Red Faction: Guerrilla First Look

Volition has been on the gaming scene for ten years now and is known for titles such as Saints Row, Summoner (1 and 2) and, of course, Red Faction (1 and 2). With the team already working intently on Saints Row 2, another action game is also taking shape. Rumors of a new Red Faction game first started floating around about a year ago, but things were kept quiet until February '08 when THQ officially confirmed the existence of Red Faction: Guerrilla, the third installment in the well-known destruction-based shooter series.

RF: Guerrilla picks up 50 long years after Red Faction 2. The main character heads to Mars, where oppressed miners are fighting against the Earth Defense Force (EDF). The EDF, clearly, isn't what it used to be. In other words, they are no longer the good guys. So, instead of siding with the EDF, this time around players get into the role of one of the miners. So, yeah, as you may have gathered from the game's title, you join the 'guerrilla' movement and the ultimate goal is to make Mars a better place and put a stop to the corrupt government. (Sounds awfully like 'Total Recall'. - Ed)

Okay, so it's not exactly first-class story-telling, but it seems to serve its purpose.

The first major change since the previous game is the developer's decision to move away from the series' traditional first-person perspective. That's correct; Red Faction has now become a third-person action game all the way. And, as you may have guessed it by now, 'destruction' is the name of the game and, according to THQ and Volition, there's going to be plenty of it. (Let me guess, this will be a primarily console-targeted release. - Ed)

To ensure true-to-life destruction, Volition invested a lot of time into fine-tuning the game's Havok-based physics system. The developer confirmed that the physics engine in Guerrilla can be compared to the physics we've seen in titles like Crysis and upcoming action games such as Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and Battlefield: Bad Company (that's not bad news, actually, we've seen some pretty cool destruction scenes in EA's Bad Company. However, the difference in Guerrilla is that they are pushing the destruction aspect a bit further. In most of the aforementioned games, buildings and objects are replaced with "dead" models once they've been destroyed. Many developers resort to this so as to drain less CPU power, albeit this affects the believability of the game environment and that's exactly what this project is about - creating authentic destructible surroundings via a powerful physics system.

Another major effort was doing away with the game's conventional linear gameplay and incorporating a GTA-style open world environment. Volition is no stranger to this type of game and has done a pretty decent job with Saints Row in that sense. Fair enough, rather than going through a crowded city, you'll be traversing through the surroundings and locations on Mars.

Keep in mind that you are a miner and at the beginning of your journey, you are armed with nothing but a heavy hammer. With this powerful mallet, players will be able to overcome almost any obstacle along the way. Brandishing your mighty hammer, it's possible to knock down poles, smash through thick concrete walls, etc. As THQ and Volition explained, the game also features a weapon that allows your character to rebuild broken structures around him, which should add an interesting new element to the gameplay.

Of course, smashing and demolishing is just one side of the whole experience. There's a variety of missions lined-up, from robberies to ambushes and assassinations. You are given the freedom to journey around the game world and complete the missions as you please. The in-game environment is going to be huge and in order to move around, players may utilize various vehicles such as buggies and tanks. Jetpacks are also on the repertoire, as confirmed by the developers.

Besides the mining sledgehammer, the game is going to feature additional weapons for causing even more destruction. Rocket launchers are included, in addition to remote charges and such. The important thing is that structures weren't designed to collapse that easily. They will react depending on your actions. For example, an entire floor is going to collapse once you've destroyed enough structural supports. Alternatively, a building can be severely damaged by driving a huge truck straight through the ground floor, after which you may watch how it begins to collapse realistically.