Red Faction II

What a disappointment. Everything that made the original Red Faction interesting is missing here. The story isn't as engaging. The setting, now on boring old Earth, isn't nearly as fun as playing on Mars. The characters are even more generic and forgettable than in the first game and now their performances are even worse. The music doesn't stand out at all. And geo-mod is barely used. There are whole levels where it's missing and all the walls of the boring tunnels are indestructible. What a waste. As far as shooters from the time go there's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it just feels super low budget and bland. It has similar aesthetics and production values of a Nintendo 64 shooter instead of a sequel to the literal ground breaking original. It runs fine on the Steam Deck and my Bazzite PC. You need a widescreen mod to prevent the aspect ratio from stretching but I didn't even bother installing it on Steam Deck and I barely noticed the stretching on the already taller 16:10 display. It's short so play it once if you're as big of a fan of the original as I am. Otherwise, almost anything else would be a better use of your time.

I liked all of the others but this I just had to force myself through. Wasn't fun at all

bishop from alien as voice actor for the classic character molov is very funny however this is possibly one of the worst fps games ever created, but its funny to play and works sort of, so a thumbs up but a 1/5 nothing game thank you

Unplayable. Don't bother trying to fix it just get the one from GOG, it runs out of the box perfectly fine. Hate having to leave a negative review because I really enjoy Red Faction 2 but the one on Steam just wont run.

I remember playing this on the PS2 right after I beat the first game and wasn't really a big fan of it so I never finished it. I finally decided after many years to finally sit down and go through it on PC. It's honestly an alright game. It's a lot more linear than the first game and the destruction is scaled down which I wasn't a fan of. The game does have some big names for some of the characters. Lance Henriksen voices Molov and Jason Statham voices Shrike which is pretty awesome. I actually enjoyed the vehicle sections except the damn submarine one, which I hated. The game is pretty short and fairly easy except for the final boss, which is a major pain in the ass and caused most of my deaths. [spoiler] The insta-kill rail gun that Molov uses on the second phase can ♥♥♥♥ off [/spoiler] Overall, I'd say if you're interested in the game it's worth a playthrough but it doesn't tie into the later games so skipping it is fine.

[h1]Red Faction II — ★☆☆☆☆[/h1] [b]RF II[/b] оказалась одной из тех игр, которые лучше сохранились в воспоминаниях, чем в реальности. Перепройдя её в 2026 году, я искренне удивился тому, насколько иначе она воспринимается спустя годы. Возможно, дело в моральном и техническом устаревании, но сегодня игра выглядит крайне посредственно даже по меркам своего времени. 🔹Одной из ключевых особенностей [i]RF II[/i] является разрушаемость окружения, однако этот элемент используется настолько редко, что быстро перестаёт восприниматься как важная часть игрового процесса. За всё прохождение я лишь несколько раз столкнулся с ситуациями, где разрушение объектов действительно имело какое-либо значение. 🔹Сюжет также не смог удержать моё внимание. История развивается предсказуемо, персонажи пытаются казаться интересными и проработанными, но на деле выглядят довольно поверхностно и не вызывают особого интереса. В результате происходящее на экране довольно быстро начинает восприниматься как череда однообразных перестрелок без заметного развития. 🔸Впрочем, есть и положительный момент: игра проходится достаточно быстро. Кампания не успевает сильно утомить, а финальный босс хотя бы пытается предложить игроку какой-то вызов на фоне остальной игры. После перепрохождения мне сложно рекомендовать [i]RF II[/i] тем, кто не испытывает к ней ностальгии. Сегодня игра может представлять интерес разве что для тех, кто хочет познакомиться со старыми шутерами начала 2000-х. Лично для меня она осталась довольно посредственной попыткой повторить популярные идеи своего времени, не предложив ничего по-настоящему запоминающегося, кроме частичной разрушаемости окружения. [hr] [b]RF II[/b] turned out to be one of those games that are better preserved in memories than in reality. Having replayed it in 2026, I was genuinely surprised at how differently it feels after all these years. Perhaps it’s due to moral and technical obsolescence, but today the game looks extremely mediocre even by the standards of its time. 🔹One of the key features of [i]RF II[/i] is environmental destructibility, yet this element is used so rarely that it quickly stops feeling like an important part of the gameplay. Throughout the entire playthrough, I only encountered a few situations where destroying objects actually mattered. 🔹The story also failed to hold my attention. The plot develops predictably, the characters try to seem interesting and well-developed, but in reality come across as fairly shallow and fail to evoke much interest. As a result, what happens on screen quickly starts to feel like a series of monotonous shootouts with little noticeable progression. 🔸That said, there is a positive aspect: the game is fairly short. The campaign doesn’t have time to become too tiresome, and the final boss at least tries to offer the player some challenge compared to the rest of the game. After replaying it, I find it hard to recommend [i]RF II[/i] to anyone who doesn’t feel nostalgic about it. Today, the game might only be of interest to those who want to get acquainted with old shooters from the early 2000s. Personally, it remains a rather mediocre attempt to replicate the popular ideas of its time, offering nothing truly memorable except for partial environmental destructibility.

