Resurrection: Red Faction
Anti-hero…
Resurrection: Red Faction
Continued…
Maybe it’s escapism. It’s what the modern videogame form does so very well, after all: taking us to places we could never visit, positioning us in roles usually confined to dreams. Red Faction’s implausibility lends itself surprisingly well to this, and the chance to rise from everyman to every man’s hero is what drives experiences like this one. As you plough through the Ultor facility in search of your freedom, your reputation rises. People begin to recognise you: “You’re that miner from Sector M4! I can’t believe you’ve made it this far!” And it feels good.
Or maybe it’s my inexplicable love of Total Recall. Arnie’s big dumb Red Planet excursion seems to the film from which Red Faction draws most of its inspiration, to the point where not only the location but also much of the actual story is lifted straight out of it. It smacks of a lack of ideas, or even a stubborn refusal to think outside the box. For many, it’d be off-putting. For me, strangely, it sat quite nicely.
But why, of all of Red Faction, that one section? While by no means the worst part of the game (that award goes unequivocally to the ’sneak in and escort’ section halfway through, involving the stealthy kidnapping of a man who enjoys walking into walls far too much for his own good), it’s not particularly better than any other bit either. In fact, Red Faction remains so consistently stale throughout that’s it’s rather difficult to pinpoint any specific highlights. Manning a submarine through an aquatic cave segment is somewhat thrilling, and the set-piece where the escape pod blows up provides for some agreeable thrills. But nothing really stands out on its own merits. Not even this.
Engaged
But maybe, just maybe, that’s the key. In a game like Red Faction, one that puts so little effort into creating these moments for you, perhaps you go one of two ways. Either you turn off, idly shooting away until the end credits roll and you cast the game into a pit of forgotten memories. Or you tune in, you engage, you make the game your own. And, the more I think about it, the more I become certain that’s what I did eight years ago in the back of a truck, heading towards my clouded destiny.
Who is truly at the centre of this medium? Gamers have long assumed that the community is at the heart of online games, but what about the story-driven, single-player experience? Most, I’d wager, would consider it to be the developer, finely-tuning their experience in order to manipulate their bitch, the player.
Red Faction, to me, suggests otherwise. This is a distinctly clumsy game, a heavy sack of lazy design, wrapped in a colourful shroud of marketing deceit. But it’s not about them. It’s about me. It’s about my engagement with this entertainment, this art, whatever you want to call it. It’s about getting caught up in moments, about letting go of the mundane restrictions 
of everyday life, and committing – for better or for worse – to the world on-screen in front of you. It’s about rejecting one reality, and connecting with another.
So I became Parker. I shed a real tear. I readied my firearm and, screaming, poured hot lead into the mass of cold killers on the bridge ahead. I saved my friends from certain doom, and I escaped that forsaken planet, heading back to my own home. I was a hero, a real fucking hero, and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way – least of all shoddy level design, nonsensical narrative exposition or inferior technology.
Did a games developer create these important memories, or did I? “A man chooses; a slave obeys,” a twisted suit would shout six years later, the focal point of a game that tells us we will never, ever be free from the developer’s reigns.
I reject this. Are you a slave to the foibles of your entertainment? Or are you that hero, fighting for the lives of humanity with every last breath?
I know, from now on, which one I’m going to be.
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>Are you a slave to the foibles of your entertainment? Or are you that hero, fighting for the lives of humanity with every last breath?
It mostly depends. I think it doesn’t even depend on the game. It depends on the moment of my life when I’m playing it.
I’ve had foul games inspire me into continuing and somehow jump over all the obvious inadequacies of the design, art, AI or what have you, and get in-character (e.g. Breed, since we are on FPS grounds). While others, being showered in praise, didn’t (e.g. Half Life). I would play them like a an emotionless and pragmatic HAL more interested in exploring the weaknesses of the design, completely oblivious to the harm I could cause to the “lives” of the characters within.
And I don’t think either that any of these games lead me into it. I did. I do think that we set the tone. The game plants the signs and nudges you more or less efficiently. But ultimately, whether this will be a role play experience or a gamer experience will be largely based on our own motivational values at the time. Values that can also be affected by all sorts of things external to the game itself. Like how’s life going, have I been payed, is my wife angry at me, did the kids turn good grades?
Mario: “Like how’s life going, have I been payed, is my wife angry at me, did the kids turn good grades?”
You too, huh?
Yeah.
I remember once, many years ago, during the early days of Doom 2. I got home from work uterly pissed of. I had this big argument with a workmate who, through lies and sabotage, got another workmate sacked. I couldn’t prove it, but I knew it had been him.
I wasn’t married yet and girlfriend was out of town. I sat at the computer, brought Doom 2, pumped up difficulty to Nightmare and blasted my way through those damn bastard spawns of hell for maybe 3 hours, clenching my teeth and feeling absolutely hateful towards them.
That was, to date my best, most enjoyable FPS game. That day, on Doom 2.
And I never played through nightmare so well before or since, either.