Red Faction 2

This game was published by THQ, in 2003. The game has been created by Outrage Games, known for games like Descent 3 and Alter Echo. These three games, Descent 3, Alter Echo and Red Faction 2 were the only games ever to be released by this company, because it had a short life as a business, it was closed down in march 2004. Red Faction II was released on Ps2, GameCube, Xbox and Windows. Red Faction II is a sequel to the successful Red Faction.

Red Faction II takes place on Earth in the year 2083. The protagonist, Alias, is a genetically enhanced super soldier formerly employed by the Ultor Corporation. Nano-technology developed by Dr. Capek has fallen into the hands of the EDF (who is now associated with Ultor) and many other terrorist groups. A dictatorship, “The Commonwealth,” has employed Alias to retrieve nano-technology and other data.Eventually the research is claimed for Victor Sopot, leader of the Commonwealth as well as the first antagonist of the game. As Sopot’s soldiers become more enhanced due to the recovered technology, the more he fears them. Sopot sends lessened troops to stop all remaining nano-tech soldiers (including Alias). Alias allies with other soldiers who call themselves “The Squad”.

The Squad quickly fights off the Commonwealth and kills Sopot. As they return to the new Red Faction base, it is revealed that the Squad’s leader, Molov (as well as other squad members Quill and Repta), who is now the game's second antagonist, has turned on them and now assumes control of the Commonwealth. Molov is attacked by another Squad member, Tangier, which allows all remaining Squad members (Alias, and a Red Faction member, Echo) a chance to escape. As the game continues, Alias fights alongside Red Faction members (including Echo, who is killed by Quill), and eventually hunts and kills Quill after she kills Echo. Alias then has his last Battle with the Primary enemy of the Red Faction on the docks before heading into a Sub with Tangier to head underneath of the Statue of Sopot.

Alias proceeds to a Commonwealth nano-tech laboratory where he fights off hordes of processed civilians as well as their new friends, the processed military soldiers. After multiple battles with the processed, he encounters Repta in a dangerous nano-tech electro-chamber. After that, he eventually triggers an explosion to cause Repta to fall into the bottomless pit. Alias continues on and is told by Tangier to blow 3 containers. After that is finished, he meets a processed version of an old enemy, the nanotech enhanced Elite Guards. After fighting the processed version of Sopot Elite Guards/Leaders, he encounters a processed version of Repta (dubbed Repta+). He kills Repta+ and heads completely into the statue, which is unstable from the destruction of the nano-labs. Molov, the last remaining enemy, retreats to the top of Victor Sopot's statue, which is guarded by an army of both nano-military soldiers and Elite Guards. He attempts to flee from the statue with the nano-cell. Tangier is in pursuit of him while he is trying to defend himself with his army of processed soldiers and with his railgun against the two.

Shrike is seen with a new gunship and then betrays Molov, saying "Remember Molov, if we fight, then we finish them". Tangier manages to reclaim the nano-tech cell from Molov's possession and escapes to the observation deck.

For the finale, Alias battles Molov on foot while Molov is in his battle armor with the help of Shrike and his new self-controlled gunship. He destroys his battle armor and they both fight each other in a gun-to-gun battle. After a long fight, Molov is defeated as the observation deck begins to collapse. Shrike, now loyal to The Squad again, saves Alias from the crumbling statue. Depending on the player’s “Heroic” rating, the plot has four separate endings.

So much for the storyline. The game's pretty much a straight-forward shooter without any unique features. You just walk a certain path and kill enemies that get in your way, sometimes you'll have to deal with on-rail-shooter parts in this game, meaning that an NPC drives you around(in some cases flies you around) and you'll have to destroy as many hostiles as possible and try to keep civilians from getting hurt. There are 14 different guns at your disposal in this game.

The graphics in this game are decent, even though it seems impossible to create round objects such as a barrel of a gun, leaving you with octagonal shaped gun-barrels. The enemies and your fellow squad-members are pretty detailed and you can see that there was a lot of effort put into them, even though they talk like hand-puppets. The game uses scripted death-animations for your enemies, which means that you'll see the same animation over and over again. If things explode in this game, especially vehicles, they'll instantly turn into a heap of steel.

In this game you'll be playing in closed environments, pretty much getting from point A to point B. In various parts of the game, you'll be barraged by an infinite amount of enemies that keep spawning until you leave. As far as the level-design goes, there's little variation in types of surroundings, you'll find yourself fighting indoors around offices. In some parts of the game, you're able to destroy objects such as walls, whilst in other parts you can't, meaning that you'll often find yourself wandering around, puzzled about what to do, when the solution is to blow up a wall.

The sound in this game isn't really noteworthy and the music is pretty much absent throughout the game, only on some occasions, usually boss-battles, will you get to listen to some music.

It's safe to say that if you're looking for a standard shooter in order to kill some time, and you're not really looking for something unique or fancy, this game could suffice. If you're looking for a unique or a innovative experience, you should look somewhere else. The game is fun for a while, but can get stale over time. I'd suggest that you don't pay more than $10 for it.