Red Faction Update

THQ held a press event at the top of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas today to showcase its upcoming lineup of PC and console games. One of the most impressive games at the event was Volition's upcoming first-person shooter, Red Faction. Since we last saw it at ECTS last month, Volition has incorporated many new features into the game.

One of the most noticeable additions to Red Faction is the updated arsenal. At ECTS, the game had a standard pistol, heavy semi-automatic rifle, satchel charges, sniper rifle, and rocket launcher. The build we played at this THQ event included three new weapons: a submachine gun, a shotgun, and a riot prod. The submachine gun was modeled after the popular Heckler & Koch MPK, and fires at a much faster pace than the heavy rifle, although each shot doesn't pack quite the same punch. Like the pistol, this new SMG can fire standard bullets or more durable armor-piercing rounds that can penetrate concrete and ricochet off of metal. The shotgun is a standard pump-action weapon, and didn't seem to have an alternate fire mode. Lastly, the riot prod looks like a short cattle prod and can be used to zap enemy soldiers with its electric tip, or it can be swung around like a club.

Additionally, Volition added two more demo levels to the latest build of Red Faction. The first is a wide-open warehouse with a powerful turret gun placed in the middle. In this level, enemy soldiers run into the warehouse from one of several doorways in an attempt to reach you before you gun them down with the turret. By the time all the soldiers have rushed the turret, the warehouse is pocketed with blast marks and giant gashes caused by the explosive rounds. The second demo we saw was of a museum housing all of the game's enemy soldiers, creatures, and other NPCs.

According to Volition's Phil Holt, Red Faction is still very much on schedule for a mid-2001 release for both the PC and PlayStation 2. For more details on the game, be sure to read our extensive preview of Red Faction.