Posted by tourdemars to Entertainment at June 24, 2001 12:00 PM

Red Faction for PlayStation 2 owes plenty to the first-person-shooter games that have come before it - especially "Half-Life," from which it borrows its story-driven approach to carnage. But to simply disregard it as a cheap imitator would deny it the credit it deserves. Not only does the game pour plenty of fun into the genre, it serves up a few innovations of its own as well. The game starts with a cinematic narration in which you discover your character has left Earth, hoping for better fortunes in the mines of Mars. Here you find yourself trapped in a savage prisonlike environment with no hope of escape.