The Red Faction series has gone all quiet since the last iteration, Armageddon, came out in 2011, and maybe Volition and THQ Nordic are gearing up to bring the series back. Hence, they bring back the better of the two last gen games, namely Guerrilla, to reignite interest in the series. Where does Red Faction: Guerrilla sit in this great age of remastered titles?
As far as remasters go, this game falls into somewhat of a limbo state. It does the job of bringing back the nostalgia factor of 2009; when I first got an Xbox 360, Red Faction: Guerrilla was one of the first new games for the console, and I went out and bought it. This remaster brought back the memories of destroying buildings with the almighty hammer and grenades, but it also reminded me of how far graphics have come in the time since.
For those who need a refresher on the very cheesy storyline of this game, here it is, as spoiler free as possible. Set 50 years after Red Faction II, the Earth’s natural resources are running low, and the Earth Defence Force have enslaved the people of Mars. You take the role as a member of the Red Faction, who are fighting for the rights of Martians by destroying their place of work. Not the greatest civil rights strategy out there, is it?
Despite running at 60fps on non-4k TVs, the game has aged terribly. It looks like what it is, a touched up version of a nearly 10-year-old game. It does look significantly better than it did, but even on the Xbox One X, the game noticeably slowed down tonnes when a lot was going on, and there was quite a bit of pop-in as well. In terms of gameplay and the missions that you will be undertaking for the Red Faction, again, there are good points and bad. The gameplay, which consists of destroying buildings and such, is a lot of fun, and killing the brain-dead enemies of the EDF is also fun for the first few hours. As time goes on, the gameplay rarely innovates and will get tiresome during long play sessions. The missions fall into a similar boat as well. At first you think, “Okay, I get why I am doing these missions of ‘destroy this, fetch this and protect these civilians, escort this group'”, but after about the 20th time, it makes you want to put a controller through your TV screen.
The one thing that went under the radar when the original version of this game was released was the multiplayer. They have brought it back to the remastered version of the game, but you will wish they hadn’t. First of all, there is barely anyone online, so you just end up getting dumped into empty lobbies. Multiplayer is also where all the bugs hide, the biggest bug being players falling through the map. This wasn’t a rare occurrence either, it happened in all of the 10 matches I managed to play.
There is one excellent business decision to note. If you still have the original game in your Steam library, the remastered version is free of charge for you.
In summation, Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-MARS-tered is a game that is hard to recommend to people. If you did play the game nearly 10 years ago on the last gen of consoles, then you may get a nostalgic kick out of it. It is hard to sell to those who have never played a game in the series as there are tonnes of better games out there to spend your money on. It is not even the best remaster out there for the price. As you may have seen from more of this site’s readings, the best remaster worth your time is Metro Redux (interestingly, the first game in that collection was originally published by THQ). This game would work best on the Nintendo Switch as it’s good for short bursts but not for an all night gaming session.
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Developer: Volition
Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Release Date: 3rd July 2018
Find out more information on Red Faction: Guerilla Re-MARS-tered HERE
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