Many years ago, when you could smoke in bars and the terrorists in movies were Russian or German, I bought a copy of Red Faction for my PS2. I played it from start to finish and found it to be kind of fun, if a little derivative. It’s key feature was the fact that when you shot the rock walls it actually blew holes in them, big holes. This feature was cool, remember this is back when guns actually leaving bullet holes in games was exciting, but ultimately pointless for the gameplay and only useful a couple of times for getting around locked doors. You could play Red Faction start to finish and barely notice the Geo-mod feature. But Red Faction: Guerrilla is a very different animal.

Yeah you better get back in your ute, no one steals from this construction site

Developer Volition, who have handled Red Faction from the beginning, have taken their new game engine Geo-Mod 2.0 and the Havok physics engine and decided, quite wisely, to make the gameplay all about the destruction. In Red Faction: Guerrilla you will explode, crash, crush, smash, demolish and drive through more buildings and structures than you can imagine. The game is all about massive, violent destruction and god damn it is fun. Fun in a way that can only be achieved by driving a dump truck into a fuel tank next to a building and watching both fly into a thousand burning pieces.

In communist Russia, Jeep parks you!

Volition, it must be said, know how to make games fun and have proven this in the past by stripping GTA IV of its thunder with their over blown crime series Saints Row. Red Faction has far more in common with Saints Row than it does with the original Red Faction games. For a start it’s third person and the world of Mars is divided into districts which need to be liberated by completing missions and activities in each one. There are numerous mining vehicles around the place to be borrowed or hijacked to get around the place and they’re necessary because Mars, if you didn’t know, is a big place. On a very basic level the game models are identical, a free roaming game world and the option to pick and choose the activities you want to do to advance. As in Saints Row 2 the game lets you craft the experience you want in their play ground.

Quick Story summary, you play as Alec Mason, an expatriated explosives expert just arrived to Mars to see his brother. He quickly learns that the Earth Defence Force, the military complex that showed up to rescue the miners from the corrupt and nasty Ultor corporation (and yes it’s the same company from Saints Row) from the original Red Faction have become the nasty overlords and despite terraforming the surface they have made living conditions even worse for the poor miners. Why won’t anyone think of the miners? Well within five minutes of the games opening (Spoiler) your brother has been shot dead by a gun ship and the EDF show up to arrest you. Red Faction show up to save you’re bacon and you quickly take your sledgehammer to the EDF, literally. Viva la revolution! As you progress the plot gets a little more interesting than that and you meet a few other enemies you’ll need to worry about beside the EDF. Overall though, the story is probably the games weakest link, it’s good but not great, interesting but not compelling.

You start the game with your trusty sledge hammer which is useful for bashing holes in walls, buildings, fences, pipes, or EDF soldiers. You also get the basic assault rifle, pistol and a set of blasting charges with a detonator. Whenever you destroy anything or mine for ore you may see shiny bits of debris lying around. These can be traded back at your base for upgrades and new weapons and before long you’ll be toting rocket launchers and various weapons of mass destruction. Any weapon you pick up from a dead enemy also becomes available from your storage locker at your nearest safe house and any weapon caches you stumble across.

With the right application of barrels on structural points you two can blow shit up real good with a pistol

The numerous activities are the highlight of Red Faction. The most common involve either defending an area from EDF troops or attacking and capturing an area. You don’t handle these objectives alone, you’ll have a gang of Red Faction troops with you and a meter will appear as the battle swings with or against you. Other activities include rescuing people who have been arrested, capturing marked vehicles for the resistance and driving them back and completing timed destruction challenges. You’ll also get a number of random activities that pop up as you play such as killing a courier and stealing his information and destroying convoys. When you get a radio alert about these random activities you can opt to hit right on the Dpad to mark the path to them in front of you or ignore them. The mini map is very handy and way points can be set that highlight your path at any time. Every successful activity completed pushes back the EDF control and improves Red Faction morale which increases the number of people willing to help you when you get in trouble. Often you’ll see a miner stoop and pick up a rifle to help you out if you’re under attack in a ‘high morale’ zone.

