Forums | MacLife

Beats me, but I'd try a demo just to see the new tech.

The first was stoopid fun, one of the last things I played on PC before hiatus. Overlong, trite storyline, awful dialogue and AI, and a gaping memory leak that game sound disappeared into during long sessions. Almost no likable characters on either side... which made enjoying the late-game FT all the easier.

There are story-driven shooters, and otherwise. This is otherwise.

NC, you're absolutely right.  In RF2, the GeoMod implementation was so restricted it felt like it was a gimmick rather than a feature.  I remember all too many places in RF2 where you had to blow up a wall to progress, but couldn't blow up the earth below the wall, or the rock bluff next to the wall.  In RF, if it wasn't metal, you could destroy it.  That was a well-implemented GeoMod feature.

Yeah, I certainly hope the new RF more closely follows the original.  Otherwise, I won't waste my time.

Yeah, Deus Ex had almost zero physics and played a lot like an RPG.

elpato84 wrote:

NightCougar_37 wrote:

Lot complained that RF was a Deus Ex rip...

What the hell do they have in common?

Very little, I should think. And that was one complaint I never heard.

I've made quite a few and have more still, but that's not one... then again, I've heard the vehicles admired; and to me, except for the almost identical sub and aircraft, they handle like drunken sows.

I never found it as consistent as Icks, and as a result almost gave up using it as a waste of ammo. I did find one of the places it worked was right where you mention (that guardhouse).

OTOH, if you fired a rocket straight up the elevator shaft in the demo level (after the big bridge), it would reach the level's ceiling and do a 180 on you, coming straight back down... funny, but buggy as a forest preserve in summer.

Torpedoes and missiles were great fun, tho. I could tunnel thru a support with torps into a hollow below... which was fun, but pointless, as the 1,000 tons above it just hung there unsupported.

I HATED the vehicles in RF. If you hit a door frame trying to pull out of a garage, for instance, the vehicle would roll right over on its back and you had no way to right it. There was a level where you had to go through a valley while being constantly sniped at and I would just walk through the long mess rather than try to drive.

There's actually hope for 3; the biggest limitation in Geo-Mod was (as I think Volition discovered in dev) that there turned out to be far more potential for gamestopping bugs than they'd envisioned. A cool idea, but one where, if really implemented, the player could too easily destroy his chances to progress, and be none the wiser that that had happened. In turn that would kill sales; frustrated gamers don't give good word of mouth. Ahead of its time.

With 8 years to think that thru and QA the result, destructible environments may have seen their time come... meanwhile, the original had some cool weapons, and much fun can be had if you accept its limitations (come to think, by far the worst parts were the stealth parts, given the brain-dead AI. I beat it straight, but replays were funnest with cheat codes; god mode let you watch guards gun down many insufferable NPCs- they just wouldn't hold fire, and that didn't include the mercs. ). Watching NPCs run into fires (apparently they were made of cotton) could be fun, too. I think I'll hack it & run it at 1600x1200 next time.



(Oh, and I recall it being fun to drive or knock the jeep into deep water and swim past it while listening to the still-running engine. )


ed sp

Last edited by Bat (2008-02-15 3:47 pm)

Preview on Eurogamer.

It's not often, when watching a demo of a dystopian-future third-person action game, amid the constant subwoofer rumble and PR burble of E3, that you wind up in a conversation about the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. We're chatting to the art director of THQ's Red Faction: Guerrilla when this unlikely influence is brought up.

However, it's not Wright's clean, proto-modernist designs, nor his massive influence on the course of 20th century architecture, that has led the Volition development team to base buildings on Red Faction's Mars on his work. It's that his fondness for cantilevered construction makes his buildings - theoretically - really easy to knock over. And Red Faction: Guerrilla is all about knocking over.

The game is anchored, as Red Faction always has been, in the latest evolution of Volition's Geo-Mod technology for destructible environments. Geo-Mod is a remarkably realistic physics engine that simulates the stresses of impact and gravity on building materials, rather than just blowing pre-ordained chunks out of them and letting an animation routine take care of the collapse. It's not unlike the incredible Digital Molecular Matter system being used by LucasArts in The Force Unleashed, although Volition seems to be giving the player much freer rein to use it in the latest Red Faction.

Dev interviews I've seen suggest they're avoiding the showstoppers this time mostly by keeping things outdoors. Have you found much indoors Geo-Mod action in the beta?

Red Faction: Guerrilla Delayed, THQ Cuts [November 05, 2008, 8:15 pm ET] - Share

THQ Reports Fiscal 2009 Second Quarter Results, Reduces Fiscal 2009 Outlook and Announces Significant Business Realignment has some number-crunching from THQ's latest financial reporting. Included is news of a delay to Red Faction: Guerrilla, the shooter sequel originally announced for release in THQ's fiscal 2009 (which ends March 31, 2009): "The company's decision to release original titles Red Faction(R): Guerrilla(TM) and Darksiders(TM): Wrath of War(TM) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, instead of the previously scheduled fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 accounted for approximately $125 million in lower forecasted net sales." The report also confirms recent indications that cuts are coming, as jobs and unannounced titles will be getting the axe: "The company is in the process of implementing its plan with the cancellation of several titles that were in development but had not been publicly announced, the closure of five studios and a reduction in product development personnel of approximately 250 people, or 17 percent of its studio staff, and the streamlining of its corporate organization to support the new product strategy." THQ also announces CFO Colin Slade will be taking a medical leave of absence. Thanks GameCyte.

Their money guy got an ulcer?