Red Faction: Guerrilla

By numerarius5988am on March 10, 2010 12:41:38 AM from

I came across this game by recommendation of a friend. I've been looking through the features of the game, storyline, characters and such and I wonder if it is possible to play as the IDF faction rather than the Palestinian faction. Or would I be incorrect that the storyline of this game is analogous to the perspective of the peoples surrounding Israel?

As far as how the game looks, it seems to be fairly cool. But do I have to play as Red Faction? I want to play as the EDF and I would be buying it for the PC, if that would make any difference.

Note: I posted this originally on the Red Faction forum, but their forum seems to be dead. I would like to know these two items though, (1) am I correct in my analysis that this game is, perhaps, intentionally analogous to the anti-Israel sentiments of the nations surrounding Israel? And (2), is there a way to play as the (I/E)DF?

+15 Karma | 3 Replies

I'll answer point 2 first. You can't play the role of the EDF during the single player campaign. For the campaign you take the role of Alex Mercer, an individual who recently moved to Mars whose brother was then killed by the EDF. Unsurprisingly he then joins the Red Faction.

During multiplayer, however, you can choose to play as an EDF character, although this is a purely cosmetic difference. The multiplayer experience isn't changed by the skin you choose to play with.

As for point 1, the game is a totally fictious work with very little grounding in the real world (its set on Mars and features giant destructive robots!). While I suppose you could draw some comparisons between the game and the Isreal-Palestine conflict, those same comparisons could equally be drawn between the game and any one of the numerous other real world conflicts whereby an oppressed guerilla faction takes up arms against the ruling power.

I wouldn't go looking for hidden meanings where they don't exist. That just leads to missing out on lots of cool games.

I have only general knowledge of the Israeli conflict (whatever's on the news), but I didn't note any similarities. If there are any, I'd be pretty sure that they are unintentional. You definitely can't play as the EDF, except in multiplayer. The story is very rigid and unoriginal.

I wouldn't get the game for the story or geopolitical similarities. The gameplay is fun if you like leveling buildings with everything from a sledgehammer to hydrobaric rockets (I do, I enjoyed playing the game a lot), but any roleplay that you don't make up yourself is not worth considering in your purchase decision.

The game's fun is in destruction. The story sucks. It could have been good, but it is not. Stupid twists, very anticlimatic... And no, you can't play as EDF. There's a few EDF skins for MP though. The campaign is all right if you forget the story, open world adds some replayablitiy to the missions. Cheats that are unlocked by playing through the game are fun occasionally.

Don't bother comparing the Red Faction to Palestinians or anything. They're anarchists who want to bee free of a police state, and achieve this by destroying everything they're gonna need after the conflict... I don't think that's what's happening in the Middle East.

Can't say much about multiplayer, if it doesn't lag and no one exploits the camera (not telling how) and everyones about equal, it's fun. For a time.

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Red Faction: Guerrilla