Ah, the touted Game of the Year award. Annually, gamers flock to their favorite gaming websites and magazines to find out if the game they would choose is the one which will be held up in the spotlight. And it seems that… well, that’s almost never the case. A lot more gaming fanatics end up complaining about the chosen game of the year than commending the site for its choice. Hopefully, this one will turn out different (especially since it’s not technically the game of the year). Anyway, let’s talk about the game of the year thus far!
The Choice
And the winner is… Red Faction: Guerrilla! Developers, you can e-mail me and claim your lovely prize of an e-pat-on-the-back! Yay! As a consolation prize for everyone who had the goad to possibly think this would be amongst the nominees, you get a “hey, good job.” Prizes are in the mail, folks.
The Reason
But let’s really get down to why this choice was made (and ignore the question of who I even am to make such a bold claim). Red Faction: Guerrilla, when matched up with the other AAA titles released so far this year, can not only hold its own, it can in some instances blow the competition out of the water. But it’s not impossibly hard, seeing as we’ve only recently found our way out of the summer drought, right? Wrong.
This year, whether you’ll admit it or not, has been absolutely littered with great games to choose from. The difference between these top-tier games and the games that’ll come out this holiday season is just that these releases were spread out a little more, to pepper some flavor all over the year. From January up until now, we’ve had Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter 4, Halo Wars, Prototype, Infamous, and many, many more. Despite being in such a tough crowd, and having so little hype around it, Red Faction has earned its wings as above the rest... so far.
The Weapons
Okay, so maybe you think Resident Evil 5 and Killzone 2 are just unfathomably better than Red Faction on more than one level. Or, heck, maybe you’ve just got the guts to say right out that you’ve never played Red Faction, but you’re sure it’s nowhere near as good as the other shooters of late. Well, both opinions can be respected, but this writer respectfully disagrees.
Red Faction offers an array of weaponry that outclasses any other game of this year’s with panache. Aside from how unique some of the weapons are to the genre, you’ve got to factor in how cool it is to use some of these weapons. One example (the perfect example, in fact) would be that of the Nano Rifle, one of the worst guns you could ever have pointed your way.
Fully upgradeable and very combat-handy, the Nano Rifle is a specialized weapon which fires a cap of nanites (very, very small mechanical bots) which eat away at whatever they touch. And yes, that includes humans. There’s just nothing as awesome as laughing maniacally while your enemies dissipate into nothingness, not even shooting zombies. Okay, maybe it’d be as awesome to laugh maniacally while making zombies dissipate into nothingness, but now you’re just pushing it. Nice try, though, Mr. Redfield.
The Physics
Battlefield: Bad Company may have been released first, but after playing Red Faction it can sometimes feel as though the 2008 FPS was trying its best to be an imitation. Unlike any game before it, Red Faction eschews the common destructible environment which can be found in your everyday shooter, and ramps up the possible damage ten times over. Here you can bring down a bridge the size of the George Washington over in New York, and if you’ve played through the game you will have already recalled the event.
Unfortunately, having such an amazing feature in a game means that advertisement is going to center around it, sending the gimmick criers abuzz. Partly due to the idea that the physics-based gameplay was a gimmick, and partly due to the advertising department being about as active as the one working on Psychonauts, Red Faction came out limping, rather than swinging, when competing with the likes of Prototype. Why must the beautiful be represented by such ugliness?
The Visuals
Red Faction’s Mars looks stunning, and each town is pretty much distinguishable by the aesthetics. While Dust has the signature bright orange-red glow that anything based on Mars will show, heading out into the Badlands will introduce you to a darker, browner landscape. Just a short drive from there and you’ll find Parker, the town with gray grounds, purple skies, and stars so luminescent that at night it looks like one huge disco club.
In comparison, one might say that Street Fighter 4 packs a stronger punch when it comes to pleasing the eye. Street Fighter 4 isn’t taking a new approach to anything but the series, though, if you think about it. By cell-shading the characters, embellishing shadows, and giving them half a dimension of depth (2.5D), you don’t do anything but distinguish the game from other games in the series. Red Faction distinguishes itself from any other game, movie, or television show with Mars as the planet of emphasis.
The Side Missions
Yes, Batman has The Riddler leading him to dead ends, Infamous has its own thing going on, and Prototype has those completely irrelevant mini games, but Red Faction has side missions all its own. With the theme of its side missions only being challenged by Batman: Arkham Asylum itself, Red Faction makes you legitimately feel like a rogue anarchist out for blood and collateral damage. To be fair, though, Batman: Arkham Asylum’s side missions and hidden Easter eggs are strong examples of fan service, so who wins out in this department rests solely on how much of a fan you are of super heroes.
The Conclusion
At the end of the day, Red Faction takes the cake because it’s so neglected, yet still so great. Marred by the gimmicks of free-roam and destructible environments, you wouldn’t be off base to compare it to that ugly chick in the movies who’s always hot after she’s given a makeover. Red Faction is that chick… with a sledge hammer. For a comparison that the female audience might relate to better, it’s kind of like that one Fallout Boy video when Pete Wentz took off his glasses… I guess.
See you at G3's Game of the Year awards!
This article was my personal pick for Game of The Year Thus Far and is not reflective of the other staff.
