Red Faction: Armageddon
Volition have set their destructive shooter deeper underground, but it's a god-awful small affair - the change of scenery doesn't mean a change of pace. Red Faction: Armageddon's set to be as explosive as ever.
Volition were caught on the back foot when met with the folded arms of Red Faction: Guerrilla fans who thought that, simply because Red Faction: Armageddon is set mostly beneath the surface of Mars, there wouldn't be a whole load of stuff to smash up. Volition didn't have to try very hard to convince Guerrilla fans that this sequel will be just as destructive as what's come before. "Have you seen," the development team offer, shouting in unison through paper cups, "this magnet gun. It sucks one thing towards another thing, and both things, generally speaking, get broken."
Yes, we've seen it, this magnet gun does exactly as promised: fire it at a building, and then fire it at an enemy, and a chunk of masonry from the former will propelled towards the latter. It's a bit like a gravity gun throwing its voice, and seemingly anything can be "tagged", offering a swathe of options in both combat and demolition. Scenery can be flung at enemies, enemies to scenery, scenery to scenery. And there's a lot of scenery. At Gamescom, Volition seemed to spend much of their time explaining their new scenery and setting, and why they've brought the series indoors.
Set generations after Guerrilla, you play as the grandson of that game's protagonist, as the resistance has been driven below the surface to live among the lava zones and ice zones of the incredibly diverse Martian underground. It's not all stalagmites and stalactites for our intrepid spelunkers though, as an ancient race of aliens (or "natives", presumably) are woken up by all the down-below kerfuffles. It's these guys you'll be fighting with, for the most part, though Volition also mention that you'll be visiting the storm-ravaged surface and scrapping with the remnants of the "sort of enemies you fought in Guerrilla".
If anything, the indoor setting has allowed Volition to surround you with destructible scenery more than was previously possible. Settlers have built structures everywhere, up the walls, across the ceilings, spanning caverns, at times they almost seem to be avoiding placing things on the floor. And the spaces here are vast, with rocky ceilings hundreds of metres about your head, pillars of rock stretching hither and thither and dynamic lighting (Volition are especially proud of their dynamic lighting) creating a far more visually interesting landscape than anything Guerrilla could belt out.
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- System:PC, PS3, Xbox 360
- Genre:Action
- Developer:Volition
- Publisher:THQ
- Offline players:1
- Online players:1-4
- Age limit:From 18 years
- Release date:15 June 2011
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