Zero Punctuation: Red Faction Armageddon

[JakobBloch]

The repair/destroy creates a great duality and it leaves the developers free to let you destroy most everything simply because you can remove them again.

So the only way to make the series' hallmark destructible scenery thing work was to let you reverse it with a ridiculous undo gun? This is a good thing?

Hmm seems I borked up that sentence. Remove should be repair. It should also be "repair/destroy-mechanic". But I wager that is not your beef with my point.

Lets see. Giving the player the ability to repair things. Is it a good thing? Yes. It works. It is fun and it gives freedom. It presents an entirely new tactical dimension to work with. Suddenly a destroyed building offers the possibility of a bottleneck to funnel the enemies into. Cover can be instantly (sort of) erected to give you the time for your next move. It also provides a nice endless supply of ammo for the magnet gun. As I said it also frees the developers from having to make some buildings destructible and some not to make sure you can always get where you need to go. There is something particularly pleasing about destroying a bridge under an enemy, seeing him drop to his death, repair the bridge again and continue on your marry way as if the monster had never been there in the first place.

So is the only direction they could have gone with their excellent destruction engines, to give the player the power to repair it again? Certainly not. They could have just done what they had done so far maybe with the addition of the magnet gun. That would have worked fine. They could have gone further by creating a way to destroy terrain in some way. They could have gone in many directions with it. And one of these natural developments was to give the player the ability to clean up their mess. Was this choice good? I think so. Would another idea have been better? I don't know.

Also,

The repair/destroy creates a great duality

What on earth do you mean by this?

hmm if the problem is the lack of something after repair/destroy I have addressed that. If the problem is duality, the explanation is another. So lets take that one. Duality has many meanings. In this case I use it in the meaning where it represents 2 distinct and actually contradictory parts of a whole (for another example of this I present Yin and Yang). You often see this kind of thing in morality and philosophy. Another place you see it is in entertainment of various kinds. The battle between good and evil represents a form of duality.

In this case we have the 2 actions: to destroy and to repair. These are at odds with each other but even so they capability of both is given to one person. The player in this case. By this token you are essentially been given the power to bring ruin or bring safety. The very possibility of repairing something asks the question: "Should this even have been destroyed in the first place". And if you just leave a trail of destruction behind you are you a worse person then the one who meticulously repairs everything behind him? (yes I know it is getting rather high and mighty here) By providing an extra tool that stands in contrast to the rest of your stuff makes for an enlightening effect. And that was what I meant.

I hope this made my views more clear. If not (and you if your still curious) just quote me again or drop me a line.

 

[rickicker]

So I take it you're also not a fan of the "Resident Milla Jovovich" movies then, eh, Yahtzee? XD

It's sad when a game tries to outdo the original only to fall flat back on its arse and reminded us of its far superior predecessor. I have an idea, THQ: why don't you take a two months break, refresh that idea well, and come back with something that's actually GOOD?

P.S. That joke at the end killed me. Yes, I'm one of Yahtzee's girlfriends.

 

[JakobBloch]

The repair/destroy creates a great duality and it leaves the developers free to let you destroy most everything simply because you can remove them again.

So the only way to make the series' hallmark destructible scenery thing work was to let you reverse it with a ridiculous undo gun? This is a good thing?

Also,

The repair/destroy creates a great duality

What on earth do you mean by this?

I think that was his attempt to make himself sound "deep" for all the ladies reading on here to swoon over.

Too bad that, like the game, he isn't deep. The gameplay was generic, that magnet gun was there just to be there, and served no real purpose otherwise. I don't know if he just missed that, but that was what Yahtzee was getting at. It served the same exact purpose the other guns all served, nothing more and nothing less.
And sure, there is great "duality", when all you can destroy is that chair over there again and again, that's about as much fun as the destruction mechanic had.

Guerrilla was a hell of a lot better in both story and gameplay, no if ands or buts. It didn't need some cheesy "rebuild" trick. Oh no... I destroyed the stairs that let me walk into the big bad fortress, whatever shall I do? Then, cue me jacking one of the military's heavy-armored vehicles, loading it up with a super-bomb and C4. I drive right towards the wall, jump out, it smashes right on through and I detonate... HUGE FUCKING AWESOME EXPLOSION ENSUES.

