Red Faction: Guerilla Re-Mars-Tered Edition

Genre: Open-World Third-Person Shooter

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Alternating), 2-16 Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Red Faction: Guerilla Re-Mars-tered Edition is an HD re-release of the 10+ year-old Open World Third-Person Shooter that put an emphasis on destructible structures, complete with its released DLC. It is generally considered to be the best game in the Red Faction series, despite (or perhaps because of) its huge departure from the series’ usual First-Person Shooter gameplay.

Graphically, this game looks pretty damn good on the Switch. Players can choose between a performance mode with better framerates (1080p/30FPS), or take a hit to those framerates for a high-graphics mode that gives the game better textures. Not nearly as good as other consoles’ 4K/60FPS, but still a sight better than the original release, and I’m glad the game provided players with the option to choose between the two display settings.

Players won’t be fooled into thinking this is a cutting-edge game, with sparse environments and fairly simple poly models by today’s standards, but this game still manages to impress with its large environments, nice lighting effects, and especially in its central theme of destruction. In short, not only is every building in the game destructible, but you tear them apart in spectacular fashion, with every hit ripping away metal and concrete in a fairly realistic fashion. Even over a decade later, I strain to think of another game that does environmental destruction better than this one.

This destruction is one of the greatest joys of the game. Very little about this game tops the feeling of detonating carefully-placed remote mines, seeing the explosions ripple through the structure sending out chunks of debris, and then watching the whole thing crumple under its own weight. Michael Bay ain’t got nuthin’ on this.

The rest of the game is fairly decent too, with players taking the role of a colonist on Mars who gets caught up in an uprising of revolutionaries looking to take back control of the colony from an oppressive regime. As such, players will go around finding regime-owned structures to demolish, or taking specific missions from the revolutionaries, that range from taking out specific structures, to securing an important vehicle, to rescuing captured comrades.

Players will quickly find combat in this game to put an extreme focus on finding cover – when a fire fight starts up, players won’t last long in the open, and those same buildings you’re happily working to destroy may need to stay up until you’ve gotten use out of them to protect you from incoming fire. However, probably the most useful way to avoid a swift death is to hop into a vehicle, which soaks up the bullets for you, gives you a chance to heal, and also acts as a nice battering ram to take out more enemies and structures.

The core gameplay here is so damn fun, it’s a pity it wasn’t worked into a game structure that had more depth. While taking apart buildings elicits a childlike joy, the campaign itself seems fairly basic and repetitive – go here, destroy this thing, go there, take out the enemies, go here, use the action button at these places and then take out all enemies… it does little to build on the great gameplay at the heart of this game.

What’s more, the destructible terrain is pretty spread out in an otherwise barren landscape. I get that this is Mars and things looking barren makes sense, but with destruction being at the heart of this game, it’s a shame that there’s often so much travel time between things you can actually destroy.

This version of the game also touts multiplayer modes, but there are caveats for both. The local multiplayer is alternating – players take turns and pass the controller between each other. Which… works, I guess. Yet as you can imagine isn’t as satisfying as competing in real-time. Online play does offer that real-time competition, however, you’ll need to bring your own opponents, since the online lobbies for this game are currently dead.

Still, the single-player campaign for Red Faction: Guerilla Re-Mars-tered Edition offers plenty of great fun for those looking for the ultimate “destroy everything” game. Even after ten years, there’s nothing quite like it, and it is in fine form on the Switch, even if it’s not quite as impressive as other versions. And while the game’s campaign can get a bit monotonous, the simple act of tearing apart buildings remains wonderful, and well worth the price of entry.

tl;dr – Red Faction: Guerilla Re-Marstered Edition is the HD re-release of the decade-old Open-World Third-Person Shooter that has aged remarkably well and is still unparalleled in its fun and impressive-looking destruction. While not quite as good-looking as other versions of the game, it still looks and plays great, and while the game isn’t without its flaws, the basic gameplay is so compelling that it’s still a joy to play after all these years.

Grade: A-

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