Review By:  Jared Black
Developer:	Volition
Publisher:	THQ
# of Players:	1-2
Genre:	FPS
ESRB:	Mature
Date Posted:	8-7-01

The control scheme is very solid, with nice responsive controls. While it’s obviously not as good as a keyboard/mouse combo, I’ve found Red Faction’s control scheme to be better than any PS2 FPS yet. This is largely due to aiming with the right analog stick, which seems to be perfectly responsive to my actions on the screen. Most FPSes (Unreal Tournament) are too responsive in their aiming, and when my adrenaline starts flowing I’ll often end up looking around far too much (because I naturally push the stick really hard to whirl around and hit an incoming enemy). Red Faction’s is much better, in that it takes a bit more of a push on the stick to look around, but not too much of a push that it feels sluggish. Of course, I’ve read other reviews that have actually complained about this very thing, and wished that the controls were a little looser. I guess it’s just personal taste, and you can always tweak it if it doesn’t suit you. In my opinion, Volition seems to have found the perfect balance in aiming sensitivity.

The graphics are astounding. As with most games of this nature, the variety of colors you’ll see around you are somewhat limited due to the settings (can’t have a grim setting with super-happy-fun colors). Still, Volition did manage to provide a good variety of colorings throughout the game, as a number of indoors building areas has their own distinct feel. The texture work is also wonderful, with everything being in high-resolution (no blurry wall signs here) and crisp. While some larger areas can look a bit drab, all of the indoor areas are very detailed and realistic. When blowing things up (which is what a lot of this game is about), every surface (be it rocks in a cave or a building wall) blows up very realistically. My only complaint here is that the resulting debris can’t be blown up any further, which isn’t that realistic, but that’s really a minor oversight.

For the most part, everything is great in the sound department as well. Like most other FPS games, music is used sparingly to good effect. The music will only kick in whenever a major sequence of events is about to unfold, and it creates a wonderful sense of tension. Whenever it does kick in, it’s almost always a new tune that gives each individual area of the game a sense of uniqueness. The voice acting, especially the main characters, sounds good as well. Each voice actor did a good job with delivering emotion to their part, and this helps a lot in making each character sound distinct. My only real complaint here is that the minor NPCs (such as scientists) only have a limited number of sayings, and these can become repetitive later in the game. Instead of them repeating the same thing every scientist has said throughout the game, I wish their dialogue would more accurately reflect what’s occurring around them. Nevertheless, it’s still very good.

HIGHS:

• Geo-Mod technology adds an extra layer of depth to the FPS genre.
• Tight controls and quick gameplay. The framerate (solid 30fps) may seem slow to hardcore PC FPS fans, but on a console it’s fast enough.
• Wonderful graphics with lots of variety (despite the story being set in the mines).

LOWS:

• NPCs have limited speech.

It says a lot about a game when the only "Low" listed is such a trivial one. Red Faction is an awesome FPS, with an excellent story driving the gameplay forward. This is by far the best PS2 FPS yet.

Overall Score: 9.0

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