maps progress? Surely they're better with time?
The original was a bit linear, but always had multiple paths to go through, and it didn't feel linear at all. There were so many twists and turns, that even though you knew there was one way to go, you found yourself checking out all of the rooms on the side, destroying walls for possible secrets, etc.
It was done very well, and the Geo-mod really helped with the fun. (And the hilariously overdone screams when people die.... IT'S A VIDEO GAME, OKAY? I CAN LAUGH AT THESE JERKS IF I WANNA!)
Red Faction 2 didn't do so much with the map progression. You're not in the mines, you're in a city, so it has a different feel to it. Alrighty, so... the game stayed a it linear, taking away some of the fun Geo-mod stuff that made the original's progression funner.
Red Faction Guerrilla? It was OPEN-WORLD! If you went out of the areas you're supposed to be, you'll get chased by the EDF a la Grand Theft Auto until you went back to a safehouse. Personally, I thought the progression was pretty great. You went to every area in good time, with missions that were unique to each. The Marauders chasing you down was a great touch... Also, destroying things got you Salvage, which was used for upgrades and weapons, giving you a REASON to shoot that nuking weapon at that building, and not just for fun.
RED FACTION APOCALYPSE WAS SO LINEAR, AND YOU COULDN'T DO A THING.
Okay. You're trapped in the mines with a giant maul and explosive weapons... but you can't destroy any of the wall? And you're gonna make the progression "One room to the other to the hallway to the next room"?
No.
I'd rant more, but this thing is lagging like crazy as I type this for some reason, so I'm done.
TLDR; THE RED FACTION SERIES TOOK A BAD TURN AFTER THE ORIGINAL, AND NEVER GOT BETTER, ONLY WORSE.