I bought Red Faction: Guerilla pretty much the day it came out. I had asked Loz if I could borrow her review copy when she’d finished with it. By lunchtime on release day, I’d decided to buy it. I had been a massive, massive fan of the previous installments and loved the fact that I could blow the shit out of things. I also like the fact that now with the third instalment there are definitely “three ages of Geomod”.

In the first Red Faction you could blow up, well, not much really. Despite it being a big selling point of the game you were restricted to only being able to destroy certain areas. Usually areas that the story required you to destroy, if I’m being honest. There were a few parts were you felt you were being naughty and breaking a wall or two but it really didn’t amount to anything.

Red Faction 2 dialled the destruction up a notch. Here you could have more of a blast, literally, and take out walls and ceilings with more gay abandon. While still better than the first you did still feel a little restricted in your destructive ways, almost as if a member of the game’s staff was sitting with you going “No, we don’t want you to blow that bit up”. RF2 was brilliant in other ways though. You could, whilst playing through the game, unlock a genuinely hilarious “backstage look” at the lives of the characters from Summoner 2 – a game which both myself and my sister hammered the crap out of when it was released.

Then along came Red Faction: Guerilla. This is the one. While some have complained that you can’t destroy the surface of Mars (you know if we could someone would have spent a lot of time tunneling to whatever the Mars equivalent of Australia was) you can pretty much destroy everything else and it will remain destroyed unless it’s something to do with a mission and it needs hastily rebuilding. I do like the fact that the demolition missions, where you’re tasked with destroying a building using limited resources, do allow you the chance to redo them – hastily reconstructing the battered building which you can see before you as you choose to retry. Anyway, the destruction in the game is top notch, and really can change the way you play the game.

Take this, for instance. I was asked to stop a convoy. I noticed, on my travels, that the convoy happened to pass over a small bridge. In my infinite wisdom I went to this bridge and mined the crap out of it. I stopped the convoy – they all got stuck in the gully and I just rained destruction down upon them from a safe distance – but since that day I have been left with the opposite of a bridge over this gully. Yup, I have no bridge. This now means, if I am tasked with driving through Dust Sector and my route takes me over this bridge I have to weigh up my options. I need to look at my vehicle and ask myself one question – do I jump it? I discovered, through trial and error and a teensy weensy bit of titting about that this lack of bridge presents me with two options. The path indicators persuades me to drive into the gully and up the other side. The voice in my head persuades me to go to the other side of the bridge to where the land is a little bit higher and trust my luck. So far each and every jump I have made has been successful – even if one did find me sitting in my seat rocking as though my forward motion could have moved my perilously dangling vehicle from the chasm that lay below it.

Another fun element in Red Faction:Guerilla is the MOAB. I am assuming that this stands for Mother Of All Bombs because it’s pretty good when it goes off. You earn one MOAB for every three radio tags you find (if you’re wondering, they will show up as a green dot on your mini-map and an orange swirly thing on the landscape when you’re close to them). Simply drive over your newly discovered MOAB and your vehicle becomes the ultimate explosive device. I have had awesome fun taking down high importance buildings with these. Drive up to the building, depart your vehicle. Liberally coat the outside of your vehicle with remote bombs. Retreat to a safe distance and press the button. No more vehicle. No more building. No nothing. Just swing in, collect your scrap and be gone. It’s an awesome destructive tool and brilliant to watch as well – I just wish I had found more radio tags.

Not all destruction is good, mind you. One of the Guerilla missions asked me to protect the Red Faction from the EDF as a housing complex in Dust. This was one of the harder Guerilla missions I had undertaken at the time and took many, many attempts. When I finally pulled it off I was quite pleased. Another Guerilla mission under my belt. A bit of morale to help spur on the troops and plenty of salvage from all their wrecked vehicles. As I was gathering the scrap, I heard a sound behind me and turned. I turned in time to see a whole residential block crumble to dust. I may have saved the day and driven off the EDF but I hadn’t managed to keep the buildings intact. Fearing a reprisal, I swung my hammer on my shoulder and legged it.

Having gathered the salvage first, of course.

An eerie silence surrounded me, quickly replaced by the distant hum of an engine far greater than mine. Then I caught sight of it, a monstrous warship… flagship of the empire and here was me. One ship who by rights should already be dead half a dozen times but still advances and never retreats.

I had been taught a long time ago to use my strengths to my advantage. I was young and didn’t entirely get this, but I figured that I could sneak into more spaces and maybe be a bit faster than my enemy. Here goes nothing. My first shot obliterates that monstrous engine and leaves the ship drifting in space and letting me take out its rear cannons. Bullets fly past me as I scream under the ship; it begins to break apart under my fire with debris threatening to end my suicidal attack. I come to the front and every weapon it has is trained on me. Where it has power though I have speed and agility. I sweep to the top and I see its Achilles heel lying exposed and vulnerable. Any sci-fi geek knows that the power core in a ship is what usually serves as the self destruct system, why should this be any different? I charge my primary weapon and move carefully into the opening next to the core… one bullet and the ship is torn apart. Explosions begin to rip apart the hull, fire licks up around me but not quickly enough to pull me into the firework show. I fly off into the black beyond and to a new adventure.

