http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/06/red-faction
By Chris Kohler
June 30, 2009
Sometimes it pays to be subnormal.
Half an hour into Red Faction: Guerrilla, I was wondering what kind
of crack my fellow gamers were smoking. I'd seen loads of praise for
Guerrilla, a game in which you play a freedom fighter (terrorist?)
bringing down a repressive military government on Mars by bombing
buildings, assassinating generals and using a gigantic sledgehammer
to unleash all kinds of mayhem.
Provocative political messages aside, the videogame, released earlier
this month for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, had been hyped as a
sleeper hit, a surprisingly fun sandbox game about creative devastation.
But I wasn't seeing it. To my eyes, the Mature-rated Guerrilla bore
all the hallmarks of an unpolished game: Walking and driving around
felt stiff and janky. The gunplay wasn't much fun. And the tight,
awkward camera was making me claustrophobic. Not to mention the fact
that I was dying a lot, and every time I met some grisly fate, the
game flipped back to a loading screen, whirring and wheezing as it
chugged to reload the entire level.
Meanwhile, all I could think about was my friends' universal praise
of the sledgehammer. The heroes of most shooter games have melee
weapons, but they're usually weak, ineffective and only used in
desperate situations. Guerrilla's hero carries his massive iron
hammer at all times. It's a hallmark weapon with great potential, but
when I tried using it, my enemies mowed me down mercilessly with
their machine guns as I charged them.
Shooting them from afar worked better than slamming them with the
sledge, but this approach seemed as rote as the hammer was unique.
Finally, after dying one too many times on a mission that was
becoming pure drudgery, I thought perhaps I should take the in-game
instruction manual's advice and turn down the difficulty level from
"Normal" to "Casual."
What a difference. I could absorb far more of the enemies' bullets,
meaning that instead of having to hang back and pick them off from
afar, I could run up to the soldiers swinging my sledgehammer, taking
all of them out with brutal bashes to the head. I could destroy enemy
buildings with impunity, not having to worry that I'd be sniped as I
was gleefully reducing a communications tower to splinters.
I'd never have been able to do these incredibly fun things on
"Normal" mode. When I dialed down Guerrilla's difficulty, the game
became an entirely new experience.
My elation at this great revelation was short-lived. Immediately
after putting the game down, I went to my PC and saw an article that
had just been posted to MTV's game blog: "Why I Played Red Faction:
Guerrilla on Casual."
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/06/17/why-i-played-and-finished-red-faction-guerrilla-on-casual/
"Crap," I thought, in the manner of someone who'd just been scooped.
Writer Russ Frushtick had experienced the same thing I had.
"Knocking buildings down … never once got old," he wrote. "What did
get old was getting shot and dying … when all I want to do is rush
forward and bash the world in the face with my large hammer."
"If the difficulty impedes access to the greatest part of a game,
just toss the difficulty," he concluded.
Frushtick's point is well taken. But when nothing more than a simple
tweak to the difficulty level can completely change a game, is it
smart for developers to let players choose a difficulty level for
themselves, before they've even played it? How many gamers would
unknowingly trade in the joy of Guerrilla's wanton,
sledgehammer-powered destruction for the frustration of generic
firefights out of a misplaced sense of machismo?
Actually, a poster on the GameFAQs message board had already scooped
us both with regards to this quirk of Guerrilla's playability.
"I bought this game to use the hammer," wrote Twilight_Titan. "The
simple fact is that only on Casual mode can you charge up to seven
(enemies) with a hammer and take them out…. On any other mode, it
becomes yet another (third-person shooter)."
After discovering the simple secret to unlocking Guerrilla's
hammer-time mayhem, I got on Twitter and asked fans of the game what
level they were playing. Turns out, many of them started on Normal
(because who doesn't consider themselves normal?), but ratcheted down
the difficulty to Casual after dying (and reloading) one too many times.
"I spent more time shooting soldiers and running away than I did
blowing up buildings" on Normal mode, wrote one respondent.
"Ultimately, it just got too frustrating with everything standing in
my way, keeping me from doing what I wanted to."
Developer Volition's canny use of the word "casual" which sounds a
lot less wimpy than "easy" for the least-difficult level probably
swayed some folks into the easier setting from the beginning.
"Casual lets you do 10 times the experimentation," said a friend who
raved about the game and the Casual setting. "Last night I jet-packed
over a mountain into the back of a facility, used the nano-rifle to
make my own entrance, set a ton of charges in the building … then
jet-packed out and set off the charges."
While I haven't gotten my guerrilla to jet-pack status just yet, I've
been driving around in massive trucks and slamming them into
buildings, then jumping out and methodically taking out every support
beam with my sledgehammer while gunfire blazes around me. It's a
truly unique experience, and one I would have missed if I hadn't
tried the Casual setting.
The truth is, I wouldn't have given Red Faction: Guerrilla a second
look on Normal; on Casual, it sets itself apart from other games.
I've got no problem being labeled "casual" as long as I've got my sledgehammer.
1 comments:
The game is "Guerrilla" for a reason. You're supposed to use guerrilla tactics to take out your objectives. Sneak, stealth, then fast in and fast out. Chuck your bomb, do as much damage, and then get the hell out. Come back later to finish the job if you have to, but don't stay more than 30-60 seconds.
That's the meat of the game. That's the POINT of the game. Being able to rush 7 people with a hammer is what would make it like any other shooter. In RF:G, you have to think. You have to plan. You're realistically fragile and seriously outnumbered and outgunned. Sneaky tactics and a quick getaway carry the day.
You just don't seem to "get" the game. It's fine if it's not for you, but you should keep an open mind. It's trying to do something different.
I don't agree at all about a lack of polish. I think the driving and gunning are great (though the reduced martian gravity takes getting used to when driving and makes you think the physics are 'broken' until you figure it out.)
Sure, I'd like to be able to win a gunfight against 4 armored militia when all I've got is a basic assault rifle, but it ain't gonna happen and that's what RF: G tries to show you.
I LOVE the game. My favorite new tactic is throwing sticky bombs all over my van, smashing it through the front door of an EDF building, then running like Hell and detonating the whole mess. This game was MADE for surround sound and a subwoofer, for sure.
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