Red Faction: Guerrilla

The first two games in the Red Faction series were ground breaking in more ways that one. They were well received ‘bread and butter’ First Person Shooters with the twist of environmental destruction. I don’t mean that they damaged the ozone layer or polluted our oceans, I’m talking about blowing stuff up, smashing things down and making a mess. Although this was the main selling point of the series the GeoMod engine had always felt somewhat gimmicky, a fun distraction within an enjoyable shooter.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is taking things in a new direction, we’re for starters we are now playing from a third person perspective and living in a free roaming world. GeoMod has been give a boost and now resides very deep withing the heart of the gameplay. In short, if it had been constructed then you can destroy it and you’ll have fun doing it. The story plays out, once again, under the banner of rebellion. The Ultor Corporation of the original game have been shut down with the help of the Earth Defence Force but they have started to get a little big for their boots and the miners on Mars are starting to rise up against their police state. From a gameplay perspective you are free to move throughout your currently accessible area taking on various missions and tasks to lower the level of control the EDF has. Your actions can also raise the morale in the area empowering the down trodden colonists to rise up and help you when it all kicks off.

Missions take one of a few different forms, destroy a building, rescue some hostages, kill some EDF. Despite having different objectives you’ll most likely end up destroying buildings and killing EDF either way, not a bad thing and perhaps it was just my playing style, because blowing stuff up is a great deal of fun in this game. Once you have lowered EDF control to zero and completed the compulsory missions you will be given access to a new area with more stuff to blow up. I had worried that the perfectly pleasant looking ‘red earth’ starter area would get old after a while but was pleasantly surprised to see a subtle but noticeable change when moving to the second area, this drove me to want to progress further in the game.

With all this destruction on your schedule you’re going to need some gear. I found myself becoming very fond of the remote mines and they became a staple of my destructive diet. You’ll start with these, an assault rifle and your trusty hammer, trust and useful, given enough time you can level a huge building using just your hammer. Works well on EDF grunts too. Beyond your basic load out you can buy access to more advanced weapons using salvage. Salvage is basically money collected from the many piles of rubble you will make along your way, be sure to pick it up when you’re done smashing.

On top of the campaign mode you have a fully featured multiplayer game to get your teeth into. The multiple game types are supported by a robust matchmaking backbone and simple leveling system that allows you to unlock weapons and customisations. During my time with the game this all worked very well. An interesting side effect of environmental destruction that I never considered was that by the end of a lengthy match there could well be very little of the map left to play in. This can bring a game to a very exciting conclusion when the scores are close and there is nowhere to hide. Oh, and there are these backpacks… I really enjoyed working out what they all did so I’m not going to spoil it for you. My advice is that you don’t read the manual, just jump in and give them a shot!