Red Faction: Armageddon Review (RobotParty)
I don't understand the negative reviews for this game(barring the ones talking about crashes and instability, the game only crashed for me once). This is a pretty good game, considering the series and, honestly, I think this might be the best of the entire series, as ridiculous as that might sound to some people.
Let's begin with a history lesson, because I think some of the negative reviews don't understand where this series come from. The first two Red Faction games are, and let's be honest here, Half Life clones. There's no getting around it. Sure, they have their own unique individual twists on run-and-gunning, and "puzzles" but if you were to play both those games, the experience is very much similar outside of small unique differences. The stories are also really boring at the core. Then comes along Red Faction Guerrilla, a game that boasts a ton of destruction and a pretty damn good physics engine for the time. Story was pretty good and was an expansion on Red Faction 1's story, not 2(2 doesn't even take place on Mars?). So, if you look at the Red Faction series, this game is a huge departure from the previous game for many reasons, but I think for the better overall.
The story starts with you, the son of the man from the previous game(I guess? The stories of all the games always slip away from me), trying to stop some mad cultist, that really hates your family for some reason, from destroying the Mars Terraformer. The Mars Terraformer, in which there is only one for some reason, gets destroyed and now everyone has to go underground to survive, although humans can still go above ground, the weather is just *really* bad. What secrets are hidden underground? Who knows, you'll probably find out soon though. This game's story takes on a much more horror theme compared to previous and I think this is what turned off most people who played it, but the atmosphere and the story is pretty decent, it's straight forward, and it's fun.
The gameplay is pretty good but be warned that you are in fact getting a mediocre 3rd-person shooter. It's pretty consistent and balanced but it gets boring and annoying eventually. Specifically, the enemies you fight the most can cling to walls and they jump around *a lot*. They're not hard to kill, they're just hard to pin down. There is a decent variety of enemies, however, and to top it off there are bosses and they are pretty cool to fight. There's a decent variety of weapons too and seeing the destruction in this game may be limited because you're underground most of the time but when you do get a chance to use the different weapons, it is very fun and cool to see. Overall, a pretty fun game to play and the destruction factor is decent in this game. Also, I saw another review say this game can be up to 20 hours long... not even close. I completed this game in the hours you see here. 7.8 hours. Very short game but it was fun. Honestly, the worst thing I can say about this game is that it's too short and it feels rushed. Also, it isn't the most stable and it crashes sometimes.
I get the impression players wanted more of Guerrilla, and I get it... but do you really want the same game over and over? This is something that ruins most game series because of the hilariously self-destructive nerd rage some nerd-gamers have. Will we ever see another Red Faction game? I doubt it as THQ reportedly pulled the plug on the series after this game because it sold so badly and, honestly? I most blame the "fans". I'm sure they were working with what they got.
Speaking on Red Faction Guerrilla, it wasn't even that great of a game story-wise and the gameplay was mostly fun in the destruction factor but the gunplay sucked, the open world aspect was mediocre, and you could straight up permanently miss out on side mission / objectives in the game if you don't know you have to complete them before progressing in the story, and that's just the surface of the issues I personally had with the game.
Get this game if you want a decent action game with *some* destruction physics. I wouldn't buy it if you're expecting another Red Faction Guerrilla.