There Goes the Neighborhood
Red Faction: Guerrilla is a fun game to play. There are explosions that are meaty and things that fall down. Walls can have holes in them, whole bridges can collapse if you so chose. It speaks to feelings of empowerment evoked in so many titles in the action genre. I have previously made mention of Red Faction in my post about how actions within a game environment can change, by altering its composition, how we react to and experience it.. Upon reflection I think that the “world-destruction” element of the game’s design whilst providing a very enjoyable experience in altering the game space also contributes to Red Faction’s main failing.
Now, Red Faction is a fun game to play, but it has a story that is done a service by being called “throw-away”, as if you actually had something to hold in the first place. You can take a look at any review of the game and they invariably make mention of the flawed narrative that overlays a brilliant gaming experience. But, you are not drawn into the world of the Red Faction struggle, the plight of the people of Mars, or the machinations of a cold and sadistic EDF and this flaw is seldom an issue because you can still enjoy the title anyway. And the source of these flaws seems readily identifiable; the weak voice acting, poor writing and a lack of meaingful character development (I have to strain to remember the name of the Alex’s brother, the reason you drawn into the “resistance”). These elements are recongisable because the open world / sandbox genre of games now contains examples of narrative done right, or at least better. Grand Theft Auto: IV springs to mind.
However, in Red Faction: Guerrilla even if they had gotten the narrative right, it would not have made a lick of difference because the very nature of the gameplay would acts as a barrier. Upon completion of the story, you as Alex Mason have liberated the sectors of Mars, destroyed the EDF power base and freed the Martians. If this conclusion came at the end of compelling narrative developments you have might believably felt pride in your special achievement, helping those whose survival you care about. However, you have also destroyed the very infrastructure of Mars in doing so, and therein lies the problem.
The destruction engine of the game results in an open world of ruins. Moving around a ‘liberated’ Mars evokes a sense of despair even if the people around you seem oblivious. The Red Faction has shot itself in the foot by eliminating the means by which they might be able to improve conditions on Mars now that the EDF has been defeated. The destructive changes to the world of Mars in Red Faction: Guerilla, which lie solely in the hands of the player, clash with the possible feelings of achievement already noted. You would be inheriting a junkyard. But, because the narrative is weak, you have little attachment to the struggle of the story and therefore the destruction can be labelled as fun and your actions are meaningless. This possibility speaks to an area of concern of mine in contemporary games design, that the interaction between game design and narrative is not being full realised by developers.
The success of Red Faction: Guerrilla financially leads me to believe that a sequel will be in the pipeline soon. If Volition take the criticisms of narrative that are so prevalent and fix them for a follow up the result might not be a better gaming experience. This is because the flaws we all seem to spot so easily do not address the relationship of narrative to gameplay in the game and the consequences of one upon the other. Is it simply a matter of the immaturity of the games industry? Or, are actions games doomed to always be the mindless “popcorn” experiences that can also be seen in modern cinema?
