My Game: Red Faction Review
It is a concept straight out from a sci-fi 'zine: Deep in the heart of Mars, a hapless miner named Parker slaves away for any dictatorial corporation called Ultor. Suddenly, the miners can't take the abuse any longer, and Parker gets swept up within an armed revolt against his inhumane employer and it is legions of corrupt, heavily armed guards. You play as Parker throughout Red Faction, a good-looking first-person shooter which has a wide variety of weapons and some other notable features, as well as a mostly enjoyable single-player game and a complete multiplayer mode. Red Faction was well received when it was released with the PlayStation 2 console earlier this year. As one of the only original first-person shooters for your PlayStation 2, Red Faction amazed a crowd of gamers that did not determine what to anticipate from a next-generation console shooter. Nevertheless, the PC shooter genre has already been filled up with excellent games. So the PC version of Red Faction, which usually adds 32-player multiplayer support and a level editor, has a harder time distinguishing itself, despite its good traits.
Red Faction was created by Volition, the talented studio whose earlier projects include the role-playing game Summoner and the superlative space combat simulation FreeSpace 2. Volition's latest game has a lot of exactly the same visual appeal and usually higher level of quality found in its previous efforts. Still Red Faction is actually moderately lacking in creativity compared with those some other games, as the plot, the characters, the levels, and several of the weapons found throughout are typical pretty typical of what you are able find in other sci-fi-themed shooters. Red Faction's single-player game also isn't very long, and it will likely take you about 10 hours to complete, though multiple difficulty settings and also the multiplayer mode do provide the game some replay value.
Red Faction is distinctly inspired by earlier shooters, especially Valve's groundbreaking ceremony Half-Life, and it doesn't deviate much from the formula that was refined by in which game and it has been reused by many others over the years. Just like any recent shooter, controlling Red Faction is simple and responsive by means of a keyboard-and-mouse combination. Every bit Parker, you might be generally properly protected against enemy attacks thanks to your bright red mining suit, which usually even enables you to breathe underwater forever. Parker runs quickly and also jumps nice and high, and that he can hold a huge armory of weapons--greater than a dozen.
Many of these weapons are instantaneously recognizable archetypes found in other shooters. They may be for the most part well done in Red Faction, and they all have alternate firing modes or even special features. You are going to appreciate such details as the digital ammo readout along the side of the assault rifle, the actual rocket launcher's capability to detect human heat signatures through walls, and also the flamethrower's detachable explosive fuel canisters. A see-through riot shield that can absorb enemy gunfire, a deadly semiautomatic sniper rifle, and just one-shot railgun in which shoots through walls are a few of one other highlights. Yet while Red Faction's arsenal seems extensive, it can also feel somewhat confining. Weapons such as the assault shotgun and also grenade are too slow to become of much use. Your current aim with either of the two different sniper rifles is totally steady even though you are looking throughout the magnifying scopes, which reduces some of the challenge in using them. Often, you will have just one or two weapons inside your arsenal that are best suited for your particular situation, which makes some of the gun battles in Red Faction seem predictable.
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This really is partially because you will be fighting exactly the same sorts of enemy guards, only in a variety of shapes and forms, through the majority of the game. Fortunately, these types of protection is quite competent--the tougher ones aim good, and they all perform a very good job of dodging from side to side and also hiding behind walls when they can. They also are likely to flee when they take some damage or deplete all of your ammo, but on the other hand, they aren't good at working in groups and they don't flush you out of trouble when you are hiding. And when you learn how to aim with regard to their heads--you may already be very used to carrying this out in some other shooters--in most cases you'll be able to bring them down quickly and without much trouble. Besides all of the guards, you'll take on an occasional mining robot or an experiment-gone-wrong, but these are not quite interesting and don't provide the combat quite as much variety as you'd probably want.
My 2nd Game: Redneck Rampage Rides Again Review
In these ages of ultra-fancy 3D graphics, it's difficult to assume a major publisher like Interplay releasing an initial-person shooter that doesn't feature any 3D support at all. But that is just what it did for Redneck Rampage Rides Again - and I'm going to be danged if it isn’t more fun compared to the original.
No matter how much you prefer games in line with the Build engine, similar Blood, Duke Nukem, or even Shadow Warrior, there's no denying it is getting long within the tooth. But it is impressive what Xatrix were able to do with this "old" engine. I'm going to be the first to admit in which Redneck Rampage Rides Again's graphics do not compare to the purty stuff you see in video games like Quake II, Hexen II, or Unreal. Still, it does not take a nuclear physicist to determine whether or not a game looks good or otherwise - and for a game without 3D support, Redneck Rampage Rides Again seems to be pretty darn good.
