The most remarkable feature of the first Red Faction game was its destructible environments which allowed the player to destroy walls, ceilings and other environmental things when it is tactically convenient to do so. However, its other game designs are not as good as this one.
The sequel has the same feature, but this feature had become somewhat stale by then. Moreover, Red Faction II has a more forgettable story and rather dated graphics, even for its time. In fact, the mediocre box art would already be enough to tell a skeptical player that the game may not be as satisfactory as the first one.
(It should be noted here that Outrage Games did the porting of the original version of Red Faction II, which was on the PS2 and designed by Volition Inc., the designer of the first game.)
Red Faction II is not a narrative sequel to the first game, though it takes place within the same universe. It is not set on Mars, but on Earth. The player character is also different; he is no longer Parker, but Alias, who is a former soldier infused with nano-machines that give him superhuman abilities (which would not be impressive to a fan of shooters, even during its time, as would be evident later).
Alias is part of a squad of other enhanced soldiers that had joined the resistance group known as Red Faction, whose creation was inspired by the first uprising on Mars. He and his compatriots conduct covert operations against a dictator and his well-equipped and indoctrinated military.
Of course, a discerning player would realize quickly that the story is really only an excuse for the player character to fight through plenty of enemies, many of them of outrageous nature if only to take advantage of the sci-fi settings of the game, as well as blow through plenty of environments. (Conveniently, Alias is canonically a demolition expert too.)
The single-player mode of Red Faction II is more thrilling than that in the first game, which is welcome, but it also happens to be somewhat shorter, packing fewer twists. On the other hand, the single-player mode of the first game did have quite a lot of dreary and frustrating scenarios, such as broken stealth sequences and not very exciting underwater sequences, which are not present in the second game.
(There is an underwater sequence in the second game, though it was not designed in the same vein as those in the first game.)
The short single-player mode may be quite thrilling, but only during the combat sequences. When the game switches over to cutscenes, half of which are not rendered in-game but are presented through pre-made videos which can be a bit grainy and the other half rendered with the game's dated engine, the game becomes less exciting, and even laughable at times. The latter statement is due to voice-acting that is campy in an unimpressive way, as well as sometimes lacking and sometimes exaggerated facial impressions.
There seems to be some good voice-acting, such as that for Alias's commanding officer, but the outrageous twists in the plot simply give the better of the voice-actors lousy scripts to work with.
This can be disappointing to newcomers and veterans of the series that is expecting a worthwhile story, though some of the latter would know better than to expect this from Volition, or Outrage Games, which were not known for games with strong stories.
The player character has the same designs as a typical protagonist of an FPS shooter at the time: Alias can carry an array of weapons and ammunition without concern for encumbrance. Red Faction II also makes use of the regenerating health/shield system that Halo: Combat Evolved has proven functional; the player character can heal after a while, as long as he is not in the way of enemy fire.
A shooter won't be one without reliable weapons to use. The first game had some rather unremarkable weapons, so it should be somewhat of a relief to players who thought of this about the first game that Red Faction II has some weapons that are more fun to use than those in the first game.
One-handed weapons like the Pistols and Uzis can be dual-wielded for more firepower, though they do take away the player character's ability to chuck grenades at enemies.
(However, the chucking of grenades is not anywhere as elegant and balanced as that in Halo: Combat Evolved - it merely looks like grenades are popping out and forward of the player character's view, with no animation delay to prevent the player from spamming grenades almost as fast as he/she can jam on the grenade-throwing button.)
Then, there are weapons that are typically in shooters, such as the SMG, shotgun (though the shotgun can use incendiary shells, which are entertaining), grenade launcher, assault rifle and sniper rifle. There is also a customary rocket launcher for armored enemies.
There are more entertaining weapons than the above, but these appear to be amplified versions of the above, making the former rather redundant.
Firstly, there is the Nano Uzi, which renders the regular Uzi obsolete with its bigger magazines, higher rate of fire and higher damage per round. The NICW combines the grenade launcher and assault rifle together into a versatile weapon, albeit it lacks the damage that the specialization of the other two weapons granted.
The Heavy Machine Gun does a better job at close- to medium-range firefights than any of the other automatic firearms, making the latter only useful when precision is an issue.
Speaking of precision, the Precision Rifle returns in Red Faction II, retaining its semi-auto sniper rifle designs and thus directly competing with the Sniper Rifle for long-range supremacy.
Like the first Red Faction, Red Faction II could have had done better with weapon designs that give each of them a different role without overlaps.
