Sledgehammers are funny things. They’re big, heavy, and good at making things explode (whether the thing in question is a wall or some poor person’s head). In this case, they’re being used to smash up any concept we had of gaming destruction, and to cave our heads in with a great big pile of awesomeness.

Read on for the SG review of Red Faction: Guerrilla.

Here’s the way things are: at the end of the original Red Faction, your character overthrew the mahoosive Ultor Corporation, responsible for all the mining going on on Mars about 70 years in the future. While doing that he sent out a distress call to the Earth Defense Force, who turned up and started sorting out the mess of the first game. A sequel or so later, and we arrive at Guerrilla.

This time we’re in third-person and you’re in the shoes of Alec Mason, a miner on Mars who quickly becomes part of the titular rebellion movement, the Red Faction. The EDF control of Mars is becoming too much for the miners, who are collaborating to overthrow the soldiers and free themselves from oppression. And this is where you, and your trusty sledgehammer, come in to play.

Guerrilla is an open-world action adventure game – but what isn’t these days – and, as the buzzcut-bonced Mason you’ll spend most of your time destroying EDF property and raising the morale of your fellow Red Factioners (Factionists? Factioners?) across Mars’ several territories, each with their own morale and EDF control levels.

Doing missions for the Red Faction and taking part in “guerrilla actions” – side missions that revolve around tasks such as saving Faction hostages, raiding EDF property or defending safehouses from incoming attacks – will raise morale and lower the level of control in each area. As you liberate each area you’ll chug the storyline along (which is standard, but saved by some solid voice acting) and unlock new toys to play with.

And the toys are great fun. Aside from your trusty sledgehammer, Mason also has remote-detonation mines, rocket launchers and the usual arsenal of rifles at his disposal, and these can be upgraded using the scrap metal you retrieve from the ruins of the buildings you will more-than-likely destroy as the game progresses.

Lord, is that destruction fun. But don’t take my word for it! Skip on over the page for a video, and the rest of the review.

Popularity: 1% [?]

CONTINUE TO PAGE: 1 2 3