Red Faction: Guerrilla

Red Faction: Guerrilla

Next-generation consoles are awash with shooters of more or less every shade. So what distinguishes Red Faction: Guerrilla from every other game in what is quickly becoming the most crowded of genres? In a word: Destruction. Lots of it, and of the kind that’ll have you reliving key moments in your dreams, evangelising to strangers on the street and revisiting often, just to see if there’s any way to increase the spectacle.

A quick trot through the back-story first, though. Alec Mason is on Mars to visit his brother, who he sees murdered by the EDF (Earth Defence Force) soon after his arrival. Thus Alec is thrust into the arms of the titular Red Faction – a freedom fighting force dedicated to overthrowing their oppressors by any means necessary. And that’s where the destruction bit comes in.

You see the EDF is far too big and powerful to be deposed by a few ramshackle rebels with pop guns. Instead the Red Faction is striving to take them down piece by piece; destroying high value EDF installations, liberating captive Martian citizens and garnering the support of the public with heroic guerrilla actions, such that the EDF’s grip on a region eventually becomes untenable.

In purely practical terms this entails a mission based approach, whereby Alec is briefed on a particular objective, marks its location on a handy map, hops into any one of 30 or so vehicle types and follows a series of handy yellow arrows leading the way. Firefights with the EDF are inevitable – there are usually a few grunts that need to be taken out before demolition can begin, while reinforcements are quick to arrive if you go about your work too noisily. Which is impossible to avoid, of course.

For the most part the gunplay is solid if a little unremarkable, with a cover system that lacks the finesse of titles like Drake’s Fortune or Gears of War and slow-reloading firearms that seem to be at odds with the futuristic Martian setting. However, faster, more spectacular weaponry can be bought later on.

The demolition aspects of the game are far more pleasing. There are several options here – remote or proximity-triggered explosive charges do the job splendidly, and Mason is pretty handy with the large sledgehammer he secretes about his person. Driving through an enemy installation is a fun way to bring them down too, particularly when you have a convoy of EDF trucks in hot pursuit. Best of all, the physics employed by the GeoMod 2.0 game engine means that a well-placed charge or two can weaken a building, which then begins to wobble and creak menacingly before collapsing most impressively – hopefully on top of the bad guys. Chuck a few hydrogen barrels in there beforehand for extra fireworks.

More or less everything in-game is destructible in one way or another. Doing so rewards you with collectible salvage that can be exchanged for new weapons and item upgrades back at the Red Faction safe house. We’d recommend that you limit your destructive tendencies to EDF properties too, since the local population will fight alongside you so long as you leave them unharassed. And it’s certainly not advisable that you shoot them!

Red Faction: Guerrilla prides itself on its open world gameplay and, true enough, Mason can approach the objectives in pretty much any order he chooses. The slight downside to this being that many objectives within a particular region feel a bit samey – drive to point A, fight bad guys, liberate citizens, take down chimney stack B etc. Things only really increase in difficulty or complexity when you complete enough guerrilla objectives and open up a new area. This would be more of an annoyance if the act of blowing stuff up wasn’t such a blast. Likewise the multiplayer modes, where demolition plays an especially dazzling part and safe hiding places are a rare commodity indeed.

All told there’s not much to grumble about with Red Faction: Guerrilla. You might squint to identify the enemy once night falls, we found the weapon-swapping system to be initially cumbersome and the barren landscapes can be a bit dull at times. But they’re minor complaints compared to the destructive fun that’s in store – particularly as the challenge steps up and enemy installations get bigger. In the immortal words of the current governor of California “Get your ass to Mars...”

4 out of 5