User Review : Red Faction: Armageddon

Red Faction: Armageddon PC Review - A Surprising GOTY Contender?

Red Faction: Armageddon is the fourth title in the series by THQ which started back in 2001 on PC and PS2. It wasn’t until Red Faction Guerrilla that I joined the series, and I really enjoyed the open ended gameplay and highly detailed destruction engine that the title brought. When Armageddon was announced, with news that it would be heading back indoors like the earlier games, I was somewhat sceptical that the destruction heavy gameplay would work in a more cramped environment. Thankfully though, developer ‘Volition’ did not let me or fans of the series down, and have delivered a fresh and enticing product.

You play as Darius Mason, ancestor of Guerrilla’s protagonist Alec Mason. You start the game fighting alongside fellow Red Faction members trying to prevent ‘The Cultists’ lead by Adam Hale destroying Mars’ terraformer, the device which makes habitation of the surface possible. Unfortunately you fail in your bid, and the atmosphere turns violent, forcing Mars’ population underground. The game jumps forward 3 years, and then along comes some aliens who seem awfully fond of death and destruction.

In reality, the story is very simple and serves mainly as a means to get you from A (alien outbreak) to B (no more aliens). There is a bit more to it than that, with attempts at romance between Darius and ‘Kara’ who is a rather attractive woman who even amidst the gruesome battle for survival feels the need to show off a bit of cleavage. Chalk that up to a male dominated industry I guess. There is also a point in the game where Mars’ population turns on you claiming you are the cause of the situation which could have been quite interesting. However, once Darius basically saves everyone by killing the aliens, the game just ends and never goes back to addresses this social conflict.

This I think says a lot about both the story and the characters in Armageddon. There is a lot of potential for a deeply engaging story filled with characters you may actually care about, the groundwork is all laid. But while you would be wrong to say that Volition neglected the story side of things, it is just as true to say that they didn’t flesh it out as much as perhaps they should have. I should mention that the vast majority of the story telling is done during cut scenes which after Crysis 2 which did a great job of making its story telling moments more interactive is a bit of a sour note. One positive though is that the script manages to for the most part avoid the cheesy lines and awkward moment that plagued fellow THQ title Homefront earlier in the year.

But none of that really matters though thanks to the games magnificent gameplay, which is headed by a first rate weapons arsenal and industry leading destruction (as well as being able to destroy nearly everything, you can also repair buildings with your ‘Nano-Forge’). The best moments here are definitely those that allow you to use destruction to your advantage. In games like Battlefield when you have an enemy holed up in a building you take out the wall in order to expose him. In Armageddon, you drop the building on him and his buddies with a few shots of your rocket launcher or a helpfully placed explosive tank. Certainly, it always pays to take into consideration how a weapon can be utilised for taking out a building when selecting your load out, not just for its ability to take out a lone enemy.

Perhaps the gun that emphasises how important the interactive environment is would be the Magnet Gun. It basically allows you to shoot a magnet at one object and then at another, which then causes the two objects to violently fly together. My favourite thing to do with this is attach the first bullet to an explosive barrel and the second to the face of an enemy, honest it never gets old. My other favourite weapons are the Singularity Cannon which as the name suggests creates a singularity which sucks nearby objects in like a vacuum and then explodes like a bomb, and the Rail Gun which is super effective at taking out stray enemies at any range. More traditional weapons like dual pistols, assault rifles and shotguns are also highly effective, but are perhaps more limited in their applications.

Most of the gameplay revolves around killing swarm after swarm of enemies, so it is remarkable that during the course of the 7 or 8 hours it took me to finish the game I only ever noticed this fact once. That was during a gameplay sequence near the end which really didn’t present many opportunities to utilise destruction. I can only conclude the destruction heavy gameplay moments are more engaging and so mask the fact that you’re more or less killing the same enemies in similar ways. I wonder if Volition noticed this themselves or if it was a happy mistake? Either way, the gameplay is rock solid and sheer unadulterated fun. The only real dampener on the fun factor is the larger enemies which can feel like a chore to take down with their comparatively enormous health bars.

During the course of the game you can collect ‘salvage’ which is found either in the rubble of destroyed buildings or just lying around waiting to be stolen. Salvage can be used to purchase a variety of upgrades, with things like aim enhancements, extra ammo capacity, reload speed increase, extra health amongst some other more creative improvements. At one point you are forced by the game to purchase an upgrade for your Nano-Forge which allows you to repair structures from a distance. This upgrade is actually really helpful, but there is perhaps untapped potential with it and also the destruction system to include some platforming or puzzle sections in the game. Maybe it wouldn’t work or would slow the games momentum too much though, so I’m not really complaining about their non-inclusion.

Aside from shooting things by hand there are also a handful of vehicle based segments. You get to pilot a small mech suit with limited firepower but high durability, an aerial vehicle which packs a serious punch while allowing you to keep your distance, and also a good old fashioned walker, which is more or less an impenetrable tank of a machine. The vehicle segments do a great job of breaking up the action, but aside from that they are actually brilliantly executed, with vehicle controls and abilities well-chosen and polished. They also go on for just the right amount of time, never so long that you get over it, but always long enough that you don’t wish you could get back in.

The graphics on PC aren’t going to break any records but they definitely don’t let the side down either. Character models feature impressive polygon counts and texture resolutions, as generally do the environments and scenery. Particle effects like explosions look pretty good, but perhaps the highlight of the special effects occurs when you shoot a red barrel, the gas inside starts burning with the light produced shining through the barrel itself. Enemy designs are also really cool, and while the enemies are diverse in their shapes and sizes, they all feature common design elements which makes them feel like a collective enemy, rather than the way Dead Space’s enemies feel random and unconnected.

On the audio side things are pretty impressive too. The sound of a building coming down is incredibly detailed and realistic (not that I have actually experienced this is real life, but it sounds right to me), and cranking the bass up for the explosions is a must, they are fantastic. The guns all have a unique sound which is something a lot of shooters fail with. The music composed by Brian Reitzell is fantastically cinematic and works perfectly with the gameplay, the environment and the tone of the game. Voice work is professional quality, and the script is for the most part mature and well written.

Once you’re finished with the campaign, there is a multiplayer mode called ‘Infestation’ which essentially see’s you and up to 3 others taking on wave after wave of enemies, with the goal either being to simply survive or to protect a structure from the aliens. It seems simple, but is best played with friends as communication becomes essential once you get past the early waves. The other reason to play with friends is that the game doesn’t work well with a laggy connection, so you’re doing yourself and the game a disservice by playing with someone on the other side of the world. You also have to choose the right guns for the job; otherwise you can find yourself overwhelmed easily. It's good fun, but due to the limited content and community gets boring fairly quickly.

There is also an offline ‘Riot’ mode which strips away all the story and the enemies and just pits you and your weapons against a bunch buildings in timed rounds (free roam is also available) where the single objective is to destroy as much as you can within the time limit. These will take less than 15-30 minutes to burn through though, so they don’t add a lot to the game despite being decent fun.

In conclusion, Red Faction: Armageddon is a worthy addition to any gamer’s collection. Thanks to its incredible destruction and weapon set, the gameplay quality is up there with the best so far this year. Despite the fact that there is little to do outside the campaign and the limited cooperative survival mode ‘Infestation’, the game is well worth the price of admission. With the PC’s sharper graphics and controls, I would recommend purchasing it over the console versions, the difference is definitely noticeable.