The year is 2075. Instead of a bright and peaceful future, human civilization is in a state of polluted, dilapidated ruin akin to post-World War II Europe. A corrupt mega-corporation, Grathius Inc., controls the world by force, using pacification squads to kill any who oppose them. The game's protagonist is Flynn Haskell, the leader of a small band of terrorists/resistance-fighters determined to rid the world of Grathius and their evil schemes.Later the player meets up with a female scientist Eve whom Flynn regards as the best helper he could get. Flynn, while exploring once, is captured and put into jail but successfully escapes with another resistance member named Duffy who also helps him in his next destination Urbia, as she is familiar with their resistance leader Tara. The game's main plot revolves around a new technology developed by Grathius, nano-machinery based cloning, that allows the corporation to resurrect its fallen troops and gives them an unstoppable immortal army. As the game progresses, the player travels from San Francisco to Taiwan to Japan, recruiting new characters into the resistance and capturing Grathius cloning devices for their own personal use.
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Thoroughly enjoyable budget FPS game that I couldn't complete because of constant crashing during a mission halfway through the game.
joya oculta
Devastation tells the story of an Eminem doppelganger who leads a squad of rebels mostly composed of attractive women. The script is very goofy, especially once characters gain access to instantaneous cloning tech and consequently start calling themselves immortal. But if the writing isn't up to the level of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson (both of whom are listed under "special thanks" in the credits), at least the environmental details are evocative of classic cyberpunk tales. The cluttered desks, varied signs and worn-down futuristic cars all look excellent for 2003, and while the lighting isn't technically advanced, some of the outdoor areas have a pleasingly naturalistic feel. Weapons are well-animated, and there are a lot of them (within the first half-hour, the player will already have a choice of three different pistols to dual-wield). Only the very of-their-time character models really date the visuals.
The first half of Devastation is a linear cyberpunk urban warfare shooter in the vein of Project: Snowblind and Red Faction II. At the midpoint, the game transitions to a new continent and a very different style of gameplay. With both factions making use of the previously mentioned instantaneous cloning equipment, players are tasked with capturing respawn points across large levels. Essentially the game becomes a series of arena battles with bots, though the good guys have a sizable advantage because their enemies seem reluctant to push through to their home base. This comes across as a somewhat desperate attempt to pad out the single player campaign with multiplayer assets and to not have to properly balance the game’s two boss fights (since one can just keep dying and chipping away at a boss ad nauseam). But while the combat in these levels isn’t as dynamic as, for example, instant action fights in the Battlefront games, I did find them to be entertaining, especially in arcade mode.
When starting Devastation’s campaign, the player is given the expected easy/normal/hard options along with a choice between simulation and arcade modes. Many of the contemporary reviews I’ve read for the game advised players to pick the former, which I did for my first playthrough. Having replayed the game in arcade mode, I found I preferred it for the reasons outlined below.
I think these features of simulation mode are good or neutral:
• Guns have more recoil.
• The crosshair fades out when moving.
• Health must be picked up manually.
Conversely, I found these aspects of simulation mode to be detrimental:
• A weapon limit. My personal belief is that these belong in multiplayer components, tactical shooters and nowhere else (and simulation mode doesn’t turn Devastation into a real tactical shooter).
• Ammunition must be picked up manually. This is annoying because ammo dropped by enemies often disappears after a period of time that I found to be way too short. This snowballs with the following problem.
• In arcade mode, coming back to life at a spawner grants the player all the weapons appropriate for that map and tops off their ammo. In simulation mode, the player gets a loadout menu (which they cannot select ammo from) and the ammo they had upon death carries over, plus a single magazine if they ran dry. Given how spongy some of the enemies are, a single magazine doesn’t go far. One can acquire more ammo by throwing their gun on the ground at the spawner, opening the loadout menu and acquiring it again, picking up the gun on the ground and repeating this process a dozen times, which is as tedious as it sounds. Worse, I found that the loadout menu could occasionally bug out and refuse to give me anything. I could still request firearms that my allies were holding, so I wasn’t forced to take the enemy on with bare fists, but this was still an annoyance that was unique to simulation mode.