Aesthetics-wise though, the weapons certainly look a lot more impressive than those in the first game. They have much more polygons and look more convincingly sci-fi, but more importantly, their gunfire has plenty of particle and sound effects, with the explosions that they cause (if they are ordnance weapons) being the highlight.
Other than weapons, the player can also gain access to vehicles, though these are mostly confined to the single-player campaign. Many of the vehicles in the first game do not return, but this is perhaps for the better as some of them were rather clumsy vehicles, particularly the Drill tank. The vehicles in Red Faction II are more entertaining.
That is not saying that there is an overall improvement in the aspect of vehicles. Most of the vehicles in the game are only there for set-piece, scripted moments, such as the aforementioned underwater sequence. Many of them are little more than glorified on-rails shooting sequences, and they will see no use in other game modes - not that there are many worthwhile game modes other than the single-player mode.
However, there are a few notable vehicles, especially the Battle Armor.
It isn't exactly a conventional vehicle, but the pilot still gains a massive increase in firepower and durability. More importantly, the Battle Armor is capable of crashing through most walls, making use of the destructible environments in the game. The Battle Armor is also easily one of the most impressive models in the game, if looking rather stiff and ungainly.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of models for humanoids in the game. Many of the have polygons with sharp edges and blocks for hands, making Red Faction II look exceptionally dated. Some motion-captured animations help reduce the disappointment, but it would just raise after the player notices that most of the textures in this game look stretched and muddy.
The enemies that the player fights do not really have improved intelligence compared to the ones in the first game. The first few levels pit the player against the aforementioned dictator's army, which is full of indoctrinated but otherwise not really well-organized troops. Most of them cower behind cover, throw grenades and flank when convenient, but a seasoned shooter veteran would not have much of a problem getting to them and shooting their faces in, or flushing them and their cover out with explosives.
Some others would be even more disappointing, especially those in the later parts of the game as they are meant to provide a stiffer challenge to the player character, according to the story. Unfortunately, most of them are slow and idiotic; they may be quite implacable and difficult to kill, but such designs only give them an impression of sci-fi zombies.
On the other hand, blowing them up can still be quite fun, due to the physics system of the game engine that sends whatever that remains of them flying around in an entertaining manner.
For the first third or so of the single-player mode, the player character is not alone and will be accompanied by one of his squad-mates. While their voice-acting can be a bit annoying or just barely decent at times (of which the majority are one-liners or dry remarks about the enemies that have been encountered), the player would probably appreciate their satisfactory assistance in combat.
There are boss fights to be had too, though these are mostly a test of the player's patience; the regenerating health mechanic and enemy henchmen that regularly spawn into the area ensure that the player will never run out of either health or ammunition in a boss fight, unless he/she is being particularly careless.
Where the first game at least had some rather expansive environments for the player character to move about in, the sequel has smaller levels, tighter rooms and more corridors. The first game at least had the excuse of being set on Mars and a mining colony that has practical designs for its mostly bland environments, but the second, being set on Earth, does not have that.
Thus, it would be a disappointment to most players that a lot of the levels in Red Faction II consist of dull laboratories, military complexes and office buildings. There are some great levels, such as a cemetery filled with ghoul-like enemies and a lot of destructible cover from the gravestones and the aforementioned underwater levels, but these are far and few in between.
The mechanic of adding void polygons to environmental objects as they are blown apart by gunfire and explosives returns, but whereas the first game had a lot of destructible stuff, Red Faction II has more objects with polygons that are inviolable; to a veteran of the first game, it may seem like Volition has scaled back this mechanic, which offered the most fun of the first game.
If a player had been somewhat disappointed by the explosively fun but ultimately short and unsatisfactory single-player mode, he/she would find that the supposedly multiplayer mode of the game even more disappointing, and perhaps even misleading.
Red Faction II has the usual tropes of multiplayer match types found in so many shooters: deathmatch, capture-the-flag, arena (which is a last-man-standing mode) and team variants of these, as well as "Bagman", which is really a game mode that has been done before: it concerns the hogging of an item that continues to grant points as long as the player character can hold onto it.
All these would have been decent, if not for the fact that the player can ever only play with bots; the infrastructure for playing with other living, breathing players is completely absent from this version of the game, which is a shame as it came about a year after the original PS2 version.
The soundtracks for the game would be familiar to those who had played the first game; they are mostly composed of electronic tunes with themes of suspense and grit, which are befitting of the themes of Red Faction. Yet, these, and the sound effects for the game, may be the only designs of the game that can be considered solidly good.
In conclusion, Red Faction II doesn't really build on what its predecessor did best, and also does not do better at what the first game did not do well in, as well as messed up a few things, especially its multiplayer. At best, it was then a barely decent shooter among an ocean of so many others.