i'm just looking for one divine hammer
Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 1:03PM 
And divine it is. I could bang it all day.
I can remember fairly clearly when I first got the demo for Red Faction for the PS2. It was a shooter, set on mars, where you lead an uprising against a tyrannous corporation and you could blow shit up. Real good. My brain instantly conjured up images of Total Recall (still the best movie about Mars ever made), and the rebellion storyline made my inner Che' smile with with glee. Unfortunately, the game itself didn't quite live up to the promise.
Fast forward too many years, and Volition has released the third in the series, GUERRILLA. I'm happy to report that this game does indeed live up to the dream of what could have been, but is only now technologically possible. And man, is the tech ever grande. The star of this show is, without question, the GEOMOD 2.0 engine, which allows you to take down structures in a very realistic manner. Every structure is build with both a steel skeleton, and layers of structure on top of that, as a real building would have. By taking out the walls and the steel skeleton, you can literally bring down the house in a totally believable way. Knock down a load-bearing beam, and the structure will sway, whine, crack, and pout as it strains to maintain it's form under the unequally distributed stress. Knock down another one, and the whole thing crumbles down. And you can even do this with your gigantic hammer when you don't have access to rockets, tanks, anti-matter, singularity bombs, or mech walkers you will often be equipped with. It is a delight.
The gameplay itself is fairly straighforward open-world stuff, and the formula still works pretty well: A) Get Mission B) Drive Somewhere C) Blow Something Up D) Get Paid. As the previous paragraph implies, step C is what makes this one awesome, seperating it from the rash of similar games which have recently been released.
The graphics are adequate, but not spectacular, but don't let that keep you from appreciating the glory that is the GEOMOD 2.0 engine. It not only renders a gigantic world, but the damage that you inflict to it's many structures remains persistently when you return to it. This gives your actions consequence. Blow up a civilian apartment complex (or better yet, drive a mech through it) and it isn't coming back.
The story is your typical revenge story against the oppressive and seemingly invincible overlord, but rest assured, your hammer of justice will fall hard on "the man". Did I mention that my inner Che' was smiling? That being said, the story isn't why you're here, is it? You're here for the action, and in Red Faction: GUERRILLA, you will be more than satisfied. Highly recommended.
Reader Comments (1)
Just picked this up yesterday, but haven't had time to revel in the destruction yet. Looking forward to it!