Nothing at all even remotely like that in Armageddon for me.

Personal attacks. Classy.

I am not certain what you wanted the magnet gun to be beyond what it was? My point was that you do not need contrived reasons for something to be in a game. It is enough to say: "You have a magnet gun. It works like this. Go have fun." Of course they could have made heaps of things specifically for the magnet gun but they did not. It was just a gun with a funny mechanic. Why does it need anything else?

As for destructibility of the surroundings. True it could not be done on as grand a scale as in Guerrilla BUT pretty much everything you ran into that was man made could be destroyed. Some concrete stuff could not be destroyed. Some plot-specific things could not be destroyed. Most everything else could be destroyed. Instead of giving you vehicles to blow up in this one they gave you the ability to repair. As innovation goes this is more of step forward then just supplying bigger explosions or giving you the ability to make glorified carbombs. Hmm that was unduly antagonistic. Your example with big explosions was quite nice and compelling and strictly speaking Guerrilla also had the repair tool albeit in a lesser form.

For some reason I feel like going on. I have meet this often. People hating on Armageddon because Volition choose to go back to a linear formate rather then continue the sandbox games of Guerrilla. I find this reasoning faulty. Red Faction is for the most part a series of linear shooters. Guerrilla stands out as the only one following another formulae, in that of a sandbox. So Armageddon becomes a return to the games roots (complete with one off vehicle sections). Whether one or the other is better is a discussion I will not indulge as in many ways the 2 are kinda like apples and oranges. They are both shooters certainly but beyond that they are worlds apart. On the shooter side I suppose we can make comparisons. The selection of weapons is larger in Guerrilla with a greater emphasis on mines and grenades. Armageddon weapons actually seem more geared toward destruction. There are some weapons that do no damage to structures but the greater part of them have significant destructive power. So it seems that Guerrilla is more a game for the tactician while Armageddon is more for the gun slinging fool. I suppose that makes me a foolish tactician.

 

[JakobBloch]

Also,

The repair/destroy creates a great duality

What on earth do you mean by this?

hmm if the problem is the lack of something after repair/destroy I have addressed that. If the problem is duality, the explanation is another. So lets take that one. Duality has many meanings. In this case I use it in the meaning where it represents 2 distinct and actually contradictory parts of a whole (for another example of this I present Yin and Yang). You often see this kind of thing in morality and philosophy. Another place you see it is in entertainment of various kinds. The battle between good and evil represents a form of duality.

In this case we have the 2 actions: to destroy and to repair. These are at odds with each other but even so they capability of both is given to one person. The player in this case. By this token you are essentially been given the power to bring ruin or bring safety. The very possibility of repairing something asks the question: "Should this even have been destroyed in the first place". And if you just leave a trail of destruction behind you are you a worse person then the one who meticulously repairs everything behind him? (yes I know it is getting rather high and mighty here) By providing an extra tool that stands in contrast to the rest of your stuff makes for an enlightening effect. And that was what I meant.

I am pretty close to being a "games-are-art fag" like Yahtzee and the Extra Credits crew, and from that stance I say this is a bunch of high-falutin' pomposity that amounts to nothing.

You mean to tell me that a shooting game where the only goal is to kill things (where even to repair that machine at the end is done to kill the aliens) is doing a treatment of the ambiguous moral nature of violence? It's not credible.

Well. Seven Samurai is about great fighting and so is the matrix. Do I think this game rises to that level? Certainly not. But intentionally or not Volition put two mechanics that were both distinct, interlocked and contradictory into the players hands and then left it up to the player what to do with them. But I see your point (and conceded it in my previous post as well). But we can take the concept to a lower level. When you play the game do you look for opportunities where destroying something would help you out or are you more aware of the places where are repair job might do the trick? That is a more "ground level" look at it. The thing here is that different people will say different things. I will admit I was more inclined to blow stuff up, but I did use the repair tool to higher ground or to make me some cover or in some cases to speed my progress.

