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Red Faction is a first-person shooter computer game that was released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2 and PC by THQ and Volition. It features online play in deathmatch and capture the flag modes. It does indeed have a master server to facilitate online play.
Monkeystone Games developed a version of Red Faction for the N-Gage that was published by THQ in December 2003. It has some features exclusive to the N-Gage version, but is also greatly trimmed down in other ways.
The premiere feature of the game was its "GeoMod" technology which allowed the player to destroy the geography in the game. For example, instead of opening a door, a player could blast through the rock surrounding the door.
Red Faction came out of the ashes of the cancelled Descent 4 project that Volition had been working on. Many ideas that were originally for Descent 4 can be found in Red Faction, for example, Red Faction
Storyline
Red Faction takes place on Mars in the 22th century. Earth’s minerals are being depleted and humans need more of them to survive. The Ultor Corporation runs the mining operation on Mars. The living conditions are deplorable and a disease called "The Plague" is running rampant throughout the colony. The player takes on the role of a miner named Parker, who witnesses the spark that starts the rebellion. Parker traverses through the Ultor complex, eliminating any resistance Ultor throws at him. Ultor then calls upon mercenaries to help them in their fight against the miners. He then meets Capek, the scientist who created "The Plague", fights and kills him, and takes a shuttle to a space station to deactivate a laser defense system so the force Earth is sending doesn't get shot down. After going through the mercenary base, Parker fights Masako, the mercenary leader. But Masako has activated a bomb that would destroy the entire base. Eos is tied to the bomb, which Parker deactivates. The Earth Defense Force shows up just in time, and eliminates the remaining mercenaries.
In chronological order, with every event accounted for, the plot of the series takes place as follows:
- Ultor Corporation is founded. It then persuades people into becoming miners by using propoganda, at which point they are slaves to the corporation, who have exclusive mining rights on the planet.
- Capek starts research with Nano-Tech, is shunned by people on Earth, relocates to Mars and performs numerous experiments on people, especially miners. Causes a disease known as the Plague.
- Miners instigate rebellion known as "Red Faction" under the guise of being a sports team.
- Hendrix starts to spy on Ultor, helps Red Faction without them knowing.
- Parker is trained and initiated into the Red Faction.
- Rebellion starts, Gryphon decides to defect.
- Parker takes Gryphon to Orion, who in turn takes him to the Red Faction.
- Parker is told to find Capek, as he possesses the cure for the Plague. He finally catches up with him in his lab and shoots him down, with Eos's help. While dying, Capek sets the lab to self destruct. Eos gives Parker a computer disk with which to contact the Earth Defence Force. Eos is left behind and escapes the Lab with the antidote.
- Mercenaries are dispatched to stop the rebellion.
- Parker contacts the EDF fleet, who decide to mobilise to liberate the miners.
- Parker travels to the space station controlling the laser satellite network, capable of destroying the EDF fleet.
- Mercs raid the Red Faction base. Capture Eos.
- Parker destroys the space station.
- Mercenaries set up a bomb to destroy the entire complex.
- Parker and Hendrix fight their way through the Merc base to disarm the bomb.
- Masako kills Hendrix.
- Parker kills Masako.
- Parker defuses bomb and rescues Eos.
- The EDF fleet comes to Mars to rescue the miners.
- Most of the Red Faction returns to Earth, many to the commonwealth, along with Eos, who disappears.
Characters
- Parker — The main character, who witnesses the start of the rebellion.
- Eos — The leader of the Red Faction resistance. She helps Parker periodically throughout the game over radio transmissions.
- Hendrix — An Ultor technician who works on the inside to help you. Hendrix is killed by Masako's mercenaries.
- Masako — The leader of the mercenary unit sent to kill all Red Faction resistance fighters and miners.
- Capek — An Ultor scientist who started "The Plague" and works on nanotechnology.
- Gryphon — An executive at Ultor. Parker kidnaps him and takes him to Eos.
- Davis — Administrator of Ultor. Appears very briefly.
- Orion — A minor leader of Red Faction
Weapons
- 12mm pistol — A standard pistol.It has a high rate of fire and a large magazine. The secondary fire attaches a silencer or removes it.
- Riot shield — A shield that protects you from gunfire. The "firing" function of this weapon is a shield bash, It will shatter if it takes too much damage through enemy attacks or shield bashing.
- Control baton — A weapon that can be swung or used to electrically incapacitate people.
- Remote charge — An adhesive explosive charge that will adhere to anything. (infantry, walls, etc.) As its name implies it can be remotely detonated. It can be used against infantry, vehicles, and to clear debris.
