This is the first review I have had to write like this in my life. As you know, I play very involved, and tough games, that require you to dig and to explore. This comes with its frustrations, but in the end there is a method to the madness. Then there are games that miss the mark, and just aren't meaningful enough. There is usually some kind of categorization that can be given to a game. However, Red Faction for the Nintendo Switch is in a category by itself for many reasons.
I won't drag this review out, as it isn't necessary. I first heard about Red Faction years ago as a Playstation game, in passing, by a old-school gamer who frequented the store I went to in high school. It was a 3rd person shooter clone, with a story about a miner who is a member of a group of rebels of some sort. This latest installment takes place on Mars, after Earth has cultivated the planet, and a tyrannical group enslaves mankind known as the EDF- Earth Defense Force. Oddly, this is a name given to the heroes of earth's explorers in other games. The little I heard about this game to this day, are rave reviews about how well done this game is. I purchased it based off of that, and I have lost even more faith is the good sense of people.
Every review is either 4.5 or 5 stars for this game. As it begins, you are put through an introduction movie picking up the continuing story of Mason, who lost his love interest in the previous game, and now lives as a miner on Mars. Rebels want him to join their faction, knowing his track record. He is reluctant, but gets pulled into the action. It plays out in a sandbox world, where you can go to open missions throughout the planet. This is the end of the intrigue. The game's mechanics, and premise are the most broken and idiotic I have ever seen in a video game in my life. This game is absolute trash, but not only that. It is completely broken and unplayable. The only way I can reconcile how it made it to market, is based on the name that the game has, which is extremely disturbing. It absolutely doesn't work. It crashes, and fails even when it doesn't literally crash.
You are able to drive a number of land vehicles in the game and purchase upgrades for a small selection of weak weapons. The collision detection is insane. Mars is made up of red sand, and it reacts to every vehicle like jagged and dense metallic stone. These are not large rocks or walls. You will drive over literall flat sand or rolling hills, and the game reacts as if you slammed into a magnetic Iron wall randomly. Often you won't even see the obstruction at all, as if the undercarriage of your vehicle dug into the ground itself. As for combat, you have a mining hammer and long distance weapons. The aiming reticle moves erratically and will float when trying to aim. This, along with the enemy's enormous durability, makes taking out one enemy such a task that it's laughable that you face dozens. When in combat, you never really see where troops come from, as they spawn from mid air at all sides. Their suppression fire spawns from random places as well, and you have extremely low health in this game. After being sieged upon, you will be dead or near death by the time you get your bearings.
As I stated, the game is a sandbox, so you are up to guessing what the most viable option for you is. The landscape is divided into towns, with the influence meter showing how much is controlled by the rebel EDF forces, or your heroic faction rebels. You gain prominence by destroying EDF bases and facilities. Then, randomly, a story mission will appear at some points in the world, often surrounded by EDF forces. I did my best to increase my firepower and upgrades, but found that I never amounted to more than a small and weak character running alone in a huge world, severely outnumbered. Whenever I took on missions, it was like trying to trick the game into allowing a mission completion. Even if yo strategically weave through the EDF forces, the more success you have, the more forces pour in, until they annihilate you. So you end up having to scramble to clear the objective before the game over screen, so they autosave can act as a cheat code. This only got worse.
As I soldiered on through the missions, the number of troops increased, and the effectiveness of my weapons such as rocket launchers and remote mines decreased. Many times, in missions where I was trying to get away, or race to a check point, my vehicle would drift and get stuck in the ground. Even on several occasions, the game crashed when this happened. There was a mission that led you to a bridge that you were supposed to destroy in one mission. As I got there, I was attacked by EDF from a distance. I had to hurl my car off the bridge to avoid getting exploded. I tried the mission several time, using remote mines to detonate the bridge, and guess what happened- nothing. The bombs bounce off of the bridge and do no damage at all, and the game gives no clue at all, as to what can damage it. Even running large vehicles into it did nothing at all.
I scrambled to find some sense to this game, and completed one more crucial mission, before the game became completely unplayable. I was trying to complete a rescue mission after the bridge takedown failed, and simply had to go find the 3 hostages and bring them back to the base. As you approach the general area, I had no vehicle and was attacked by an enormous army including tanks and air strikes. Let me remind you, I am by myself, so my health gets stredded to nothing in less than 5 seconds, regardless of how I run and evade. Turing corners and ducking behind buildings is useless, as the shots rain down and up from every direction. It was overkill. And there is no steady way to even get a vehicle to aid you in this game. When you leave from a base, there may be a spare vehicle in the garage. If you take it on a mission and get obliterated, it's gone. If you run out, you have nothing. There is a mission where I thought you unlocked a mech suit, but after completing the mission, it's gone. It's the only powerful weapon I saw in the game.
Somehow, I continued playing this game and tackling main missions, trying to liberate the sector of the planet I was in. I was able to save up enough money to purchase a much needed armor upgrade to at least last longer in fights. There is just horrible physics to the game overall and no sense of direction. To make the game challenging, they break the controls and have vehicles veer off the road randomly during driving segments, and aiming reticles jolt across the screen while trying to aim. What this game uses as a difficulty tactic is the old method that was sometimes used in Uncharted and Mass Effect. Basically, when you enter a fight on a rescue mission or otherwise, you get surrounded by infinitely spawning troops. If you try to move to a safe vantage point, enemies not only spawn behind you, and in great numbers, but bullets will be aimed from the heavens and come around corners, and from assailants you cannot see, to keep the damage steady, keeping you from recovering. This whittles down you health and keeps it there until you're eliminated. It is such a cheap tactic.
The sound and visuals are pretty low quality for what the system is capable of and it seems like it was not even remotely remastered. I find it very alarming that the presentation was so well received. There are cheats to unlock that give open abilities, but they can't be played in the storyline. I feel it is the name that carries this project, and after completing it, I can't see myself wanting to go through it again. I am a fanatic of completing what I start, but this one should have been banned to Mars. All in all, I'd say its a 6.9/10.
