Red Faction Review

FlameSeeker’s Review

For those who don't know, Red Faction first appeared as the second First Person Shooter on the PlayStation 2 (the first one was Unreal Tournament), back then Red Faction turned out to be a terrific game of it's own and it sold well to warrant a sequel that came out last year. However, here comes the N-Gage version which contains several things the PS2 version never had: Bad controls, bad animation, and an embarrassing frame rate.

Gameplay:
If you played the PS2 version, then you remember blowing holes through some walls, and it's impressive cache of weapons you can find, both are still found in this version which is great of course, but in order to use them perfectly you'll have to suffer the effects of the clunky control set up of the dreaded N-Gage system. The 5 key fires your weapon of choice, while the 2, 4, 6, and 8 keys move your main character Parker around.

Remember that the buttons 1 and 3 can be used to switch weapons, and 7 switches the movement controls to the d-pad, normally used to look around, thus allowing you to jump with the 2 button. Yes, it is painfully obvious that the control set up is horrible, and the fact that you have to change the control scheme just to jump can make the experience very frustrating, and not fun at all. Thanks to the bad controls, the games other modes, like the multi-player, are un-playable.

Story:
You play as Parker, a mine worker deep in the mines of Mars, you are fed up with the bad working conditions that your superiors at Ultor Corporation had not fixed. Your fellow co-workers pretty much start an uprising against the evil corporation, and you find yourself helping the resistance against Ultor. The PS2 version relied heavily on story to move the game along, sadly the N-Gage version is a huge step backwards. Those expecting a faithful recreation of the original will be a little disappointed.

Visual/Audio:
The strongest point in the game is the visuals since they looks a bit impressive when you stand still, whenever you move the textures that make up the levels are familiar, while some levels show a little variety it's pretty much looks the same. The engine supporting this version can show some bad frame rate, which gives the game a very choppy fell. The enemy's movement is a bit stiff thanks to the mediocre animation, which of course they are given only a few frames of animation so you can bring them to life.

Try shooting them, and they turn into giant blobs of blood that disappear without a trace, Lame. The audio is somewhat bad, too. It only offers just a few simple tunes, and lets not forget the sound effects: Unoriginal gun sounds, and poorly sampled audio you whenever guards see you.

Replayability:
Trust me, with a game that features some jerky control scheme, it's only for the best that you don't need to finish this game, don't bother with the multi-player option, either.

Final Recommendation:
Get the PS2 version instead, you will thank me for this.

Overall, Red Faction on the N-Gage is nothing more than a prank created by THQ and it's developer Monkeystone to fool suckers in a quick money scam they created, so far the N-Gage has been nothing more of a magnet for badly made games like the long forgotten Pandemonium, Sonic N, Tomb Raider and others, please don't bother with the N-Gage and its games.

Mobile Game Faqs is a public forum and the opinions expressed above are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by Mobile Game Faqs.