It works both ways though so when your comrades get killed your morale goes down. Thankfully the AI of both you’re allies and enemies is pretty good. It’s always amusing to hear they’re stuttered apologies when they accidentally shoot you. In addition to actions you’ll have a number of targets on your map for demolition. Some of these will be simple structures, others will be complex and well defended buildings and it’s completely up to you how you tear them down. It’s incredibly satisfying watching a two story barracks come crashing down in a cloud of dust and debris thanks to some well placed charges. Again this adds to your allies morale and makes story missions a lot easier. The story missions again allow for a lot of invention in how you tackle them and by the sheer nature of the gameplay I haven’t encountered a dull or annoying story mission yet. If one strategy fails I just come up with a new one.

The hint to enjoying and being successful in Red Faction: Guerrilla is in the title. It’s one of the first games I’ve played that really is all about guerrilla warfare. You need to take out strategic objectives like bridges and supply buildings to be successful in targeting larger buildings. There’s a lot of sneaking around and planting charges before you mount an assault to ensure success and running head first into battle will get you killed four times out of five. The shooting mechanics are good for a sand box game; there’s no auto lock on like in GTA but there’s a cover system and clicking the right stick zooms in with all firearms. But given the broad range of options available why would you bother with a pistol when you could throw an exploding barrel with an explosive charge stuck to it into a mess of enemies or leap through the air and deliver a crushing hammer blow? Still, when the time calls for shooting you’ll be pleased the controls are smooth.

Multiplayer is yet another area in which Red Faction shines. The single player is great but the multiplayer is balls to the wall fun. It offers modes for both online and offline competitive play that again play up the worlds destructibility. Firstly the offline play mode, Wrecking Crew, has something that few games have offered in a long time, a good old fashioned controller passing mode. There are a few variations but they boil down to the same thing: who can do the most damage and score the most points within the time limit. Once your time is up you pass it to your mate and so on till everyone’s had a turn. It’s simple, almost stupidly simple and yet its probably the game mode that will get the most use on Red Faction. Personally I found it to be a great family game mode as each of the kids took a turn demolishing buildings with their favourite combination of weapons and backpack.

...and this. The 'Rhino' backpack alone is worth the price of admission

As for online, well it might be a bold statement, but Red Faction Guerrilla has what’s probably one of the best new online experiences since Call of Duty 4. Yes really. There are a number of game modes and up to 16 people can compete in a game. But what really sets Red Faction Guerrilla apart, even more than its destructible environments, are the backpacks. In the single player game you get hold of a jet pack which is hugely useful for getting around the place. In multiplayer you can get this pack and a few others including a short blast jump pack that rockets you up in the air, the rhino which turns you into a battering ram capable of crashing through walls and the rumbler which emits a sonic field shaking all the surrounding structures to pieces. The combination of weapons focused on demolition and the odd abilities conveyed by the back packs creates some unusual tactics. For instance, the combination of a jump pack and the mining charges are perfect for setting ambushes. Just drop charges and wait for some fool to chase you round a corner, then boost into the air and hit the remote detonator, remembering to look down quick enough to see him pirouette away in a geyser of fiery death.

Sandbox games are fast becoming my favourite genre and with so many promising examples in the future such as inFamous and Prototype and don’t see that changing any time soon. But Red Faction: Guerrilla is definitely a cut above the rest with its Geomodder 2.0 provided physics. The game isn’t perfect. The lack of flying vehicles or a nifty martian motorbike to get around on is a pain, although the late addition of the Jetpack does take the edge of that. The story isn’t nearly as compelling as it could be due to one dimensional characters. But these are pretty minor quibbles in the face of an overall outstanding game. Too often to big release games fail to meet expectations these days, it’s nice to find there are still games that you don’t expect much of and yet completely blow you away. Red Faction: Guerrilla is one of those games.