From Volition, Inc. comes Red Faction: Guerrilla, the first foray of this established series into the current generation of gaming. There has been no shortage of press coverage for this game, from discussions of the shift from a first person perspective to a third, to the variety of previews & videos released, and of course, one can’t neglect to mention the amusement generated by Volition’s surprise addition of the Ostrich Hammer. It will surely go down in gaming history as a classic weapon, but the time has come to set the ostrich jokes aside and sit down with the demo to see what this piece of software has to offer.
The demo is extremely short, but still serves its purpose in demonstrating the game’s core gameplay elements. Your mission, simply enough, is to locate and commandeer a “walker,” load the machine onto a truck, and blast away at enemies that give chase as you and your cohort make your escape.
As far as graphics are concerned, Red Faction delivers striking visuals. The cut scenes look tremendous and the in-game visuals are impressive, though they are about on par with what we have come to expect from current generation machines at this point. You’ll have a hard time missing the reddish-brown palette that dominates the environment; though this is logical given the game takes place on Mars. Other visual effects, such as explosions and collapsing structures are implemented nicely. Destructible environments are always a nice touch (more on that later).
The music provides an appropriate and pleasurable backdrop, while the sound effects and voiceovers are fairly well done. They’re nothing overly special, but suffice nonetheless.
After several (somewhat) lengthy loading periods, you’ll begin the demo on foot and this is where you will be able to get yourself accustomed to the basic movement and firing mechanisms. Volition has done a fairly nice job with the controls in general, and veterans of the genre will feel at ease very quickly with navigation and combat.
Because of the cover system, my initial reaction was to approach the game in a similar manner as Gears of War. However, I found utilizing cover to be somewhat cumbersome, as you need to push the analog stick to the left or right so your character will peek around a corner to aim precisely, much like the system utilized in the Rainbow Six Vegas series (which often does not function perfectly for those that favor the “Legacy” configuration, though Default or Southpaw players shouldn’t have any issues). Due to the amount of time I’ve spent with games such as Gears of War, Dark Sector, Quantum of Solace, and more recently, Wanted, where you simply need to press the left trigger to allow your character to “pop up” from cover for precision targeting, Red Faction’s system felt less comfortable for me.
This point though, is not exactly a deal breaker, as I eventually came to terms that I shouldn’t approach Red Faction in the same manner as Gears, and things really opened up for me when I decided to utilize a more simplistic “run n’ gun” method instead of a patient, tactical style of play. Judging from what’s offered in the demo, this appears to be a much better approach to take with Guerrilla. The cover system may come into play more during other segments found within the full game, but I found that once I was able to transition out of “Gears Mode,” I began to have a relatively decent time as I ran around blasting enemies and melee bashing them to death with my hammer when the opportunity presented itself. I can definitely see Red Faction: Guerrilla being an appealing title for online battles.
As stated earlier, your objective is to locate a “walker,” and you can take a few different paths to arrive at your destination. Thanks to your trusty radar found at the lower left-hand side of your screen, the machine is clearly marked with an exclamation point, so finding your objectives is not at all difficult. For the most part, I stuck to my “run n’ gun” style and it seemed to work quite well, until I started to feel somewhat overwhelmed due to the amount of enemies firing at me at once as I neared my goal. At this point, I decided to hop into one of the many nearby vehicles and high-tailed out of harm’s way, plowing any enemies that happened to step in my path. Controlling the truck felt fairly comfortable, though I’m personally not a huge fan of driving segments in shooting games.
Finally, I arrived at the point of interest, smashed the window of the building that contained the walker and hopped in. This brings us to the next portion of the demo, where you take control of this slow, cumbersome, yet powerful machine. My first thought, being a longtime FPS player, was to search for a switch to open a door. No luck, so I pushed the trigger to swing the arms of this mechanical beast and created my own door by smashing the building. This section of the demo really highlights the destructible elements of Guerrilla, as literally everything this machine touches will crumble before your eyes, and it all looks superb. Sound fun? The problem is that controlling the walker felt awkward, and I enjoyed this segment of the demo the least as I fumbled my way towards the next destination while enemies that I couldn’t always see fired at me from all angles. Luckily the damn thing is pretty well indestructible, though I couldn’t wait for this part to end.
Locating the truck that you’re required to load the machine you’ve just stolen on and make your getaway with marks the final, and arguably the most fun, segment of the demo. Your teammate takes care of the steering, and it’s your job to fire away at enemy vehicles that are pursuing you. It was fun as hell to blast rockets at their sorry asses and watch as the vehicles you nail are propelled into the air from the resulting impact. It looks fantastic and I didn’t want this part to end. But, after a couple minutes, you’ll successfully escape your pursuers and this marks the completion of the mission.
Despite the demo being relatively short, it does an adequate job of allowing players to experience the various combative and vehicular elements, while providing a decent glimpse of the destructible environments.
Ultimately, because the demo only takes about ten minutes to play through and the game appears to offer more style than depth, it’s difficult to wholeheartedly recommend purchasing Red Faction: Guerrilla when it hits retail outlets in early June for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
Although, since the demo offers a few thrills and the multiplayer side of things could be entertaining based on the gameplay elements, the full game should be worthy of at least a rental in order to see more of what this title has to offer.