The game's single-player campaign is also pretty
short, but Red Faction II can still offer some good shooting action for fans of
the genre.
Red Faction II
offers up a short but action-packed single-player campaign.
Red Faction II
takes place in the same universe as the first game: the 22nd century, where
humankind is ruled by an evil dictatorship, and only the freedom fighters who
call themselves the Red Faction are able to stand in its way. Parker, the hero
of the first game, is nowhere to be found here, so no previous Red Faction
experience is required or even expected. Instead, this sequel introduces a
nanotech-enhanced soldier called Alias, whom you'll play as during the course
of the single-player campaign. Alias is part of an elite squad developed to
suppress insurgents like the Red Faction, but the squad has turned its coats
and now seeks to rid the world of Chancellor Sopot, the man at the root of the
Commonwealth's strife and poverty. The plot is pretty thin, and the twist
that's thrown in about halfway through seems ridiculous, but at least the story
doesn't get in the way of the action. In your mission to assassinate Sopot, and
then quell an even greater threat, you'll travel by air, sea, and land while
taking on droves of enemies and numerous challenging situations in a diverse
and tightly paced series of levels.
Most single-player
first-person shooters aren't very long, and Red Faction II is no exception.
Even though you'll run into several very tough boss battles when playing
through the game at the normal difficulty setting, expect to get through the
campaign in approximately seven hours. As if to make up for the relatively
short length of the campaign, the designers apparently tried to make sure that
there's never a dull moment in it. The very first mission has Alias blowing an
enemy base to bits using a weapon that fires both rockets and grenades, and
things never really let up from there. The flow of the action does slow down on
a couple of occasions, such as when you'll be forced to outwit enemy snipers
using your own high-powered long-range rifle, but even those sequences are
pretty intense. If you've played other sci-fi-themed shooters, you won't find
much in Red Faction II that's completely different from what you've seen
before, but the game usually hits all the right notes, doesn't get boring, and
packs in lots of variety.
What looks like a
multiplayer mode is actually a single-player botmatch. No human opponents
allowed.
Much like in the
first game, the variety in Red Faction II comes largely from having an
occasional in-vehicle sequence to break up all the action on foot. Each of the
four vehicles in Red Faction II is remarkably powerful, and they all make for
some entertaining shooting sequences. The vehicles aren't simulated with the
same level of realism as the vehicles in Halo, but they make up for it to some
extent with their toughness and raw firepower. When you're flying high through
the air between skyscrapers in the gunship or crashing through war-torn city
streets in the tank, the game effectively becomes a rail shooter--you're just
the gunner, and your job is to blow up any enemies that get in your way as
Shrike, your squad's vehicles expert, steers you through some seriously hostile
territory. But when you're in the submarine or the battle armor, you actually
get to navigate as well as shoot. All the vehicle sequences are fun while they
last, even though they're relatively easy and simple compared with the standard
action. You'll especially like the battle armor, which is basically an assault
mech bristling with Gatling guns and missiles. You'll take on entire armies in
this thing.
Red Faction II's
audio holds up better than the graphics in translation. Though the cries of
enemy soldiers repeat a bit too often, and some of their lines are pointlessly
profane, the sounds of all your various weapons and explosions are loud, clear,
and effective. A high-tempo electronic music score pumps in the background
beneath the near-constant roar of your firearms and helps maintain the game's
high intensity level. The quality of the voice acting is mostly good, with the
highlight being Molov, the squad leader of Alias' unit, who is voiced by Lance
Henriksen (Aliens). Red Faction II is a pretty good shooter overall, offering
up a short but sweet single-player campaign and a decent botmatch mode for a
little extra lasting value. The game's not long on looks or replay value
(especially since it has no multiplayer play), but it's got no shortage of
action.
System Requirements:
Processor= 733MHz
RAM= 128MB
Graphics= 32MB
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