3D purist’s mightiness whine there's a lot of "pseudo-3D" here, and they have in all likelihood got a point. But even they will have to fess up and admit that there are some impressive stuff here, particularly when the action takes you indoors: Beams, girders, staircases, and other objects look so good you feel like you could strike 'em and also stub your toe (well, at least before you get really close and start getting a bad case of pixelitis, that is).
Merely Now I'm getting' in front of myself. In the end, several of you might possibly not have an idea just what Redneck Rampage Rides Again is about, so here's the skinny for those of you who have been running play from the IRS or even living in a cave going back year. Redneck Rampage Rides Again may be the youngun of Redneck Rampage, a game that slapped you in to the brogans of Leonard, a tough-workin' fella which ain't got a problem with loading up his shotgun and also kickin' some ass in order to save his hometown of Hickston, Arkansas, from illegal aliens - and that we ain't speaking about the kind that wade throughout the Rio Grande, either. These are space critters, and they had been making clones of all of the local people to complete their own dirty work.
After Redneck Rampage and also the Suckin' Grits on Route 66 add-on, Leonard and the good buddy Bubba probably thought they'd seen the end of them ETs - you would too, after being in a full-blown game and also an add-on pack - but reported by users in Hickston, they wuz wrong. Leonard and also Bubba were able to hijack one of them fancy flying disks, but just when they thought that they had it made, this took a nosedive in to the desert in a single of them states west of Texas. Once the game opens, you (well, it's actually Leonard) are trying your dangdest to get back to the garden spot that is Hickston.
Along the method that you square off against vicious jackalopes (rabbits with antlers), rabid pit bulls, clone bikers who have watched Blue Velvet one way too many times ("Don't look at me!"), cheerleaders chucking dynamite batons, and a pack of some other nasties ranging from placid pigs to scary skeeters.
If you don't spend any time with it, Redneck Rampage Rides Again might seem skimpy for a sequel: There is only a handful of new weapons and enemies, and it still uses the clumsy multiplayer mode of the original (this means everyone's have to start in the same time and, as with the publishing with this review, there is no gaming network that supports it). However the pleasure here is in the details, friends - and also the best would be the new insult lines the foes spout.
The Skinny Old Coot from the first game won a totally free trip to Vegas, and he must've paid as much attention to the actual lingo with the locals because he did towards the card count at the blackjack table. When you are getting close to him he cackles "Groooveee, bay-bee, he he he...." just as he's whipping come out a hog leg to end your time on this here planet. Come up in to the higher levels, and also the Coot starts shouting things like "Craps, you lose!" and "New shooter comin' out!" - and while it might sound pretty plain while you read it in this review, it's about fall-down funny when you hear it in the center of an intense bloodbath.
But my fave has have to be Daisy Mae, the particular clone cheerleader using the TNT batons. She's got a lot of good lines there's not room to print 'em all here: "Now i'm gonna slap you bald-headed!"; "Do you like that, boy?"; "Were you raised in a barn?"; "Nowadays you have gone and done it!" (one of Leonard's multiplayer taunts); and also my hands-down winner for best line in a computer game: "Now I am gonna need to open up a can of whoop-ass on you!" - exactly the same line Leonard used at the start of the original Redneck Rampage.
Redneck Rampage won't win any awards for its stilted multiplayer mode, however with 14 single-player levels - most of 'em really big - and some fascinating diversions involving motorcycles mounted with machine guns and hydro-boats equipped with mortars, there is certainly so much great action here that it doesn't actually matter.
I've only got a couple of gripes with Redneck Rampage Rides Again, the very first being that the lack of 3D support implies that the CPU's gotta handle everything - and if you is not got at least 200MHz of processing power, you may expect severe hiccups within the animation when there's a lot going on at one time. And several with the levels get pretty dark - not dark such as atmosphere, simply dark as in it's kinda hard to enjoy the graphics. Sure, there is a gamma adjustment to lighten things up, but when you jack it up so's you can see stuff good, every thing looks too washed out.
Merely my own biggest gripe is that this can be a DOS-based game; even Xatrix admits it runs poorly under Windows 95. It would not have been a big deal two or three years ago, and i am not exactly in love with Windows 95, but even I've have to confess it truly does make such things as sound-card configuration and also multiplayer support a lot simpler for rednecks like me. Hey, Xatrix: Other individuals have made great first-person shooters using that monopolistic operating system called Windows 95, and you should please take a lesson from them.
Before I forget, I better let ya know there is some filthy language here, real lowbrow stuff that many people will consider utterly offensive. Then again, in the event it sort of thing offends then you definitely you most likely would not be looking for a blood-drenched shooter that makes fun of poor white trash in the beginning.
It is a little hard to tell someone to shell out 40 or 50 bucks for any sequel that at first sight seems just about like the original. But the key words listed here are "first glance," and once you receive into Redneck Rampage Rides Once again you'll see that this is not a cookie-cutter sequel in the least. It really is half shoot-em-up, half laugh riot - which adds up to a damn good deal to me.
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