I’ve had this game for quite awhile, but never bothered to play it. Since I got the road done on the MRT, I’ve been in a ‘bleh’ mood. Wanted something to do, yet didn’t know what to do.
I saw Dan was doing a ‘Nerd 3 Completes’ series of this game, and thought of giving it a go. Having played it for the first five minutes, I can see why he likes this game. I personally didn’t in the past, as the game looked… grainy and old. I just found it a bit boring running around destroying random things. Plus, I didn’t get why this ‘EDF’, who are the good guys, are after you. It seems like you’re a bad guy.
It still does, but I’m trying to get over it. “Because if Dan likes it, I should!” He’s the one who can’t recommend it enough.
It’s sometime in the future, and Mars has been terraformed and made breathable to humans. You play as Alec Mason, a Class C demolitions expert who’s sent to Mars to look for honest work, by destroying abandoned structures. The EDF(Earth Defense Force) is in control of the planet. Something’s happened to them over the years, and they’ve turned from helping the human race, to threatening and murder.
The ‘Red Faction’, who still fight for freedom, are the only ones standing in their way. But with their numbers dwindling, they need help.
Your bother is here, and he tells you how to destroy stuff with your sledgehammer and explosive charges. Destroying a structure is as realistic as possible in a game. By destroying the supports, the building whines and creaks under stress until eventually it falls down. How it falls, depends on where you hit the critical weak points.
You can get Scrap from this (the currency of the game), which can be turned into useful stuff (like being able to throw more explosive charges, or stronger charges) by turning it in.
You lose your brother to the EDF. And so, like it or not (since the EDF is going to kill you anyway), you’re drafted into the Red Faction to liberate Mars from the EDF. You become a bad guy, which.. I don’t particularly like. But neither did your brother, who tried to convince you that what they have to do is to help people, and the EDF are ‘the real bad guys’.
And that’s pretty much the theme of the game. You destroy things owned by the EDF, and run away from the bullets heading towards you afterwards. You also have the option of liberating colonists from the EDF.