Red Faction 2

Jesus christ what a mess. Feels like it tried too hard to cash in on the Halo popularity craze and forgot to be a decent Red Faction sequel in the first place. Levels feel all gimmicky and rely on every hated console trend of the time, vehicle sections, turret sections, literal shooting galleries etc. Just buy the first game instead and install DashFaction for it, you'll have a better time with it, unless you want a monotonous slog with an occasional unintentionally funny mixed in between boring gunplay with abysmal level design and weapons.

I picked up a copy of this game from a friend's younger brother around maybe 2005 or 2006 when it was no longer new. I squandered my time fully completing this game offline for no reason and deriving modest enjoyment. I never want to be near a copy of this software again. This game is not cool and does not play fair. I remember a lame lizard guy boss who was a former ally or something that you had to fight to the death for some reason that was surely absurd for the prize of his dumb signature grenade launcher. I remember it was so ridiculous the only method was to irl metaphorically "use the force" because there was no legitimate way to know what was going on, such was the baffling confusion of gameplay. Just shoot where it would be nice if they suddenly appeared so you could move on. I'm suppressing recall of how many attempts were required, but I know I played the game through at least twice. Ultimately, rejoice in the fact that Fortnite is free to play and represents a utopia for the unfortunate souls who had to amuse themselves with garbage like red faction 2 in the bad old days.

This is not an FPS game. This is a rail-shooter, that lets you move around a little. Dumbed down for console children, with a narrow field-of-view comparable to looking down a roll of toilet paper. The FIRST weapon you have is a grenade launcher for blowing stuff up. "BANG! POP! WOW!" say the kids. But that's all there is. Lots of hype and explosions, but very little substance. It's a Michael Bay game. Ammo management? No such thing. You'll trim over health and ammo packs like you're trying to wade through the ballpit at McDonalds. RF1 had plenty of issues. It tried to tell a story but had lots of flaws. But this doesn't even feel like Red Faction. I just finished RF1 for the first time, with NO nostalga for playing it previously. I enjoyed it (though again, there's plenty of issues). This, I'm immediately revolted once the gameplay starts.

Throughout my few decades of fairly heavy gaming there are a few games which stand out as "worst use of game engine", this obscene piece of garbage is one of them, Dues Ex Invisible War won PC Gamer's award for that but this is much worse. I loved Red Faction 1, the terrain deformation was neat, I remember spending an hour tunneling through large rocky areas then scrubbing levels of all explosive ammo, also liked the setting, themes, and the campaign wasn't too bad for its time. Coming from that this, sequel is an even bigger failure. The most attractive feature, terrain deformation was barely used, and the campaign/canon theme was inverted into a fascist propaganda piece. I take that as an obscenity in context of parallels to US historical labor struggles where workers were routinely worked to death by the hundreds so rich industrialists could get richer, this game seems to claim if the poor are not being worked to death for profit by the rich will result is communism, which will evolve into some Stalinist regime.

this game is utter poop! You start this game after playing the first game which could be a masterpiece until the bomb disarming. THEN you start the game - the intro video is bad af. Looks like all boring Just Cause games and the gun gameplay is boring. It feels like a smartphone clone of Halo without fun or console port like Deus Ex 2 but less fun. It is not clear what to do. No one says you can destroy walls like in the first game. It is a cash grab (back in the day). Do not buy it. It is a waste of time.