Bad Ai, bad level design, bad gunplay, bad story. I got the nerves to play through the first several levels. It is not enjoyable at all.

If you really love Red Faction 1 but haven't played II you're probably going to be disappointed. It seems Volition completely misread fan feedback and enthusiasm about RF1 and inexplicably went a very different direction with this sequel. When I picked this game up for PS2 back in the day I hoped for a continuation of RF1's story, more or better RF1 style gameplay, and more geo-mod fun. Story wise this game borrows one macguffin from RF1 but is otherwise completely unrelated and the game takes place on Earth. The gunplay feels about the same as RF1 with some variations. RF II actually pulls back on the geomod tech that made RF1 unique and it's barely used in the campaign. If you liked RF1's multiplayer you're out of luck here as Volition inexplicably decided to not include online MP on RF II. All that said, I do like RF II. I've spent hours speed running it and I think it's kinda a charming microcosm of its time. The story and dialogue is cheesy on purpose as it's meant to be a satire to the typical action shlock that was popular in the early 00's. Moreover some of the story beats are meant to reference the U.S.'s conflict in Iraq which was a new issue when this game was being developed. I can only really recommend this game as a picture of its time and if you don't appreciate generic early 00's shooters or culture I can't really see anyone enjoying this as a first playthrough in 2026. At this point Volition is dead and the series IP is owned by a third party unlikely to ever revisit what made Red Faction special. Buyer beware- know what you're getting into. The game is also missing a lot of the creature comforts, bug fixes, and visual fidelity made possible for RF1 by dedicated community modders. There is a launcher being worked on that fixed most issues but it is not public at the moment as far as I know. If you're interested, check the FactionFiles discord (invite link is on factionfiles .com).

I played this game more than 20 years ago (that much I remember), but I didn't remember much - not how long I played it or if I finished it (I think back then I didn't). Just that you couldn't destroy as much as in the first game of this franchise and that I didn't like it as much. I recently (yesterday) started playing the game again and finished today (admittedly: with cheats). The game is a mess. In most parts of the game, enemies keep respawning again and again, which artificially raises the difficulty and forces you to constantly move on. On the other side the objectives and the direction to go are so poorly telegraphed even though the game feels much more linear than the previous game. The shooting and running is so monotonous and, as you can barely destroy any surroundings anymore, some tactical aspects are just missing. The story? Feels very chaotic and poorly told. You, the hero of the story, are a soldier of the evil dictator and only turn on him, because he turns on you. Very heroic. You mustn’t shoot civilians (that mostly seem to be collaborators without guns in my point of view…) or your karma goes down (no idea how it was measured). I killed quite a lot of them (because I couldn’t care less and also disliked them) but still got the “you are the good guy” ending (I was the hero and became the military advisor). Supposedly there are 4 endings, I have no idea how hard you have to try to kill civilians to get a worse ending… The graphics look less appealing to my eye than in Red Faction I. The cherry on top: you can’t really save where you want anymore. You can save/will have to start at the last checkpoint. Want to skip at least the irritating dialogue/cut scene that started at the checkpoint? Tough look, I didn’t see how that was possible. And no imagine dying 3, 4,… maybe 10 times, hearing again and again the same poorly scripted cut scene and try the same 5-10 minute segment again… Who thought that was a great idea? My guess is: the game development was rushed. That is how it feels. Similar to Blood 2 (which is better in my opinion – and that says something). Bottom line: If you think about buying this game as a standalone game, just don’t. If it is part of a bundle, just ignore it, the story (the little there is) has no importance at all for the third Red Faction game.

What a mess of a game. There’s a significant downgrade from the first Red Faction (which was a decent Half-Life inspired shooter) in almost every aspect. Story is very generic with forgettable characters, pacing of the game is all-over the place, graphics seems to be worse than in its prequel and gameplay elements like character movement or shooting are often more frustrating than fun. On top of that the entire game can be easily completed in less than 3 hours. The only positive that I can think of with this title is the weapon variety, there’s about ~20 different guns which is a lot for a game from that era. If you want to see this game for yourself make sure you download Widescreen Fixer, it will allow you to enable widescreen aspect ratio, high resolutions and with custom FoV.