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Red Faction: Armageddon

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.

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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.

Red Faction: Armageddon

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".

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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.

Red Faction: Armageddon

These spaces make new weapons like the magnet gun particularly brutal in their ability to wreak multi-directional havoc. You'll also have access to the Nanoforge of the previous game, allowing you to disintegrate and restore any man made objects in the world. In the demonstration we're shown, a hole is blown in the side of a building to escape some marauding enemies. Once inside, the Nanoforge is used to rebuild the wall behind the player. The Singularity Bomb on the other hand is a floating black hole that'll suck in all nearby objects before spitting them out as a fine yellow particle effect. There's also a Dead Space style stasis field capable of freezing enemies.

Returning are the walker-suits of Red Faction: Guerrilla, sit-in, militarised mechs armed with heat-seeking missile launchers. Hopping into one of these increases your firepower dramatically, as well as your ability to charge through swarms of exploding, fleshy alien types. Volition won't be drawn on any other vehicle types, nor are they ready to completely reveal exactly how Red Faction: Armageddon's upgrade system will operate this time around, and whether we'll still be harvesting salvage by driving our cars through piles of rubbish.

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Red Faction: Armageddon

They're also keeping quiet on exactly how the PSN and XBLA spin-off Red Faction: Battlegrounds will tie into this title - specifically the sorts of unlocks and upgrades that'll be transferred between games. Multiplayer, too, is all wrapped up in a mysterious "no comment" veil, but it's safe to assume a return of some of the popular game modes of the previous title. What's absolutely been proven though, is that the new indoor setting works. Guerrilla's vast tracts of empty land between points of interest were disappointingly tedious. If Armageddon's caves can remedy just this, we're already looking at a massively improved and more varied sequel. And one with incredible scope for Jamiroquai and Bowie references.

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Red Faction: ArmageddonScore

Red Faction: Armageddon

REVIEW. Written by Petter Mårtensson

"...we tend to judge games like Red Faction: Armageddon way more harshly than they deserve. It's popcorn-entertainment, a good game to spend a couple of hours with, and it performs that job splendidly."



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