Good Story that has an interesting plot that makes you feel for the miners. I would say 2nd best of the Red Faction Series behind Red Faction Guerilla. One of the first games to introduce destructable enviroments. Good selection of weapons that are very fun to use on enemies and the enviroment. Fun and immersive gameplay. Is linear but not is a hindrance.

There is a lot to say about this game, both good and bad. This game has a lot of design elements that aren't seen any more in other shooter franchises, for better or for worse. Seeing this game's multiplayer years ago during the early days of Counter Strike, I was enthralled by its advanced destruction physics and somewhat detailed gibs. Playing through the single player again recently, I nociced how fresh and different the weapon behaviours were.

The gameplay is fast and brutal, the enemies don't have a lot of health, and they have weapons that can rip you apart in an instant, encouraging players to play either carefully, or agressively. The weapons sound very meaty and are very satisfying to fire. There are also the inclusion of NPCs that react to your actions, either firing at them, pulling your weapon out, or approaching certain NPCs with an injury. In a way, there is a lot to be compared to Half-Life 1 with the fast, brutal encounters, the linearity with some tribute paid to exploration, the interactive NPCs, and the general Sci-Fi theme. What sets it apart though, are the advanced destruction physics which allows you to blow open walls and structures, sometimes revealing secret passages or shortcuts, giving players a feeling of agency.

However, there are plenty of issues that hold this game back, the most noteable of which is the pathfinding AI, which frequently gets enemy NPCs stuck on geometry or simply shut-down, turning them into still statues until you start shooting at them. The stealth sections felt crowbared in as a very flimsy excuse to reset the player inventory for each act, and they are not very compelling or properly implemented as the enemy AI creates scenarios where stealthing through each section are nigh impossible. It is often better to just run through the enemies, as they're too inaccurate to land enough hits on you to kill you, or blow through them, as they provide more than enough supplies when they die. Not only that, the stealth sections are programmed so that you can never fall below 1 health. Another thing is that the weapons that the enemies use during the third act of the game pretty much makes it so that the best way to get through a section would be to save-scum after every encounter, since the snipers can shoot at you through walls with their Rail-Drivers and it's extremely random whether they would hit or not. There's also the weak major boss battles where the only weapon capable of defeating them is the flamethrower, and the ending which throws an arrow guessing game at you at random instead of an epic battle. One more final thing that holds this game back is that, unlike Half Life 1, the graphics and model quality simply didn't age well.

Despite its flaws though, there is a very good game underneath and I feel that had Volition had more time to polish and do QA testing, this game would be able to stand abreast of Half Life 1 as a landmark piece of gaming curios. Do I recommend this game? Definitely! There is a lot to like about this game, and for just $9.99 you can definitely do a worse than play this game. If you decide to pick this game up though, it is imperative that you download and install the Pure Faction 3.0 patch and the Pure Faction 3.0c beta update, as it adds a ton of fixes that improves the experience immensely, like widescreen resolution support and mouse raw input.

Pros
-Good story
-Fun mechanics
-Variety of weapons.

Cons
-No auto save feature, only manual saves.
-The sneaking around mission are tedious

Neutral
-People talking to you can be drowned by the action around.

Tips
-Use the purefaction patch to be able to play in widescreen and at an higher resolution than the game allows (make sure to dowload the beta, this is the only version that works with steam. Check out the guide in the community section for more info)
-Lock the framerate to 60. Anything higher and it will cause some game breaking bugs.

Still a classic. Grab it and have fun.

Lots of fun. Storyline is different than the sequel though.

Personal Rating: Worth playing. 8/10

Red Faction is an FPS with destructible environments. It takes place on Mars, inside of a mining colony. The main character, Parker is involved in a series of revolts against Ultor, a corrupt mining company.

Gameplay: 9/10
Red Faction plays smoothly. The engine is pretty decent for a 2001 game. You can choose different paths in the level by blowing up the walls, leading to alternate routes. Destroying the walls can also lead to secret areas, containing health packs, armor, and ammo. This game is, in fact, a linear shooter. There are several vehicles to drive, and they all have guns. Vehicular combat is in the game, but it only exists inside the driving levels, which don't last very long. There are also stages of the game where you must holster your weapon, and enter a non-combat environment. These stages are also fun, giving you a break from the normal FPS experience.

Story: 6/10
The story in red faction is a decent one, but overall it isn't the main focus point of this game. You play as Parker, a random miner who is actually very skilled in combat. Once the Red Faction revolt starts, Parker is one of the few survivors of his sector, making him of interest to the enemy, as well as the other protagonists. As you play, there are a couple good plot twists, but overall, the story isn't the greatest.

Soundtrack: 8/10
I'll admit, Red Faction has a solid soundtrack. About half of it is ambient, but the other half is for combat situations, and it's pretty good. The more fast paced songs are in the techno family, and have a slight industrial tone.

-: animácie postáv, chyby v engine hry, jazdný model dopravných prostriedkov, občas UI, časté loadovanie lokácií, bugy, nevyužité možnosti multiplayer-u

+: grafika, audio, hracia doba, zábava, príbeh, atmosféra, množstvo nepriateľov, náplň misií, zbrane, geo-mod, interaktivita prostredia, MP

Verdikt: Slušná FPS-ka z prostredia kolónie na planéte Mars, ktorá ale má svoje muchy v podobe neodladeného enginu, trhaných animácií postáv a občas stagnujúcej UI. Napriek tomu hra prináša veľa zábavy. Zbrojný arzenál je pestrý ako aj množstvo nepriateľov. Veľkým plusom je geo-mod, ale nie je využitý na 100% ako aj možnosti multiplayer-u. Škoda, pokračovanie možno bude lepšie, pretože Red Faction má v sebe ešte veľa potenciálu do budúcna.

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