Comments on: Wot I Think: Red Faction Guerrilla

By: Grape

Grape — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:33:07 +0000

I think it’s a bit close minded to label this as anti-American, when it wasn’t meant as anti-American.

You’re saying that as if displaying certain anti-American sentiments is a 100% universally and indisputably bad thing.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:32:38 +0000

Too much driving. Too darn much driving. If I wanted to drive I’d buy a driving game and the controls wouldn’t suck. Maybe I’m just no good at this game.

By: Grape Flavor

Grape Flavor — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:11:14 +0000

in response to “External force. Denial of democracy. It’s all about corporations getting as much money as they can from the area’s resources.” and Jim’s comment about “the oppressor”

I really hate to get into a political discussion on a gaming blog, but to be fair I’m not the one who initiated it. Denial of democracy? You think the Iraqi insurgents are fighting for “democracy”? By their very own admission most of them are fighting for a fundamentalist Caliphate in which women look like Pac-Man ghosts and where gays and “infidels” are hung by the neck. Indiscriminate and intentional targeting of civilians, their own people, is another difference you fail to mention. And what fledgling, flawed beginnings of democracy that do exist in Iraq are targeted mercilessly by these so-called patriots.

Now, I’m no George Bush fan, or fan of unnecessary wars in general. But I think you should take another hard, sober look at the merry band of murderers and psychopaths you seem to be coming so dangerously close to glamorizing. And yes, maybe some corporations have profited from the war (*cough* Haliburton), but the idea that somehow our country as a whole is making a net profit on this adventure is ludicrous.

–Grape Flavor (United States)

By: Flappybat

Flappybat — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:56:37 +0000

I find this game quite incredible because most of the elements add up to what I would think would be a below average game, mediocre story, mediocre graphics, mediocre gunplay but it’s totally saved by having the most excessive and liberating destruction system I’ve ever played in a game. It feels as important as the physics and gravity gun of HL2. When you take an APC over a ramp at high speed to fly through the wall and wedge in the second story of a building you’re meant to be saving hostages from and then make an escape route with a sledgehammer before dropping the building on people with explosive charges… it’s a type of freeform approach we’ve never seen before.

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:42:39 +0000

Yeah, that was the point which provoked my opening, really. As in… wow. You’re totally doing this!

By: jebus

jebus — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:35:48 +0000

Since when do we take videogames so serious? Maybe Batman Arkham Asylum is really a criticism of the health care system?

The game itself is pretty bad. Awful controls and horrible “physics”. So what if you can destroy the buildings? That only makes the indestructable (and pretty cheaply made) landscape stand out more (come on.. there are rts games that have better 3d landscape now..)

By: Junior

Junior — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:15:35 +0000

I’m currently still favouring the old “Stick a load of bombs onto your car and drive into the biggest target you can find”, after that I just try to kind of adlib myself from target to target until I run out and flee.

I do have a silly habit of standing in a building under attack and battering down all my cover though, it’s not so bad for me, but it’s my fellow rebels who use said building as cover while I batter it down. Those sneaky buggers keep finding ways to get me in trouble.

By: ToBo

ToBo — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:09:29 +0000

@Dave: That’s a strange approach. So you can kill and maim young men who are just following orders and maybe even don’t want to fight, but once you touch the schreibtischtäters [litteral: desk criminals] who force these young men into battle while sitting comfortably in their chairs, everything changes. So would you have denounced a resistance movement killing Eichmann?

By: Nalano

Nalano — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:15:58 +0000

Anonymous Coward said:
Quote:
At best it's ironic how this game manages to expose the huge flaws and mad methods in world politics of a nation so proud about their freedom.

I think that's exactly what he was referring to.

By: PHeMoX

PHeMoX — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:12:35 +0000

Quote:
“If someone had made Red Faction as a film, make no mistake: it’d be pilloried as anti-American propaganda.

It also says much to Red Faction Guerrilla’s character that I’m not entirely sure that Volition are aware of how political the material they’re playing with.”

How can you claim the game is anti-American, when it’s about a guerrilla war within a unique sci-fi setting? Yes, it has communist / pro-socialism-like factions and capitalist-like factions and perhaps questions certain political approaches in their inevitable conflict… but that’s about it.

The resemblance of certain more political things in comparison to real life are certainly there, but so are they in games like Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid and so on and so forth.

I think it’s a bit close minded to label this as anti-American, when it wasn’t meant as anti-American.

In the end it’s not the developers to blame anyways. At best it’s ironic how this game manages to expose the huge flaws and mad methods in world politics of a nation so proud about their freedom.

By: Nalano

Nalano — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:17:19 +0000

I like it. It's Saints Row 2-style antics with just enough of a story/game mechanic tie-in not to make me cringe. And it's really, really nice to blow out the supports on one side of a building to listen to it creak and shudder until it realizes there's no chance in hell the rest can hold it up.
As for the "This looks too much like the latest in guerrilla tactics in certain contemporary wars not to be political commentary," well… y'all should read Mike Davis' "Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb" – this kinda stuff has been done for a long, long time.
The story is bare and surprisingly cleansed of politics for what it is: Workers (with a capital W) are oppressed by mining corporations and the defense forces in their pockets, rebel against said oppressors using clearly Marxist imagery and use bombs on important places and people to get their message across? Hey, as they say:

By: Dominic White

Dominic White — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:03:20 +0000

Just bumping this bit of discussion to point out something great:

The game has no official mod tools. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t moddable. Far from it, in fact. The first bunch of mods are already out, and more are on the way. Find the highest concentration here:

http://factionfiles.com/

Apparently one on the SA forums is working on applying the more fast-moving Multiplayer physics engine to Singleplayer mode, too.