The Red Faction series is back on a new generation and with a new engine. Was it worth the wait?
Guerilla takes place on Mars as other games. You play as Alec Mason, a miner who has come to the red planet hoping for a better life with his brother Dan. When his sibling is gunned down by the EDF (Earth Defense Force) who have started running the place as a dictatorship Mason decides to join the Faction, smash authority and avenge his brother's death. The story is simple to understand but with little interaction and development of characters the story comes off as uninteresting and weak. But it matters little compared to how solid the gameplay is.
Guerilla employs a new destruction engine unlike anything seen before to give an intriging experience like no other destructive game out there. Mars is a big place and from the beginning you're given the freedom to go where you want, do what you want. The setup is this... You drive to mission areas, beat the missions to unlock the next sector of Mars. In between side missions and destroying EDF buildings are necessary to reduce the EDFs control low enough to unlock more tools and raise citizens morale. This could be defending an area from the EDF or racing a vehicle to a safehouse as fast as possible. Guerilla isn't a squad based game in any sense. The higher the morale the more salvage you get after missions to buy the tools you need, citizens will also grab a gun and fight with you if morale is high enough in that sector. If you look around hard enough then there are also ore locations to mine (300) Crates to destroy (250) and Radio tags that help to tell the backstory (36)
Red Faction Guerilla supports 16 player multiplayer with several modes including Deathmatch, Demolition where one player must destroy to rack up points and damage control, a unique take on Control points which gives players a reconstructer to break and rebulid points in their teams colour. The multiplayer is addictive with new characters and hammers unlocking as you play. Games are almost lag free online and there are many options to suit your play style. There are no vehicles in multiplayer but this forgiven thanks to the 10 backpacks that grant different abilities For local play a mode called wreaking crew tasks you with causing as much damage as possible in a certain amount of time. It would have been nice to have local or online coop but no one's complaining. With lots of missions to do and DLC on the way there's plenty of incentive to play again.
Red Faction's mechanics are solid, combining shooting with weapons from a sledgehammer to thermobaric rockets to driving vehicles like cars, trucks, occasionally tanks and even walkers to smash through enemies. They may be overpowered but they're fun, in fact whenever you leave one you'll often wish you could use walkers more often but the game would be too easy otherwise. Talking of difficulty Red Faction Guerilla is a challenging game on the higher difficulties. When you destroy a building or do something generally criminal an icon on your map with turn yellow, orange then red as you keep breaking the law. Threats escalate quickly and soon you'll be faced with armoured soldiers, tanks and even air support. If the EDF catch you out in the open you're as good as dead in seconds flat. You could argue that the developer was trying to make you feel like a vulnerable civillian rather than a tough soldier fighting a war. You can take cover in the game but it's pretty much useless when the environment is so destructable. That said blowing everything up although it gets quite repetetive, manages to cover up the game's difficulty and you can always change if things are getting hard.
Guerilla's Mars has some good draw distance but there isn't much to see. The reddy brown rock gets dull after a while and most of the enemies look the same. The damage engine is simply awesome, making the buildings crumble quite realisticly. It isn't perfect as sometimes you'll notice a building being held up by a single metal strip attached to its side. The explosions are some of the best in a video game and the framerate keeps up despite how much is going on.
Red Faction Guerilla is a successful return for the overlooked series and manges to craft a truly 100% destructable land whilst also fixing the flaws that the first two had. This is a fun game that anyone who loves open world environments should pick up on.