- Grenade — Can be thrown with a 4 second timer or to detonate on contact.
- Automatic shotgun — Primary fire uses a double shot of buckshot, while secondary fire fires a round every 0.15 seconds.
- Submachine gun — Can fire either 12mm bullets or 5.56 mm bullets.
- Assault rifle — Primary fire uses a three-round burst, while secondary is full-auto. It holds 42 5.56 mm rounds per magazine.
- Sniper rifle — A standard sniper rifle. It fires APFSDS rouds at a high velocity.
- Rocket launcher — Holds 6 rockets. Primary fire fires rockets with no lock-on. Secondary fire enables heat-seeking.
- Rail driver — A portable railgun, able to shoot through any solid object or even multiple objects in succession. The secondary fire allows you to see through walls and objects to find enemies. It kills enemies instantly regardless of the area of body hit. It is a type of rail gun that fires a metal slug at hyper-fast velocities.
- Heavy Suppression Machine Gun — A 99 round, belt-fed machine gun. Primary fire is full auto, but the secondary fire is slower, also has greater accuracy.
- Flamethrower — This flamethrower shoots a stream of napalm that sticks on contact. the secondary fire allow's the player to throw the canister as an explosive device.
- Precision rifle — A highly accurate and fast-firing semi-automatic rifle used by the mercenaries.
- Fusion rocket launcher — The largest hand-held weapon in the game. It shoots a large shell that does tremendous damage, with a huge blast radius (which can also harm you) at the cost of a significant reload time.
Vehicles
- Drill Machine — A large vehicle usually used to carve out caves. Can short out electric fields.
- Jeep — A basic jeep vehicle. Has a machine gun mounted in the back.
- Submarine — A submersible used to get around underwater. Uses torpedoes as weapons.
- Aesir Fighter — A nimble aircraft armed with rockets and a vulcan cannon.
- Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) — A large vehicle used to transport people. Armed with a vulcan cannon and rocket launcher.
GeoMod
One of the main "selling points" of Red Faction was the game engine's GeoMod technology, which allowed players to significantly alter and otherwise affect the surrounding terrain and buildings, either with explosives or otherwise. Past games had allowed limited alteration of the environment through scripted means, or special triggered areas which would add or remove certain predefined level elements. Red Faction was the first game to allow players relatively limitless level-altering possibilities. In fact, many of the areas in the first few levels, such as a hidden underground lake, serve little purpose other than showcasing the capabilities of the GeoMod technology.GeoMod allows the player to alter (and destroy) the environment so significantly because of the way it designates altered (or "GeoModded") areas. Whereas other game engines would have to modify the shape of the altered object to create a similar effect, GeoMod creates special objects which represent empty space. When, for example, an explosion blows a hole in a rock wall, the GeoMod technology creates an "empty space" object which is the approximate size and shape of the explosion. When the game engine renders the area it will first render the initial environment, unaltered, and then render any "empty space" objects by removing the terrain/etc. within the object's boundaries.
The use of these "empty space" objects is not limited to in-game environment alteration. Some of the objects in the game, such as the wastebaskets found in certain office areas, are stored as one solid shape with another "empty space" shape defined within it.
One of the main criticisms of the game was inconsistency in the use of GeoMod, owing to the design limitations of linear first-person shooter. Where the game needed to halt the player's progress, locked doors and appropriate nearby walls were invulnerable to attack: players were not allowed to circumvent the obstruction using their own initiative. Critics were essentially unanimous in their praise of the system in multiplayer matches, however.
Sequel
The sequel Red Faction II was released for PlayStation 2 in October 2002, and then PC, Xbox, and GameCube. It takes place on Earth, telling the story of a group of super soldiers, including the main character, Alias, with the only apparent links to the original Red Faction being the presence of Nano-technology, the name Red faction, and the organization Ultor. These soldiers were physically enhanced by the nanotechnology originally developed by Capek on Mars. Red Faction II does not support network gaming, but provides some multiplayer-style games with 'bots'.External links
- Red Faction, official site from Volition
- Red Faction II, official site
- Codename: Iron Sun - a special-operations modification for Red Faction
- IGN review
- Red Faction at MobyGames
- Red Faction at Levels 4 You - One of the largest surviving Red Faction Communities with over 3800 Red Faction files to download.
- Speed Demos Archive Speedrun of Red Faction.
2001 computer and video games | PlayStation 2 games | Windows games | First-person shooters | Mars in fiction | Mac OS games | N-Gage games | THQ games | Mobile phone games | Computer and video game franchises | Science fiction computer and video games
"Red Faction"