Red Faction Guerilla: Re-Mars-tered | Xbox One | Review

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A building just fell on me. Before the likes of Battlefield and its 'levolution’ system came along, this 2009 Red Faction reboot and it's Geo Mod 2.0 technology was producing some of the most impressive environmental destruction to date.

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​by James Michael Parry

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​@james_parry

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Developers: Volition, Kaiko
Publisher: THQ Nordiq
Platforms: Xbox One,
PS4, PC
Players: 1 - 16

So, how does it hold up nearly a decade later? Well, Guerilla still boasts some of the most impressive destruction in the business. Despite being based on what amounts to ancient technology, the satisfaction of successfully, and often subtly, pushing a building to literal breaking point can't be overstated.

Impressive engine aside though, the original game’s biggest issue at the time was the cohesion of a product entirely wrapped around that one core mechanic, so how does it fare on that front?

You play as Alec Mason, an imaginatively-named mining engineer who's just shipped to Mars from Earth for work, and also to check on little brother Dan. Of course, hijinks immediately ensue as the sibling gets pinched by big bads the Earth Defence Force - of no relation to the underappreciated EDF game series - and you're wrongly lumped in with the rebellious Red Faction, who are working to destabilise the EDF’s military regime on Mars.

Guerilla’s story, such as it is, only really ticks the 'serviceable’ box, but it doesn't get in the way of having a good time and actually playing the game either - a trap faced by many more recent games which yearn for you to appreciate the intricacies of every character.

From here you have a relatively barron world map to explore, encapsulating every shade of reddish brown imaginable on the Red Planet, before you’ll be required to tackle the EDF’s capital. Simple, eh? The method you go about that task is entirely up to you, providing your idea of liberation involves insane amounts of explosives and criminal damage. It's OK, Alec has a permit for those…

What’s really under your control is the order in which you handle different zones, now a staple of any given Ubisoft open world title, to name but one frequent culprit. Here there's no handy radio tower to reveal the map though, so you'll need to roam the map the old fashioned way to discover all the EDF buildings you need to take down, tactically or by brute force.

​There's something to be said for knocking the difficulty down to casual and just playing around without worrying too much about your health, but death isn’t too big of a hurdle, so (accidentally) blowing yourself up amidst the chaos isn't as bad as you might initially think. Not to mention that the AI is still extremely zealous, particularly when you're on foot, to the extent that once you have more than two enemy vehicles in pursuit it's basically a lost cause anyway.

​As you tear Mars apart one smoke-less smoke stack at a time, you'll collect scrap metal which can be used to unlock and upgrade tools and abilities. It's all fairly rudimentary, but lets you boost things like the number of explosive charges you can place at once, or the number of enemies the fork-lightning-based arc welder will jump between.

​Multiplayer was always a shining light for the original, seeing you don a plethora of combat and skill-enhancing backpacks that allow you to crash through walls, hover or beef up firepower for a short time. These variables made even a straight deathmatch, appropriately known as Anarchy, into a chaotic and exciting affair. In this Re-Mars-ter (we’re still undecided on whether the person that came up with that should be sacked or given a pay rise), the online community is fledgling and the early signs relatively encouraging, but you'll be left wanting if you envision yourself drilling down specific game types and levels.

While you’ll have fun regardless, especially since maps are often far more varied and interesting than the single player landscape, gameplay does show its age a bit. Elements are missing that were common even at the time, like iron sights and combat rolls, but after not too long it's fairly easy to adjust.

​With that said, elements like mechs to pilot in true Aliens fashion and Wrecking Crew mode, which is a real playground for your destructive skills, do help to modernise the package a bit.

Lighting systems and draw distances (at least on the Xbox One X) showing a marked improvement over the original.

Despite gleefully ploughing through the story the first time around and it raising a nostalgic smile again in 2018, it's difficult to say revisiting Guerilla is essential. In the end then, it’s a good-not-great experience, as only a few bundled DLC missions fill out the package besides the expected suite of technical improvements.

On that front, the game holds up quite well, with the lighting systems and draw distances (at least on Xbox One X) showing a marked improvement over the original. Whether it's enough to warrant a return trip to Mars depends on how much you enjoy blowing things up, especially with a brand new Just Cause (or even, dare we say, Crackdown 3) on the horizon.

Red Faction is a franchise with a lot of potential, in both of its incarnations, which was sadly squandered by a lacklustre sequel (Armageddon) that failed to capitalise on what made this installment so good. Perhaps if the re-release does well for itself we’ll finally get the sequel it deserves.

Pros

• Unparalleled destruction is super satisfying
  
• The nostalgia power is real
• ​Multiplayer still has surprising variety...

Cons

• … But it can be tricky to find a match
• Single player can be bland
• Not sure it does enough to shift copies and bring the series back

7/10