Although Red Faction: Guerrilla will always be known first and foremost
as a game about blowing stuff up, it should also be hailed for breaking
the bonds of the open world genre. Don't get me wrong, the results of
rocket-launching, bomb-laying and nano-reducing 99.9% of the objects on
the terrain are an absolute blast to play with (no pun intended) and
well worth the standard fare for a 360 title all by themselves. Surely
the developers knew that this was going to be the best part of the
game, so they did something incredibly smart with the gameplay: they
got the hell out of your way.
To me, the draw of open world games is the freedom of play. The idea
that you have to find your own way from point A to point B, approach
enemy X from angle Y and destroy it with weapon Z is mysteriously
intriguing to me, perhaps only because of the immense number of
possible scenarios stemming from all the options provided. Somehow this
request has reached developers and, in most cases, has been translated
to a cry for "more realism!" which certainly includes our multi-variate style of play, although usually with more realism baggage than we care for.
As is the case with any open world game, there's going to be at least
one time when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere, at least a ten
minute walk/run away from the nearest objective or save point. GTA or
Far Cry 2 come to mind immediately (with the latter being the most
brutal abuser in this particular case). This is boring. Who wants to
spend their free time in a virtual walking simulator? Sure, it's
realistic, but I didn't buy a game that realistically simulates my
40-hour work week, I bought a game that lets me blow buildings up and
kill untold numbers of armed soldiers in futuristic body suits. Games
are games and, ideally, they provide some sort of entertainment while challenging your puzzler just a little bit.
Here's what RFG does right: it encourages you to return to the fun
parts of the game. If you're stuck in the boondocks with no
transportation in sight, a Red Faction member will automatically drop
off a ride for you. Now you can quickly get to the next mission. If
you've just finished a firefight and you're low on ammo for your
favorite gun, there's likely an ammo crate around that next corner (and
conveniently marked on your mini map). Now you can go raid that next
base without a tedious trip to restock at your safe house. Battles with
dozens of heavily armed soldiers will take a toll on your health bar
and even likely kill you a couple times, but if you survive your health
bar returns to full after a couple seconds of peace. The character that
you play can sprint for hours on end, not because the character is an
athletic runner, but because it's boring to have to rest and catch your
breath in any game that's not a breathing simulator. "Get back in the fight!" the game tells you. And you listen.
With that out of the way, the gameplay is fairly standard with the
added benefit of destruction. The explosive weapons feel like they have
awesome destructive power against buildings but the enemy soldiers can
resist quite a few of your standard bullets. The story is very sparse
and it seems like a lot of thought went into the it before most of it
was thrown out the window in favor of keeping players playing. Some
subtle details remain, although they're difficult to figure into the
main story without doing some conjecture. I won't get into the details
of how you play the game in the interest of keeping this review on the
shorter side though, rest assured, there are lots of other reviews that
will tell you how the missions work.
All said and done, RFG a fantastically *fun* game to play in an era
where games seem more and more like chores punctuated with a couple
moments of enjoyment, especially when a game is sold on such unique
gameplay element like building destruction. Luckily, it's not just the
explosions, it's the well-connected and smooth flow of moments between
the explosions that make a game, and in particular what makes Red
Faction: Guerrilla such an enjoyable game to play.