ALWAYS take out the back engine first

R-Type’s “mothership” level had a profound effect on me. The game itself was the first I ever played, and at the age of 3 I was good enough to knock my uncle off the high score table. Level 3 however stuck in my head as being something special, I guess now it’d be called a concept stage. Forgoing the generally accepted structure of a level, it set you against a staggering warship and its destruction was the end of the level. It can’t have lasted more than five minutes but the memories are still with me to this day. The exhilaration, the music and the sheer adrenaline rush of the rule book being thrown out for one set piece moment was genius and it probably more than anything else got me into gaming.

Easily the most terrifying boss fight... and it lasted the whole game!

It’s the point in the game that’s iconic, the point you remember and talk about for years to come with your friends and usually the point where you are chewing the pad in sheer anger at the enormous task placed before you. Looking at the boss fights of yesteryear though it’s hard not to look at today’s efforts and feel a little deflated. Gaming is definitely getting easier, yet it was that difficulty that made the boss fights of our youth into such memorable epic battles. The feeling of elation after you sat for 8 hours trying every tactic under the sun was second to none and helped personify the bunch of pixels before your eyes.

Today though, despite graphical grandeur, the notion of a boss that is simply difficult has almost died and in its place are spectacular set pieces but with little gameplay substance.  Take Gears of War 2 for example when you fight Skorge, it’s a stunning set piece and is incredibly dramatic but when you boil it down you can’t actually kill him and all you are doing is moving to where the game forces you to avoid environmental hazards. It’s not about the design of the enemy, but more explosions going on around him. There’s nothing particularly skilful about concluding that battle because it’s more you taking part in an interactive cutscene.

The actual boss itself isn’t terribly innovative, looks wise a predator knockoff. Design wise you could argue that gaming is in decline, however back in the day we only had clusters of pixels and imagination yet it was the grandeur of the battle that brought them to life. Take a look at our buddy Nemesis from Resident Evil, ugly as sin and straight from the Resident Evil Generic Monster book but any fight with him was so epic that he was terrifying and stands as one of the best bosses in gaming. Surely it follows that now, amidst easy gaming, the generic artistry that passes for a baddie will remain soulless. Now though I read that New Super Mario Bros Wii will have a function allowing people to let the game play the difficult bits for them, surely a step in the wrong direction? It’s sad because the challenge aspect of old boss battles were a chance for you to show all the skills you had amassed over the game; that more than anything else made them memorable. For that brief moment when everything came together and you played your role well you felt like such a badass. That’s why I loved R-Type all those years ago, for five minutes I was engrossed in the game and it was tough but it was rewarding. Now between generic bosses and low difficulty levels I am always aware I’m playing a game and my belief is never suspended. Is it just age? I doubt it, because when I load up my old games I still get the same feeling I always did.

I guess some things never change.

The PSP is a wily fox. She had a glittering first night. People came from far and wide to welcome her to the stage, marvel at her powerful performance and gaze longingly at her unrivalled beauty. Ticket sales were initially promising, and for a moment it looked like Dame DS, still breathless from a sell-out run on Broadway, was in danger of having her spotlight stolen by a rival starlet. Lady PSP was linked to high profile projects and lucrative franchises, and studios were eager to capitalise on her strong features and ability to connect with audiences the world over.

Despite appealing to different demographics, both managed to hold their own in the popularity stakes. Dame DS was loved by the kids and those seeking an easy escape from the monotony of everyday life, while Lady PSP tried to engage the hardcore crowd. Although the grope-friendly Dame consistently came out on top in the polls, it was fairly level pegging for a while. But this is a cruel and fickle world in which we live, one where money talks and size matters. Suddenly Dame DS emerges from the wings having re-applied her make-up and dropped two dress sizes. The crowd goes wild and tickets sell out in a nanosecond. Meanwhile, the Lady is deemed an unsightly, cumbersome has-been with only a few decent shows to her name. Ticket sales stutter, and she is forced to put on a white frock and star in re-makes of established classics to fund her baffling obsession with obsolete media formats.

Still, the battle is far from over. Lady PSP chokes back the tears, picks up the phone and makes a call to the liposuction clinic. Before we know it she’s back, slimmer, lite-er and ready for the second act. Her new show casts her in the role of a Monster Hunter and is a runaway success in Japan. While Dame DS continues to charm the public with her trained brain and good relationship with dogs, the gulf of adoration that has grown between our two leading ladies begins to close up. Both continue to make minor cosmetic changes in a bid to out-do the other, but it gradually becomes clear that the Dame has accumulated double the global fan-base of her plucky nemesis. This is a mountain that will take more than one stellar performance to climb effectively. Some would say that the time has come for the Lady to graciously accept defeat, take one last bow and start looking for bit parts in daytime soap operas.

But this Lady don’t go down so easy. In a transformation that would make Optimus Prime’s ocular units pop out of their metallic cubby holes she revealed her new look to the world earlier this month. Further weight loss, a sleek, minimalistic outfit and a coquettish refusal to show us her buttons make this the most drastic reinvention of her career thus far. Question is, will this be enough to convince the public of her leading lady potential? Or will she have to settle for the Best Supporting Actress award? Box-office interest for the comeback performance has been lacklustre, some citing the dramatic increase in admission fees as a deal breaker for new fans and core supporters alike. One thing’s for sure though: the gloves are off, the claws are out and the fight for top spot is Go.