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I'm sure that a lot of people here are familar with this hidden gem of a series, but for those who're not, here's a quick recap before I push on to the main bulk of text. Wall o' text incoming!
Red Faction - A tragically long forgotten series that lasted for around two games before disappearing from the face of the planet. Which is a damn shame, since the very first game was fantastic. Underrated even. The Geo-Mod system was almost revolutionary for the time, yet limited by what could be done on the PS2. The second game took place on Earth, and had you fighting a dictatorial regime. While I had a lot of fun with the sequel, the Geo-Mod technology seemed more limited since you couldn't destroy everything, as opposed to the original where you could carve entire tunnel networks out of rock. If I wanted to dig my way to China, I had that prerogative. That option was open to me.
Anyway, after a few years of seeing nothing we're finally getting to see the latest installment in the series - Red Faction: Guerilla. Taking place roughly fifty years since the events of Red Faction and Red Faction II, you're a young miner of sorts who finds himself becoming a revolutionary for an uprising on Mars, hoping to liberate the planet from the iron grip of the EDF - who were the original protagonists in the first Red Faction game, struggling against the oppression of the Umbre--the Ultor Corporation.
While there's no "official" demo out yet, THQ were kind enough to launch a special arrangement where - if you lived in Europe - you could register at their site and recieve a download code for the exclusive demo. I think it's still going on so if you live in Europa, do head on over to the THQ website and grab a code. From what I played in the demo, I was pleasantly surprised. While the graphics are certainly not to a phenomenal standard, they get the job done. But it's not the graphics that what make this game stand out. Thanks to advances in gaming technology in the last few years, the Geo-Mod system now has the appropriate technology backing to do its job. On the PS2, it was far too ambitious, but thanks to current-gen technology, it's now possible to destroy just about anything. You can literally wade through entire buildings by just swinging your mighty sledgehammer, and everything is destructable.
Buildings don't just collapse, they can be chipped away. Smash through walls to reveal the inner plasterboard, smash that away and you get through to the structure of the building. There really is no limit to what you can do. Sure you can use that key, it'll be a lot more stealthy and you won't alert any guards to your presence, but you also have the option of just blowing a hole in the wall and getting in that way. For instance, the demo scenario has you tracking down this confiscated mech. It's stored in a large garage/warehouse, which as far as I could tell needed a key to open the door. I wasn't sure, so instead I wandered round the back, got out my sledgehammer and - expecting it to bounce off the wall harmlessly - managed to smash a hole into the wall, just big enough for me to slip through and infilitrate the building and hijack the mech. There was something so amusingly simple and straightforward about it, like that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where Harrison Ford just shoots that crazed swordsman.
Best of all, in a generation that's swamped with first-person shooters, I'm glad that Guerilla hasn't gone down that direction. It's a third-person action game, which can best be described as a mission based sandbox-type game. You unlock new sectors on the overhead map by completing key missions, there's side missions and other such things located on the map. The destruction of buildings actually has a use, since rubble leaves behind 'salvage' that you can pick up and then sell to unlock new weapons and other upgrades. So if you've got some time to spare and you live in Europe - not sure about the rest of the world yet - then do check out the demo, you won't be disappointed.
Red Faction - A tragically long forgotten series that lasted for around two games before disappearing from the face of the planet. Which is a damn shame, since the very first game was fantastic. Underrated even. The Geo-Mod system was almost revolutionary for the time, yet limited by what could be done on the PS2. The second game took place on Earth, and had you fighting a dictatorial regime. While I had a lot of fun with the sequel, the Geo-Mod technology seemed more limited since you couldn't destroy everything, as opposed to the original where you could carve entire tunnel networks out of rock. If I wanted to dig my way to China, I had that prerogative. That option was open to me.
Anyway, after a few years of seeing nothing we're finally getting to see the latest installment in the series - Red Faction: Guerilla. Taking place roughly fifty years since the events of Red Faction and Red Faction II, you're a young miner of sorts who finds himself becoming a revolutionary for an uprising on Mars, hoping to liberate the planet from the iron grip of the EDF - who were the original protagonists in the first Red Faction game, struggling against the oppression of the Umbre--the Ultor Corporation.
While there's no "official" demo out yet, THQ were kind enough to launch a special arrangement where - if you lived in Europe - you could register at their site and recieve a download code for the exclusive demo. I think it's still going on so if you live in Europa, do head on over to the THQ website and grab a code. From what I played in the demo, I was pleasantly surprised. While the graphics are certainly not to a phenomenal standard, they get the job done. But it's not the graphics that what make this game stand out. Thanks to advances in gaming technology in the last few years, the Geo-Mod system now has the appropriate technology backing to do its job. On the PS2, it was far too ambitious, but thanks to current-gen technology, it's now possible to destroy just about anything. You can literally wade through entire buildings by just swinging your mighty sledgehammer, and everything is destructable.
Buildings don't just collapse, they can be chipped away. Smash through walls to reveal the inner plasterboard, smash that away and you get through to the structure of the building. There really is no limit to what you can do. Sure you can use that key, it'll be a lot more stealthy and you won't alert any guards to your presence, but you also have the option of just blowing a hole in the wall and getting in that way. For instance, the demo scenario has you tracking down this confiscated mech. It's stored in a large garage/warehouse, which as far as I could tell needed a key to open the door. I wasn't sure, so instead I wandered round the back, got out my sledgehammer and - expecting it to bounce off the wall harmlessly - managed to smash a hole into the wall, just big enough for me to slip through and infilitrate the building and hijack the mech. There was something so amusingly simple and straightforward about it, like that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where Harrison Ford just shoots that crazed swordsman.
Best of all, in a generation that's swamped with first-person shooters, I'm glad that Guerilla hasn't gone down that direction. It's a third-person action game, which can best be described as a mission based sandbox-type game. You unlock new sectors on the overhead map by completing key missions, there's side missions and other such things located on the map. The destruction of buildings actually has a use, since rubble leaves behind 'salvage' that you can pick up and then sell to unlock new weapons and other upgrades. So if you've got some time to spare and you live in Europe - not sure about the rest of the world yet - then do check out the demo, you won't be disappointed.
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