Simply put, my favorite game of all time . To this day, no game comes close to replicating the level of chaos and destruction that red faction guerrilla offers. If you're a destruction fan; this game is a straight-up classic. If you're not, you will see this game as nothing more than a flawed GTA clone. Which is not a comparison that should be made, as both games are two different kinds of game. Red Faction Guerrilla isn't a pale copy of GTA with a destructible environment slapped on to it, like most critics make it seem to be. The whole game had to be designed around destruction. It is well intended the end result isn't a saint row game (to the dismay of a certain fedora wearing reviewer). The destruction in this game is not a mere gimmick, it is the entire gameplay. This review won't go over everything I love about the game but rather over what people seem to dislike about it. Please allow me to rant as I give my perspective on the most common critics and shortcomings attributed to my favorite game: The story is weak I'll concede that the story is unremarkable, and you won't remember any of the characters. But so what? What if the game doesn't have a good story ? It is serviceable and explain why you are blowing stuff up well enough. How is it fair to criticizes something the game doesn't have and never claimed to have? It sure would have been cool if the story would defy player expectation and everything, but that would just be icing on the cake, not the main course. The environment is bland The bland environment wasn't the devs being lazy. It was a necessity to make the game physically simulated open-world able to run at more than two frame per second on the 7th generation of consoles (we're talking PS3 gen here). So of course, there is a lot of dead space between built areas, an ever present fog, and very little clutter. But even with those concessions, I think they did a pretty good job at giving each sector their own personality. Beside their obvious distinct color palette each region has their own type of terrain and building architecture. [*]Parker, has narrow spiky mountains and jury-rigged buildings. [*]Dust, is mostly flat with roads going everywhere and squarish industrial buildings. [*]The Badlands, are large valleys with military installations contrasting with mysterious ruins. [*]Oasis, is a condensed flat area with grass growing and funky looking residential areas. [*]Eos, is a very vertical landscape with luxurious building with glass everywhere. Those are details that you generally do not notice nor care about while playing, but it is nice to have if you do. The friendly AI is infuriating Let's be fair, the AI is pretty impressive, even compared to today standard. The AI get to cover, navigate in partially destroyed buildings, avoid vehicles and grenades coming at them. It's pretty darn good if you ask me. The complaint about AI being dumb comes from your allies being a nuisance to you. They might run you over or crash into your car amidst the chaos and that's just harmless fun. What can really be infuriating though is that you lose morale score when they die. This simple punishment automatically make them look like headless chicken running to the meat grinder when you aren't here to babysit them. What you should do is, stop caring and letting them die. With experience, you'll learn that morale do not matter in the grand scheme of things, and it can go up very fast anyway. Besides, having a low morale score decreases the chance of those pesky friendlies coming to hinder you again. The endless horde of EDF is annoying This is by design. You are not supposed to survive the red alert by standing your ground. The game tries to push guerrilla tactics (not gorilla). When the red alert comes, you must leave or at least plan an evade route. It doesn't mean you are forced to go straight back to base like a sore loser. You just have to go cause mayhem elsewhere while the EDF try to catch up to you. This is how the game was intended to be played, you'll find ammo crates all around the map to keep your carnage going. It makes for a fun loop of fighting, destroying, evading. If you're just looking to experiment with the destruction, there is a separate wrecking crew mode just for that. Also, if you have trouble staying alive, do not feel bad about lowering the difficulty level. This game is supposed to offer a power fantasy not a challenge. The driving is bad We are on Mars and the road are bumpy dirt tracks. If you go too fast you'll have plenty of airtime during which the vehicle is unsteerable. Naturally this make for a frustrating racing experience. But yet again, this isn't GTA, you're not supposed to be racing, you're supposed to ram heavy-duty vehicles through concrete walls. I'd even go as far as to say the driving is especially designed to make you crash into things while trying to escape, making the drive home that little more eventful. The game is repetitive I'll agree that the side content of this game is working against it. There is just way too much of it. The game requires you to grind it to unlock the fun stuff with the needed salvage. This is a genuine design flaw in my opinion. They shouldn't have made the salvage economy this grindy. The game is way more fun when played fast, not when going the completionist route. Some side missions are to be avoided at all cost because of their ability to absorb the fun out of you: the transporter mission, courier mission or even hostage rescues (for some people). Furthermore, the destruction you caused stays. So the longer you stay in one area the less fun stuff there is to destroy. It is best to speed run the liberation of Mars while wreaking havoc in your way. Conclusion This game is misunderstood as a terrible GTA clone, but offers you an amazingly unique destruction sandbox that no other game will ever give you. Like any video game, it has its flaws, but most reviewers blow them out of proportion in my opinion. The flaws are nitpicks compared to the uniqueness and the fun the game will bring you. Furthermore, what this game achieved on a PS3 out of all consoles, is nothing short of a miracle. This is what make me so mad. The lukewarm reception of this game from the critics just showed the whole industry that complete destructible environment wasn't worth the effort. Now all we have are beautiful but immuable world to explore with eyes only, physics and world interactivity is reduced to an afterthought. About the remaster The remaster is okay. Functionally it is not the best. It introduces annoying bugs but fixes various issues from the original in return. Visually it is 'how i remembered the original to look' kind of deal. It is high definition and very faithful. It also adds some neat visual sugar on top, like cloud casting shadows (which i like a lot). You won't see any difference with the original going in. But you will definitely notice them when you switch back to the original. I would say this remaster is the definitive version to play despite the small issues it got. I had high hopes it would reboot the series, but then stuff happened... now the whole studio would need to be rebooted. About the multiplayer The multiplayer isn't dead, despite what you may think when trying to look for a match. The multiplayer relies on players hosting the games (no official or dedicated servers), so there are very few chances you'll find players by waiting in a lobby. It would require somebody, somewhere doing the exact same hopeless thing. If you want to experience the very fun multiplayer component of this game, join the "RF:G" multiplayer group chat ([url=https://steamcommunity.com/chat/invite/GY7qYFKd]invite link ) and tell people you're looking to play, you'll get a match.