Other bugs are shared between both modes, even after the v390 patch. Minor glitches include enemies blinking out of existence after being shot and small objects inexplicably floating in midair. A larger issue was the AI ally who activates captured spawners sometimes getting lost in the map, preventing me from respawning at the new location until she (usually) found her way. Teammates can also block narrow hallways until ordered elsewhere through the command menu, and I saw a few game over screens in the first half of the game because an ally was standing right next to a burning vehicle and didn’t think to move. On the penultimate level, I encountered a door after the final spawner that wouldn’t open a second time, requiring the rest of the level to be completed in one life or the use of a noclip cheat (for the record, hit the tilde key and type “ghost”, followed by “walk” to return to normal). There were also two stairways in the last level that were resistant to being climbed, which led to a few additional deaths courtesy of the final boss.
Despite its many, many rough edges and strangely implemented gameplay features, I had enough fun with Devastation to play it twice back-to-back. The game doesn’t overstay its welcome and is heavy on the early-to-mid-2000s dystopian sci-fi clichés (which is honestly a plus in my book). Anyone seeking a polished experience should look elsewhere, but I’d recommend Devastation to those who completed and enjoyed both of the first two Red Faction games.
The first half of Devastation is a linear cyberpunk urban warfare shooter in the vein of Project: Snowblind and Red Faction II. At the midpoint, the game transitions to a new continent and a very different style of gameplay. With both factions making use of the previously mentioned instantaneous cloning equipment, players are tasked with capturing respawn points across large levels. Essentially the game becomes a series of arena battles with bots, though the good guys have a sizable advantage because their enemies seem reluctant to push through to their home base. This comes across as a somewhat desperate attempt to pad out the single player campaign with multiplayer assets and to not have to properly balance the game’s two boss fights (since one can just keep dying and chipping away at a boss ad nauseam). But while the combat in these levels isn’t as dynamic as, for example, instant action fights in the Battlefront games, I did find them to be entertaining, especially in arcade mode.
When starting Devastation’s campaign, the player is given the expected easy/normal/hard options along with a choice between simulation and arcade modes. Many of the contemporary reviews I’ve read for the game advised players to pick the former, which I did for my first playthrough. Having replayed the game in arcade mode, I found I preferred it for the reasons outlined below.
I think these features of simulation mode are good or neutral:
• Guns have more recoil.
• The crosshair fades out when moving.
• Health must be picked up manually.
Conversely, I found these aspects of simulation mode to be detrimental:
• A weapon limit. My personal belief is that these belong in multiplayer components, tactical shooters and nowhere else (and simulation mode doesn’t turn Devastation into a real tactical shooter).
• Ammunition must be picked up manually. This is annoying because ammo dropped by enemies often disappears after a period of time that I found to be way too short. This snowballs with the following problem.
• In arcade mode, coming back to life at a spawner grants the player all the weapons appropriate for that map and tops off their ammo. In simulation mode, the player gets a loadout menu (which they cannot select ammo from) and the ammo they had upon death carries over, plus a single magazine if they ran dry. Given how spongy some of the enemies are, a single magazine doesn’t go far. One can acquire more ammo by throwing their gun on the ground at the spawner, opening the loadout menu and acquiring it again, picking up the gun on the ground and repeating this process a dozen times, which is as tedious as it sounds. Worse, I found that the loadout menu could occasionally bug out and refuse to give me anything. I could still request firearms that my allies were holding, so I wasn’t forced to take the enemy on with bare fists, but this was still an annoyance that was unique to simulation mode.
Other bugs are shared between both modes, even after the v390 patch. Minor glitches include enemies blinking out of existence after being shot and small objects inexplicably floating in midair. A larger issue was the AI ally who activates captured spawners sometimes getting lost in the map, preventing me from respawning at the new location until she (usually) found her way. Teammates can also block narrow hallways until ordered elsewhere through the command menu, and I saw a few game over screens in the first half of the game because an ally was standing right next to a burning vehicle and didn’t think to move. On the penultimate level, I encountered a door after the final spawner that wouldn’t open a second time, requiring the rest of the level to be completed in one life or the use of a noclip cheat (for the record, hit the tilde key and type “ghost”, followed by “walk” to return to normal). There were also two stairways in the last level that were resistant to being climbed, which led to a few additional deaths courtesy of the final boss.
Despite its many, many rough edges and strangely implemented gameplay features, I had enough fun with Devastation to play it twice back-to-back. The game doesn’t overstay its welcome and is heavy on the early-to-mid-2000s dystopian sci-fi clichés (which is honestly a plus in my book). Anyone seeking a polished experience should look elsewhere, but I’d recommend Devastation to those who completed and enjoyed both of the first two Red Faction games.