Red Faction II

Red Faction II is a first-person shooter video game developed by Volition and published by THQ for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox and Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to Red Faction and the second installment of the Red Faction series.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) For some reason, the multiplayer is exclusive to consoles and was never made available to PC.
 * 2) The game itself is separated from the first game and the only mention of the first game has to do with the nanotechnology research conducted by the villain of the first game.
 * 3) While the game has a lot more weapons than the first game, most of them are useless due to the game constantly giving you a better weapon of the same class, making a lot of them redundant. The Sniper Rifle, for example, is quickly outdone by the Percision Sniper Rifle since the latter has the ability to look and shoot through walls.
 * 4) The plot is really weak.
 * 5) *You're introduced to a bunch of super soldiers that have all been injected with nanotechnology and, at first, the game makes it out that Red Faction and this squad is going to fight against the tyrannical governement: The Commonwealth. This goal is completed in just a couple of levels with half of the squad suddenly turning their backs against Red Faction after the Commonwealth plead their alligance to the leader: Molov. The rest of the game is hunting down these traitorous people.
 * 6) **This could've been an interesting plot or even twist at the end, but the game just rushes through all of it without giving the player any rhyme or reason as to why they should care since you barely spend any time with the squad, and their goal seems to be only that they don't want peace because then they'd be out of a job.
 * 7) The game has three different endings, but to acquire the best ending is done through a tedious mechanic: the Heroic meter. When the player completes a bonus objective, the meter will fill. When the player kills a civillian or a friendly, the meter drops. Depending on how full the meter is and how many civillians you kill will determine the ending. The problem is that the bonus objectives are never told to the player, but instead is hinted by what your teammates say. If your teammates mention a roadblock destroying the roadblock will give you points. The balancing for the meter is also bad as it's much easier for the meter to drop than it is to fill, adding to the tediousness.
 * 8) The motion capture is noticably worse than the first game with the characters standing perfectly still, not blinking, and the only thing moving is their mouth. Compare this to the first game where characters moved and talked more naturally.
 * 9) The gunplay is pretty bad. The first game's was pretty slow and even a bit clunky, but here, there is no need for any kind of strategy since you can just run up and gun down nearly any enemy you see.
 * 10) The game is very easy. The first game wasn't all that challenging mind you, but there are many factors that make the game too easy. One, due to how bad the gunplay is (BQ#7) it makes conflicts far too easy to overcome; two, the game has both regenerative health and medikits; three, the player can hold three medikits and when your health runs out a medikit is automatically used; four, every other enemy drops a medikit so you'll never have to look for one or try to take cover since you'll never run out.
 * 11) The boss fights are all bad and lazily designed as each fight requires no strategy aside from just shooting the boss (perferrably with grenades since the bosses have too many healty points) until they die.
 * 12) *Quill's fight takes place in a church where Quill herself snipes you from a balcony while enemies fire upon you from the upper level and the Processed attack you on the ground. This may sound difficult, but as long as you move around a pillar close to the balcony and kill the enemies around you while spamming grenades towards Quill, you'll win pretty easily.
 * 13) *Reptta's fight is in a generator room where electricity is flying everywhere (which can hurt you), and he wields a quintuple grenade launcher. All while fighting on a series of railings that is mostly vertical. You can easily die if you stop moving at any point and as the boss fight progresses some of the railing will fall.
 * 14) **You also have to fight him again, but this time he has telekinesis and constantly jumps around. The area is also completely horizontal and mostly consists of the player standing around and shooting him.
 * 15) *Molov has easily the worst boss fight, but the most challenging. You have to fight him in a mech suit while using a wall as a shield. The mech can easily be defeated as you get Reptta's grenade launcher from the previous fight and will drain the mech's health. However, once that's done, Molov gets out and fights you with a rail gun which can insta-kill you. The only way to counter this is by constantly strafing in one direction until he fires and then shift to the opposite direction. If you don't, he will kill you every time.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Great graphics for the time that manage to smoothen out the roughness of the first game.
 * 2) The game improves on the controls allowing the player to move more elegantly and the animations are much shorter when reloading or when pulling out a weapon.
 * 3) Good voice acting especially from Lance Henriksson as Movlov.
 * 4) Good soundtrack.

Reception
The PlayStation 2 and GameCube versions received "favorable" reviews, while the Xbox and PC versions received "mixed or average reviews", according to Metacritic.

The game's short campaign and lack of online multiplayer were criticised by many. Redeeming features include dual wielding, great split-screen multiplayer, and improved graphics.

Fans were not pleased with the game and considers it to this day to be the the black sheep of the franchise.

Videos
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