A point I need to make here: I was not making an argument for violence vs non-violence. At least not in a way that made one more morally acceptable then the other. I was trying to make a point about the duality of destroying something and creating something. I may not have done it very well.

 

[Erana]

Nitpick: The only audio book that would get that bad after the wash is a cassette tape.

You old fart, Yahtzee, you.

Hey, I still call them, "Books on tape," and I'm but a relatively wee lass.

That being said, I enjoyed this episode a lot. Mostly the comedic timing with the visuals and the absence of the unnecessary sex and feces humor. Its in my book as one of my favorite ZPs.

I realise now that my favorite part about the series is the visuals. The mental image of the Heavenly Swords and Other Stuff scene with Nariko spinning around with the confused mobs still makes me chuckle after all these years...

 

[FallenMessiah88]

From what I've seen so far, this game looks really dull.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

Come to think of it, this review was all over the place too. I almost forgot the game took place on Mars.

 

[dariuseng]

Even though Yahtzee is right about everything else, I think it is bad that he didn't look to see if their was actually something bridging the gap. this was done by the TV movie Red Faction: Origins, which, though not that good, still shows Jake Mason, Darius father, deafening Adam Hale, the main villain in Armageddon.

 

[putowtin]

I think people only pre ordered this game for the Saint's Row 3 code they included.

Nice work Yahtzee see you in a week!

 

[Britisheagle]

I actually really enjoyed this game. LIke he said combat is fun but I have to agree whole heartedly that the story had no sense of direction. Equally a lot of variety.

Still a great review

 

[Spambot 3000]

A game where you repair the generators to turn the forcefield OFF sounds poorly made.

 

[lordlillen]

Anyone else noticed yahtzee actually took a breath?

 

[Triaed]

"LSL4: The Case of the Missing Floppies" is the best game ever!

Is it just me or does Yahtzee's hills look like buttocks?

 

[endplanets]

In Red Faction: Guerrilla there is a very subtle and nice romance between Mason and the blonde female. It fit her theme as a bad-ass with real emotions and yet not pathetically emotional. The romance also goes well with the somewhat nice part where she convinces Mason to trust her even though she was a Marauder.

So in the SyFy movie about the game 20 or 30ish years in the future, you find out that she died off screen.
Nice.

 

[Deathlisk]

The game was actually ok, but yeah. The story makes no sense and the cult leader is a much more interesting enemy than the bugs. And he is never really explained either.

In the first half the game is ok, but then the only interesting enemy gets decapatated and you just look at everything feeling sad about how little sense this makes. Then you use berserk and kill everything that you can see.

 

[RelexCryo]

There wasn't a second game, but there was a TV movie, that honestly didn't really explain much of what's happening in Armageddon. Although, it's possibly one of the best game inspired movies ever made, it's non-sucking factor is surprisingly high.

Armageddon's story still gives me nightmares, it's like the people who wrote it just thew ideas up against a wall and put in what stuck.

Actually, there was a *second* game, and by second I mean first. Red Faction guerrilla was not the first game, the first game was a PS2 game that was just called Red faction. There was sequel on the PS2, called Red Faction 2, then came Guerrilla on the Xbox 360, then came Armageddon. Armageddon was the 4th game in the series to my knowledge.

 

[unacomn]

Actually, there was a *second* game, and by second I mean first. Red Faction guerrilla was not the first game, the first game was a PS2 game that was just called Red faction. There was sequel on the PS2, called Red Faction 2, then came Guerrilla on the Xbox 360, then came Armageddon. Armageddon was the 4th game in the series to my knowledge.

I meant second as in between Guerrilla and Armageddon, like the chart that Yatzhee showed. That missing bit of story was explained (sort of) in the Red Faction Origins TV movie a few weeks ago.I know there were previous Red Faction games, mind you, the first one didn't really work on a SiS 315 because of it's horrible drivers, so I never got to play it beyond the first tunnels.

 

[roxasneo]

why did he keep making references to some third game in between the two that should've been there? there was an entire fucking movie, its called red faction origins, and it was probably better than the games