The first incarnation of Red Faction: Guerrilla was released almost a decade ago on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The game met with some critical and even financial success. Unfortunately, THQ was on a collision course with bankruptcy and the franchise was put on hold for quite some time. THQ Nordic swooped in and saved the day through purchasing many IP’s from the bankruptcy sale. Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-Tered is the outcome. Sadly, it isn’t a new game, but the remaster was actually done well unlike some others. I’m looking at you, Prototype and Ultimate Alliance.
I’m assuming with all these remasters that THQ Nordic is popping out their version of testing the waters for a new entry. After all, the Darksiders IP was handled in such a way as well, and we are getting a new game in that series very soon. I’m glad that THQ Nordic is playing it smart. Hopefully, we will see a new Red Faction game soon.
The Story
If you’ve played this game before, then you know that you control Alec Mason, a mining engineer who just landed on the red planet to meet up with his brother, Daniel. Unfortunately, the reunion is cut short after a quick “tutorial” destruction mission. After the mission, the EDF (Earth Defense Force) attempts to arrest your brother. Sadly, things go wrong and he is brutally murdered. You escape to your brother’s tiny abode only to find the EDF waiting for you. After a brief argument and being labeled as a member of the Red Faction, your life drastically changes.
The Red Faction comes to save your life, but now you’re one of them. You have to do missions for them or you will never be free. To achieve this freedom, you are given missions that disrupt the EDF’s power over Mars. The more EDF buildings you destroy and the more citizens you get on your side, the easier it will be to liberate the 6 areas of Mars.
The Look
I’m not going to lie. The last few remasters I’ve decided to sink my teeth into have been huge letdowns. Fortunately, Guerrilla is surprisingly well done. Having played halfway through the original before something else caught my eye, I can tell that THQ Nordic put a lot of time and love into pulling this game into the current generation. The cutscenes don’t look like a just a re-skin and the environment is just amazing. I’d imagine if we ever passed through the Van Allen Radiation Belt and put humans on Mars, this is what it would look like.
A constant red hue follows you throughout the game. You just get the feeling of grittiness, like sand is constantly sticking to you. Even when you’re blowing up countless building and killing the EDF, I saw none of the slowdown that I remembered from the original. The only thing that kind of struck me was the long loading times. I’m playing through God of War right now as well. The only load time you get there are when you first boot up the game. There’s no excuse for these long load times with how powerful the current generation of consoles is.
The Mechanics
The point of this game is to destroy as much as possible. You have a huge hammer and ninety- nine percent of the world is destructible. Left Trigger is heavy attack, Right Trigger is light attack and A is jump. When you encounter the EDF, you can switch to using a rifle. RB shoots and bringing up the weapon wheel requires pressing the corresponding face button. You’ll be un-oppressed in no time. The Right Thumbstick to bring up an easy aim mode. This slows you down so you’re most likely better off firing from the hip. The fact that you can destroy almost everything in this world is what makes it a huge seller to me. Don’t like where those solar panels are? Run them over. Dislike all the road signs? Run them over.
That huge tower blocking your view of the ice caps, blow it up. It’s great! Salvage becomes available as you destroy buildings. This salvage lets you upgrade your destruction items to make even bigger bangs. The driving is fun as well, seeing as this is a pretty large map that you must traverse getting around should not be clunky. Thankfully, the driving controls are intuitive and help you get to your destination with no floatiness in sight. When you’re driving a huge Mars earth mover, you can destroy anything in your path. Make sure to aim for the EDF.
The Verdict
Although I was a big fan of this game when it came out in 2009, I never got around to completing it. However, now that I can it play it on my Xbox One, I’m super excited to see what I missed out on in glorious current gen HD. I’m not a fan of replaying parts of games if I have to grind or I lost my save, but I see myself going through this game again just because of how well THQ Nordic treated the remaster. This wasn’t a quick cash grab or a sloppy porting job, cough Konami, it was a well done upgrade for the next generation of gamers. This is the definitive edition. Forget finding one on the PS3 or the Xbox 36o. Spend the thirty dollars on this remastered masterpiece and you won’t be disappointed.