Red Faction: Guerrilla

2025-05-12
After about 45 minutes of playing this game I was in Discord and without thinking I just exclaimed over the mic "This is not a good game." And it's true, from a person playing games now this is not a good game. The intro cutscenes alone are laughably short and bad. In a matter of minutes you arrive on Mars, meet your brother, go to your first job, get introduced to the Obviously Bad faction, watch your brother get killed, and then get introduced to and saved by the Obviously Good faction. I've seen MadTV sketches with more depth and nuance.

But if you thought that it having a trash story made it an unfun game you'd be sorely mistaken. The whole game is basically Saints Row but you can blow up buildings. It's been written about endlessly but the destructible buildings on display in Guerrilla are still one of the great achievements in gaming. Taking down a building by breaking the support beams one by one with a hammer is fantastic. Blowing them up with planted explosives is even better. Shooting a rocket launcher to take out a guard tower by shooting its legs is even better than that. And best of all, my absolute favorite part of this game, is using one of those mech things to just WALK through buildings and destroy them. You get to control this unstoppable robot that just plows through concrete like butter. And walking through a building-- straight through the damn wall-- and seeing the whole thing shatter and fall apart is one of the most fun things I've ever done in a game. And you know what? That's the only reason this game gets even a hint of a recommendation from me. Those few moments where I was in bliss in pure chaotic destruction.

Because, man, the rest of the game is janky. I had a quest to escort someone back to a base by driving them in my car. I kept failing it inexplicably because I was "going out of bounds" even though I was following the GPS the game gave me to follow. After the 3rd time failing I realized my companion was jumping out of the car. While I was driving full speed. And by continuing to drive (because I was given no indication that my partner had yeeted themselves out of my speeding vehicle) I basically left them behind. After figuring it out and getting to the destination the game promptly crashed. So I had to do it for a 5th time. Wonderful.

Beyond that nothing here other than blowing up buildings feels good. Most of the game you're either shooting or driving and they feel terrible and not good respectively. So much of the game is just driving between point A and point B. Which maybe would be fine if the environment was interesting to look at. But it's fucking Mars. It's one of the ugliest, most repetitive landscapes I've ever seen in a game.

And, hey, I could keep dunking on this game ad nauseum but ultimately who gives a shit? You're here to blow up buildings in a mech or with a rocket launcher or your damn hammer. Who cares about the rest?

???
After about 45 minutes of playing this game I was in Discord and without thinking I just exclaimed over the mic "This is not a good game." And it's true, from a person playing games in 2022 this is not a good game. The intro cutscenes alone are laughably short and bad. Man arrives on Mars, man meets brother, brother takes man to job site for tutorial, bad men in plane kill brother, bad guys threaten man, good guys show up and save man, good guys tell man "You one of us now". And that's it. There's absolutely no nuance. Just good guys versus bad guys.

But if you thought that it having a trash story made it an unfun game you'd be sorely mistaken. The whole game is basically Saints Row but you can blow up buildings. It's been written about endlessly but the detail and physics of the buildings is really fun. Taking down a building by breaking the support beams one by one with a hammer is fantastic. Blowing them up with planted explosives is even better. Shooting a rocket launcher to take out a guard tower by shooting its legs is even better than that. And best of all, my absolute favorite part of this game, is using one of those mech things to just WALK through buildings and destroy them. You get to control this unstoppable robot that just plows through concrete like butter. And walking through a building-- straight through the damn wall-- and seeing the whole thing shatter and fall apart is one of the most fun things I've ever done in a game. And you know what? That's the only reason this game gets a 6. Those few moments were I was in bliss in pure chaotic destruction.

Because, man, the rest of the game is janky. I had a quest to escort someone back to a base by driving them in my car. I kept failing it inexplicably because I was "going out of bounds" even though I was following the GPS the game gave me to follow. After the 3rd time failing I realized my companion was jumping out of the car while I was driving full speed for no reason. And by continuing to drive (because I was given no indication that my partner had yeeted themselves out of my speeding vehicle) I basically left them behind. After figuring it out and getting to the destination the game promptly crashed. So I had to do it for a 4th or 5th time. Wonderful.

Beyond that, the driving doesn't feel great. The shooting is even worse. A huge amount of the game is just driving between point A and point B. Which maybe would be fine if the environment was interesting to look at. But it's fucking Mars. It's one of the ugliest, most repetitive landscapes I've ever seen in a game.

And, hey, I could keep dunking on this game ad nauseum but ultimately who gives a shit? You're here to blow up buildings in a mech or with a rocket launcher or your damn hammer. Who cares about the rest?