Where Armageddon failed

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Jun 232011
 

I initially had a hard time writing my review of Red Faction: Armageddon. I almost fell into the same trap that caught me in my review of No More Heroes 2, another game that essentially abandoned an existing open-world concept, of reviewing the predecessor rather than the sequel. This was an enticing prospect, because I liked Red Faction: Guerilla a great deal, and I did not like Armageddon one little bit. I ultimately did the review the right way (it should be going up on GameCritics.com soon), but I still want to talk some more about Red Faction: Armageddon and [Read more...]

An unhappy medium

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Jul 292009
 

Given the ongoing struggles against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s perhaps a bit shocking that Red Faction: Guerilla ever got made. Although his cause embodies a different philosophy, the game’s ironically-named hero Alec Mason adopts the same tactics and general approach as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Iraq. While the game rigorously penalizes the death of almost every civilian, Mason uses hit-and-run attacks, exploding vehicles, and ambushes to push an occupying force off Mars. The game certainly doesn’t lack for fun, but it’s inappropriately ambivalent about engaging its subject matter. Red Faction‘s weakly-constructed fiction is too flimsy to hold [Read more...]