Reviewed by CL on 6/19/2004
I've yet to come across a better first person shooter for PS2. Red Faction is a very cool and stylee game which incorporates some very innovative ideas into the genre which makes for a very enjoyable gaming experience.
On the outside, Red Faction looks like another cookie cutter first person shooter, but when you add pilotable vehicles, two firing modes for more weapons, deformable terrain, and cool cut scenes, you get a lot more fun that you paid for.
The key feature that really makes Red Faction fun is what the designers have dubbed Geo-Mod Technology. This basically means that you can take any explosive weapons and destroy most terrain as you see fit. Don't want to open the door to the guardhouse? You don't have to if you blow up the entire guardhouse with missiles from your fighter jet. In fact, on some levels, you actually have to plant explosive charges to get through a wall that looks impassible. Although not all barriers are breakable, most of them are and this makes it a lot of fun since the game consists of more than simply shooting bad guys.
In addition to this, there are tons of cool weapons and vehicles to use. The game is also fairly long, so you get a chance to use all of them with some regularity.
The only bad thing about this game is the aiming. This is a problem that seems to plague all PS2 first person shooters that I've played. The control is just way too choppy and imprecise to try and hit somebody. (I'm probably spoiled because I'm too used to playing Halo for the Xbox, which has the best controls for a FPS that I have ever seen). To compensate for this, the designers incorporated a auto-aiming system into the game which automatically targets the enemy's chest if you get the cross hairs somewhat near to them. This is okay I guess, but it makes it impossible to place your shots anywhere else but the chest unless you're using the sniper rifle or something. The auto-aim is really a necessity, I tried playing with it turned off and I couldn't even hit the first guy that I came across.
In conclusion, this is probably one of, if not the best FPS that you can buy for PS2. The fact that the aiming is slightly off is more than compensated for by the tons of variety and fun to be had here. And to make it even a sweeter deal, this is one of the titles of PS2's Greatest Hits list, so it’s sure to only be $20 no matter where you look.
