I had originally written this for a project which unfortunately fell through. So I thought I would publish it here since I rather liked the article.
Mars has been the goal of many a science fiction author and fan alike. From Athanasius Kircher to Ben Bova, Mars has been the focus of hundreds of stories. Even H.G. Wells and C.S. Lewis wrote about it. Film, books, television, comics and of course, computer games have all featured Mars as a central location.
Mars was the setting for the ground-breaking first person shooting game, Doom, from id Software. But this was a return trip to the red planet for id as they had previously been there in their Commander Keen series (published by Apogee). While that series began in 1990 there were already games revolving around Mars including Infocom’s Leather Goddesses of Phobos from 1986. There have now been dozens of games that have used Mars as part of the story or game environment.
Even in more recent games Mars has played a central role and it’s set to take the stage again this June as Red Faction: Guerrilla gets released. Guerrilla is the third game in the series which takes place on a terraformed Mars.
In the story Mars has been colonized and the first game, Red Faction, took place around 2075. The Ultor Corporation runs mining operations but treats their employees more like slaves. This leads to a rebellion and the player takes on the role of Parker a colony miner that begins to take up arms against the mega-corporation after witnessing a brutal killing of a miner by an Ultor Security guard.
His adventures take him through mining colonies, orbital space stations and mercenary bases. Red Faction II saw the story continued with big names like Lance Henricksen and Jason Statham lending their voices to the series. Most of the game takes place on Earth, but the Red Faction itself still plays a dominant role in the game as does the technology that was developed by Ultor and played a major role in the first one. The games are known for the GeoMod technology which allows you to deform the landscape and environment.
Now Red Faction Guerrilla is set for release. This third-person shooter is a departure for the series as the first two were first person perspectives. Again you’re a member of the Red Faction (newly re-formed), this time fighting against the Earth Defense Force who co-opted the Ultor technology and took over the Martian operations. It’s 50 years since fall of Ultor in Red Faction and the EDF has taken a very dark turn. Their standard operations now include kidnapping, forced labor camps and more all for the sake of profit. The player takes on the role of Alec Mason who joins Red Faction after his brother is killed. The game includes numerous missions that must be completed to progress through the story and find out what’s happening. Very little has been released about the story itself aside from that. A small one mission demo was recently released on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. After playing through it several times I am quite eager for the full game.
What is the basis of man’s obsession with one of its nearest neighbors? Does it stem from the principle that opposites attract? Is our lush, watery blue world simply in love with the dry, harsh, reddish environs of Mars? Or perhaps by its singular uniqueness in our solar system we see it as an object of great mystery and fascination. How could a planet, so close to Earth in so many ways, be so different in the end? Perhaps we simply see it as the potential salvation of the human race as a likely spot for colonization when the Earth is all used up. Ironic isn’t it? We look to transform the planet from a freezing desert-like wasteland to a lush, green and blue marble of salvation while at the same time fueling the same process, only in reverse, on our own planet.
There will probably be no end to mankind’s love with Mars. Even now further games are focusing their sights on the small reddish dot in the sky and thinking “what if…” Spiders, an independent game studio, is hard at work on its own title, simply called Mars. Doom 4 is set to perhaps once again take the planet by storm and infest it with zombie-like cyborgs and demonic hellspawn. Meanwhile, Echelon studios is working on Black Powder: Red Earth which is set to be a multiplayer-only first-person shooter set on Mars ins 2043. Star Trek Online will surely utilize it as it was a large shipyard in the television series and Noby Noby Boy is continuing to compile statistics in hopes of stretching itself out to touch the freeze-dried planet one day.
Better Red, than Dead. – The Red Faction Motto
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Volition
Release: June 2009
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Windows PC
Read more about Red Faction: Guerrilla and other games at Gamers Daily News
AndrewBoldman
david lewandowski