Is RF:G a return to 1993?

[Stark]

The game has an utterly lazy and uninteresting story that has no impact on the game world. It has jury-rigged weapons better than proper weapons, and is full of gimmick weapons.

Didn't you just contradict yourself there? IIRC, the story is about a Miner's revolt. So it stands to reason that their weapons are going to be improvised. You don't give guns to mine workers. Especially ones you oppress to the point that they rise up in armed revolt.

Now I haven't played the game, but if the game doesn't let you use the weapons of fallen enemies, that's a valid complaint.

Oh dear.

Don't you remember Dark Reign 2? The game where the poorly organised rebels had rocket launchers and jetpacks and shit, just like the army? This is the trend I'm referring to. In RF:G the EDF have THE WORST GUNS. Their AR is absurdly useless (although they can carry more than 3 reloads, unlike the player lol) and the rebels never use their emplaced heavy weapons. They don't even seem to HAVE a rocket launcher (probably because building deformation is a player thing). The game starts with 'regular' pew pew guns and moves over time to fucking retarded 'shoot blade lol', 'ghostbusters gun' just like old games do, rather than having you find actual better guns. The rocket launcher is even fired from the hip, but apparently the EDF has nothing better.

Just like in real life.

Except they have a space battleship that can target individual people. And y'know what? Every rebel - BUT YOU - uses EF guns. Whoops.

[Ford Prefect]

What's worse is that you could make the gimmick guns interesting, if the arsenal was properly balanced. What if it was somehow really hard to get proper guns, and so you had no choice but to resort to weapons that didn't have much in the way of range or accuracy, but were still lethal industrial equipment? What if this lack of weapons shaped the resistance and required you to intelligently engage enemies, otherwise they'd take you apart with their actual guns at long range? Whoops.

[Stark]

What's sad is that 'lethal industrial equipment' would be AWESOME in Red Faction. Sure they have walkers, but where are the forklifts? The on-rails cherry-picker level? The concrete gun truck? The robo-jackhammer? The drillcar? The timed explosives? The mining drones? What's sad is the rebels have giant stockpiles of explosives but NEVER USE THEM DEFENSIVELY EVER. They've all got EDF rifles.

We just get guns ripped off other games, like the electrogun, the bladegun, etc. Hell, you can get a giant raider choppy staff that's awesome against buildings, but CAN'T SWAP YOUR SIGNATURE HAMMER FOR IT. Just like in 1993.

[Ford Prefect]

Turns out asking the Red Faction guys to make a proper 'miners versus soldiers' game is too difficult? Who knew. Creative usage of the mining aspect could have made the game pretty cool, like you say. At least tell me the Red Faction's secret base is in a mine, right?

About the best thing about the game is the demolition ostrich.

[Stark]

Hey, it doesn't even hit Far Cry 2 levels of greyness or warfare, the insurgency regularly destroys whole towns for money, steals cars and destroys both important resources like power and the mines WHERE PEOPLE FUCKING WORK, thus resulting in an EDF-free area where nobody has any fuel, power, or shelter. GO COMMUNISM!

The RF bases are just prefab bases like everyone else; a few nissen huts and rubbish generally. BTW: EDF has spaceships and most of the bases are open to the air. Hmmmm.

Ironically given my sense of this game's retro stylings, JSF and I were just talking about how Red Faction was nearly the exact opposite. It had effective and interesting proper guns like pistols with rapid fire, shotguns that weren't useless or pump, ARs that didn't have giant conefire, an MG that wasn't just an AR with more bullets, etc. It still had cool shit like the see-through-walls railgun and the bomb-charges.

So arguably RF:G is a retro game in design, and Volition has regressed in the past 10 years.

[Samuel]

The game has an utterly lazy and uninteresting story that has no impact on the game world. It has jury-rigged weapons better than proper weapons, and is full of gimmick weapons.

Didn't you just contradict yourself there? IIRC, the story is about a Miner's revolt. So it stands to reason that their weapons are going to be improvised. You don't give guns to mine workers. Especially ones you oppress to the point that they rise up in armed revolt.

Now I haven't played the game, but if the game doesn't let you use the weapons of fallen enemies, that's a valid complaint.

Oh dear.

Don't you remember Dark Reign 2? The game where the poorly organised rebels had rocket launchers and jetpacks and shit, just like the army? This is the trend I'm referring to. In RF:G the EDF have THE WORST GUNS. Their AR is absurdly useless (although they can carry more than 3 reloads, unlike the player lol) and the rebels never use their emplaced heavy weapons. They don't even seem to HAVE a rocket launcher (probably because building deformation is a player thing). The game starts with 'regular' pew pew guns and moves over time to fucking retarded 'shoot blade lol', 'ghostbusters gun' just like old games do, rather than having you find actual better guns. The rocket launcher is even fired from the hip, but apparently the EDF has nothing better.

Just like in real life.

Except they have a space battleship that can target individual people. And y'know what? Every rebel - BUT YOU - uses EF guns. Whoops.

Wasn't Dark Reign 2 the game that shipped without any AI for skirmish?

[Stark]

There have been so many. It's the game that took the original (dated) game with interesting time travel, bizarre factions and RTS ideas and turned it into Jupiter Miners vs Ev0l govt with Identical Units.

[SAMAS]

The game has an utterly lazy and uninteresting story that has no impact on the game world. It has jury-rigged weapons better than proper weapons, and is full of gimmick weapons.

