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Guerrillas In Space! Red Faction Guerrilla Review
The year is 2120 and for those who haven’t played the demo yet you play in a third person perspective, the guy you play as is Alec Mason an ore minor that wants to start a new honest life on a terra formed Mars planet, but all that soon changes when those evil EDF (Earth Defence Force) people murder your brother which makes you join the re-formed Red Faction group and their mission is to put a stop to the EDF from beating and killing civilians.
The start of the game is only a short brief cut-scene to say why your there and what to do and all that so you get chucked straight into the game and start playing, your first job is to find salvage by using a sledge hammer and remote mines to destroy a watch tower and a laboratory which after that your poor brother will bite the bullet and without any other choice you accept to join the Red Faction resistance.
The graphics to the game is really out-standing in full 1080p HD with great detail to characters, objects and the world around you. Which reminds me mentioning the world this is the main key feature in any red faction game but this one is a whole lot better the map size is huge and is a open world map so you run around like in GTA IV and Fallout 3, you do have main missions to complete like any other game and you also get a choice to do side missions and little quests which will be explained more further down the review.
The upgraded geo-mod 2.0 does bring the most realistic damage to a game, getting into buildings is a breeze by either smashing a hole with the sledge hammer or just simply blowing a hole in the wall with a remote mine, or if you like doing more vandalism why not jump into a car and drive through the buildings and bring them to the ground there is plenty of ways of having fun in Red Faction: Guerrilla to see the full extent of the realistic destruction throw a few remote mines on certain points inside a building and watch it as it crumbles towards the ground with pipes or debris falling all over the place, be careful to where you stand or you might get squished by a falling ceiling or wall the only disappointment to this game is you can’t blow up the rocks or the sides of the cliffs like we could do in the original Red Faction where you could use a rocket launcher or the remote mines to dig a hole into the rocks.
There are around 6 zones on Mars for you to liberate from the Earth Defence Forces by doing this you must complete all story missions and also destroying EDF property and decreasing their control rating in that sector. When destroying EDF property you will be increasing the Red Factions morale in that sector as well and find that more civilians will be joining the resistance which is good for you as they will jump in and help fighting off the EDF. While you are destroying the EDF property collect up the salvage as this is very important by doing so this will provide you with newer weapons and upgrades to each weapon or certain perks.
These side missions you get are Guerrilla Actions which is a radio message from other Red Faction members asking you to help them with objectives which could be helping them defend a base from the EDF doing these side missions you get extra salvage and morale points. The other little quests you get are finding so many Ore Deposits and EDF Crates which are scattered around Mars and which are optional don’t have to do them if you don’t want to.
Weapons oh yes the weapons at first you get basic weapons a trusty sledgehammer that does pack a whopping hit, remote mines, pistol and a automatic machine gun, by using the upgrade table found inside your safe house area you can use your salvage to purchase upgrades to your weapons like higher damage or explosions on the remote mines or being able to carry more mines, you can even use the salvage to get new weapons like the rocket launcher which Sam uses the salvage to make the rocket launcher. There is also a lot of various types of other weapons to cause destruction with one is a Arc Welder which shoots out bolts of electric to the poor person you aim at and another is a Grinder which shoots out a razor sharp saw blades that kills in one hit.
Not only do you get to have plenty of weapons to play with there is also various types of mining or police vehicles to hijack or what I like to say borrow without permission, the mining vehicles are like your basic vehicles trucks, bigger truck and a tiny run around car plus more the police cars are like big armoured humvee’s with a mounted machine gun and like the mining vehicles there are other types too.
If you want a break from the single player game why not get a mate or a few mates over to try out the Wrecking Crew game mode this game mode has 4 modes to play in which are: Total Chaos do as much damage in only 1 minute, Escalation do as much damage as possible to win a round but with limited ammo, Barrel Dash destroy as many red and blue barrels in 60 seconds! And Rampage to do as much damage in 3 minutes.
But if you want to bring the destruction online just go to the Xbox Live tab and hit it and experience the fast action on 21 maps with 4 to 16 players to kill or squish there are also 6 game modes to play in which is Anarchy or best known-as Deathmatch, Team Anarchy same as first but with team members, Capture the Flag steal opponents flag to score points, Siege attack and defend key structures, Damage Control fight to control 3 targets on the map and lastly Demolition this is the cool one where you got to protect your destroyer while it destroys basically everything!
Also in multiplayer you get to have a backpack these backpacks are various power ups like a jet pack for which only flies around for a limited time and recharges to use again, there is one where you can smash through walls or crates so if someone is in hiding get that backpack smash through the wall and bang they are dead and with plenty of others to choose and mix up, these will surely add tactical game play to the game. Sadly though you cannot jump inside a vehicle and run down people on the multiplayer levels but seen as there is plenty of buildings you can blow up or knock down on top of your enemies which seem to be so much funnier.
The game is out now to buy from any good retailer or online. To rate this game I would give it an 8.5 out of 10 it brings so much fun on single and multiplayer just blowing a load of stuff up or just running around with the famous sledgehammer and also for anyone wishing to take up demolishing in the future this is a good way for you practice so please enjoy this fantastic game brought to you by Volition and our good friends at THQ.
Review By: Dean Pritchard
© Gamersathome 2008