In many ways, Volition is far ahead of other sandbox game developers like Rockstar North in terms of game design. Rockstar always goes for realism overall, while Volition designs its games around the concept that video games should be fun. This design style shows, and glows, with Red Faction: Guerrilla. There is not a lot more they could have done to make playing this game any more fun. Everything about it is entertaining, the combat, the driving, the destruction, everything. When you die, all your progress is saved, but the population is demoralized, meaning you will have less support when you go on your various endeavours to bring down the evil government of Mars.

The core gameplay may seem complicated at first, with various bars and symbols showing how much control the EDF (the evil government of mars) has over an area, the moral of each sector, how much scrap (money in this game) you have, etc. But one you get into it, all this slides away as you run around smashing buildings and cracking skulls with your magical all-mighty-hammer. That's not to say that the gameplay is repetitive. Actually, it's far from it; the story missions are numerous and varied, always challenging yet doable, the side missions are varied and usually incredibly entertaining. Some of them are silly timed challenges like 'Destroy X building with Y amount of ammunition in Z minutes' or 'drive this car across the map in X amount of time.' These are usually pretty fun, but the best ones are where you are helping the Guerrillas on mars fight the EDF. Sometimes you are defending, sometimes you are attacking, but for side missions, they are varied and generally satisfying, which is good because you need to do a fair number of them to unlock each new mission. The game includes a cover system, but since all cover can be destroyed, and enemies will flank/surround you so quickly, it's pretty much useless.

Ok, I'm three paragraphs in to my review and I haven't mentioned the destruction. That is because it is the meat of the game, and no matter how gimmicky it may seem, it really does make Red Faction: Guerrilla a much better game than it would have been otherwise. This is probably the first game I've played where literally ever single object can be reduced to rubble. And it's not just there for the players enjoyment; the gameplay is entirely focused around this mechanic; many missions involve you blowing up buildings, when your aren't in a mission you can blow up EDF property as an alternative to completing side missions, and the weapons you are given cater directly to the blowing up of said infrastructure. The first weapon you are given are remote explosives and a hammer. From there on you get rocket launchers, guns which disintegrate walls, singularity bombs (you'll have to play the game to see what those do), tanks, mechs with rocket launchers, mechs with huge flailing arms which can crush/destroy everything... It's no secret that the game wants you to destroy a lot, and destroy often.

From a more technical standpoint, the game is still quite impressive, but falls short in a few areas. While the lighting/character models are impressive, the textures are often bland and muddy. The game also lags a lot during frantic moments of combat and destruction. There are a ton of particle effects, partly due to the dust and smoke kicked up during the frequent explosions, and partly due to the weapons which seem to shoot lots of sparkly blue... stuff. It runs well for the most part, but the lag can make things difficult in some of the defence/attack missions. The game sounds great, with buildings creaking and groaning before they collapse, and weapons sounding just right. What little voice acting there is usually is decent, but this game has virtually no plot, so that doesn't really add/detract from the game.

Overall, Red Faction: Guerrilla is an excellent, lengthy game (around 15 hours a play through) with significant replay value. It's fun, surprisingly not repetitive, challenging but fair, and very easy to pick up and play. Its minor graphical shortcomings can easily be overlooked due to the great destruction physics and excellent variety of weapons and vehicles. Highly recommended.