Didn't you just contradict yourself there? IIRC, the story is about a Miner's revolt. So it stands to reason that their weapons are going to be improvised. You don't give guns to mine workers. Especially ones you oppress to the point that they rise up in armed revolt.

Now I haven't played the game, but if the game doesn't let you use the weapons of fallen enemies, that's a valid complaint.

Oh dear.

Don't you remember Dark Reign 2? The game where the poorly organised rebels had rocket launchers and jetpacks and shit, just like the army? This is the trend I'm referring to. In RF:G the EDF have THE WORST GUNS. Their AR is absurdly useless (although they can carry more than 3 reloads, unlike the player lol) and the rebels never use their emplaced heavy weapons. They don't even seem to HAVE a rocket launcher (probably because building deformation is a player thing). The game starts with 'regular' pew pew guns and moves over time to fucking retarded 'shoot blade lol', 'ghostbusters gun' just like old games do, rather than having you find actual better guns. The rocket launcher is even fired from the hip, but apparently the EDF has nothing better.

Just like in real life.

Except they have a space battleship that can target individual people. And y'know what? Every rebel - BUT YOU - uses EF guns. Whoops.

Actually, no. I don't remember Dark Reign 2 at all. I remember hearing it was in the works, then it kinda vanished off my radar forever. The one time I heard about it, it seemed most people were trying to forget about it, too.

Which is a shame, because IIRC, the first game had some pretty good Skirmish AI well ahead of anyone else at the time, and even now most games don't match it.

[Stark]

Well that's it; Dark Reign (while VERY MUCH a 90s RTS) had some really interesting/cool/effective ideas, wheras Dark Reign 2 was totally generic 'two nigh identical factions face off in a place vaguely related to the old one' sort of thing. You couldn't even turn into plants and sneak around anymore! If DR had a new frontend (make the fucking UI smaller, make the viewport zoomable etc) it'd still be a boss game.

[loomer]

I loved the original Red Faction. Not so much a fan of Guerilla.

However, what WOULD be fun for a Red Faction game would be if Volition basically said 'Fuck it, let's make another game that's, you know, fun. But let's make it all about Lenin, Man of Steel!'. Then you'd have a goddamn awesome reason to have THE HAMMER of building destruction - you're fucking Lenin, crushing capitalism! May as well throw a sickle in there, too, for complete cheese factor.

[Stark]

You're an idiot, Starscream.

My fqvourite part of thegame at the moment is the total preeminence of the player, being totally new and entrusted with everything, all the guns and the leadership. Even longterm Martian veterans defer to Mr Noclue - a man so stupid his first act on mars is a crime - in every crisis. Pandering to insecure players = great story, just like 'one man army' games of the past.

[Chardok]

Dudes - someone explain to me why Incredible Hulk: Ultimate destruction is not used as a benchmark or a yardstick with which all other sandboxy game are measured? That game was simply amazing. It was ridiculous amounts of fun, made me want to replay it over and over again, and it didn't even have multi - that's right, someone made a really awesome game with NO MULTIPLAYER. If I could, I would find every game developer I could, take a copy of this game, and shove it into their skulls so that everytime they have a "gamethought" they will be forced to immediately recall a corresponding part of IH:UD, compare the two, and if his gamethought is inferior, HE WILL IMMEDIATELY AND FOREVER DISMISS IT. RF:G is an example of a game with loads of potential that just goddamn well fails on so many levels that it isn't fair to single them out. but ESPECIALLY when you compare it to a game that came out fully 6 years prior to it! why don't they re-release the goddamned incredible hulk, anyway?! I mean, seriously, update it to HD and I will HAPPILY pay 49.99 for it AGAIN, and frthermore, I will PREORDER the motherfucker. That's ALL they have to do - make it HD, no gameplay "Fixes" no extra content, just spruce up the graphics, release the fucking thing on 360, and I'm happy as a pig in slop.

LISTEN UP, GAMEDEVS - IF YOUR GAME IS INFERIOR TO INCREDIBLE HULK: ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION, YOU ARE INCORRECT.


That is all.

[Stark]

Did you finish the game, Chards? PROTIP - switch to casual, prices fall by 25%, buy stuff, switch back.

The story will blow you away with it's lazy, banal predictability and suck.

[Chardok]

Did you finish the game, Chards? PROTIP - switch to casual, prices fall by 25%, buy stuff, switch back.

The story will blow you away with it's lazy, banal predictability and suck.

The story of IH:UD? or Stupid RF:G?

[Stark]

Stupid RF:G. Oh, did you know logs show up on your map as green dots? You can get useless MOABs if you collect them.

[Chardok]

Stupid RF:G. Oh, did you know logs show up on your map as green dots? You can get useless MOABs if you collect them.

WTF no. I've only ever found one - quite by mistake. I thought you got MOABs by stealing the ZOMGRADIOCARZ

[Stark]

Don't worry, MOABs can't be moved and cutscenes delete your MOAB'd cars so you can't use them to cheese missions. So worth finding those tags!

[RadiO]

I just attacked the EDF garage in the Badlands, and it kept spawning empty tanks right behind my back all the way through the lengthy orgy of destruction it took to trash the place. Much obliged, evil forces of oppression!

[Stark]

No no no.

The BEST part is where RF decides to befriend the maradeurs for ... some reason, and follows them out into the wasteland right. And they go through a secret door to where the Nano Forge is, and DISAPPEAR. The nanoforge is UNGUARDED. Once you get it, you're attacked...

By EDF.

Who know you've got the forge.

....

This series of events makes sense, somehow.