Red Faction: Guerilla

March 19, 2009 - What would you do if your neighborhoods and cities were put under martial law, your rights were constantly trampled (if not outright revoked) and your family and friends could be arrested or killed at the whim of soldiers? Some people would try to escape and let others know what was occurring, while others would try to peacefully work for change. There would be others, however, that would rebel against this situation, taking arms against their oppressors to liberate themselves and others by any means necessary. This is the backdrop of Red Faction: Guerrilla, the upcoming action game from Volition and THQ. At a recent press event, I had multiple hours to play through most of the single-player campaign (and leave a path of destruction in my wake).

Red Faction: Guerrilla casts players as Alec Mason, a demo expert that moves to Mars to start a new life thanks to his brother Dan, who manages to get him a mining job on the planet. However, unbeknownst to Alec, the situation on Mars is not nearly as positive as Dan made things out to be. The Earth Defense Force, or EDF, which helped pacify Mars after the events of the first Red Faction game, has strayed from its policing mandate to outright oppression. Not only is there martial law, but there are prison camps, executions and seizures of property by EDF troops, seemingly at a whim. Clearly, someone needs to fight against these oppressors and that's where the Red Faction comes in -- a ragtag group of colonists that are struggling to liberate Mars and throw the EDF off the face of the planet. While it quickly becomes apparent that Dan is a member of the insurgent group, Alec initially has nothing to do with the cause. That is, until his brother is taken from Alec suddenly, causing him to pick up his sledgehammer and join the group for revenge.


The struggle against the EDF won't be an easy one -- there are six colonized territories on Mars, each of which are vast tracts of land. They also happen to have a distinct feeling to their surroundings; for example, Dust is an area dominated by a quarry and sand that's constantly blown into the air by powerful breezes. Other areas include mining camps, suburbs and undeveloped mountainous areas. Mason's task is a daunting one: he has to help liberate all six territories by weakening EDF control in the region. This only happens by targeting and effectively destroying EDF structures of varying importance, which lessens the power of the occupying forces in the area. To have a chance to fully liberate the space, you'll need to reduce the overall power of the EDF to zero and complete all of the mission critical objectives to kick the soldiers out.

While this is challenging, Alec also faces a secondary task which can be just as tricky as eliminating EDF soldiers: he has to try to win the hearts and minds of the common people who aren't yet members of Red Faction. Initially, morale for your actions is extremely low, because the oppressed citizens don't trust your group and don't necessarily believe that you'll fight for them. Fortunately, you can change this perception with missions known as Guerrilla Actions, which allow you to help out colonists and your freedom fighters. There are nine different kinds of Guerrilla actions in all, ranging from raids on EDF facilities to rescuing detained colonists and disrupting enemy supply lines. Not all of them will be static either; as you move towards a specific objective, you may receive a radio call mentioning a opportunity that you can take, such as intercepting couriers with secret documents.

Players are given the choice to drop what they're doing and pursue the new goal, or ignoring it and continuing with their plans. As you start to prove yourself to the people of Mars, you'll find that common citizens will start to pick up arms and fight alongside you against the EDF. In fact, the higher the support for Red Faction, you'll find reinforcements coming to your aid as you launch raids into EDF bases and battle troops on roads

Of course, as you cause this mayhem, you'll raise the alert level on your actions. There are four separate stages, ranging from green during peace situations to the highly aggressive red state, when reinforcements of varying strengths will appear and ensure your destruction. At first, this might simply be higher numbers of soldiers, but as you move through the game, you'll discover stronger, more elite warriors packing body armor as well as APCs, tanks and even flying gunships. If things wind up getting too dangerous, you can attempt to flee and get back to one of the Red Faction safehouses scattered throughout each territory. Not only will you be able to hide from the EDF, but you'll also be able to restock your ammo stores and change your weaponry loadouts. Alec initially starts with his sledgehammer (which he'll always have with him), but as time goes on, he'll gain access to different firearms, as well as remote detonation charges and rocket launchers. Players will be able to carry three separate projectiles or explosives into battle, but will be able to augment these weapons thanks to salvage that you collect during missions.


Salvage is the currency of Mars and consists of a number of different items: each time you destroy a building, you get a certain amount of salvage relative to its size or importance. For instance, you can target explosive tanks and gain a large amount of scrap from the shell of the container, the pipes they were connected to and other remnants of the object. You can also pick up this metal from enemy supply crates, mining ore and successfully completing missions and Guerrilla Actions. However the salvage is earned, players can redeem it with Samanya, the Red Faction tech specialist, for new weapons or upgrades on previously purchased ones. For example, you can purchase additional charges that you can lay at a time before detonating them remotely. Salvage also helps if you're looking to purchase additional body armor or need additional skills, such as expanding the amount of salvage you get from ore mining. There is one caveat with salvage, however -- if you get killed as you're trying to collect this scrap, it will disappear, leaving you without your precious metal.

As a result, you may want to ensure that you have an escape route, or better still, an escape vehicle. There are plenty of machines that Mason can use in Red Faction: Guerrilla, ranging from dune buggies and container trucks to luxury cars and makeshift machines. Other machines come packing machine guns, turrets (if you happen to take over a tank) and cannons or rockets. While Mason can't carjack civilians or soldiers like other open world games, he can leap into the empty driver seat and race off. However, these vehicles are much more than tools to get from point A to B. Players can use vehicles to crash into or through buildings, causing damage to structures and escaping without wreckage falling on top of you. They can also be turned into bombs by parking them near buildings when enough damage has been caused to them. Vehicles can also turn into rolling bombs by setting remote charges on the car, driving it towards an object, leaping out at the last second and pulling the trigger.

For a game that places such a high premium on destruction, you need something to impressively demonstrate buildings blowing up or being taken apart piece by piece. Fortunately, the Geo-Mod technology within Red Faction: Guerrilla ensures that there will be some incredible destruction throughout the game. Players are able to break apart a structure wall by wall and support beam by support beam with just about any weapon, which will cause collateral material to tumble from the structure and perhaps strike other nearby objects. Weaken the building enough without taking out every pillar, or cause enough detonations around it, and the building will fall to the ground.

There's definitely something cathartic about taking a sledgehammer and manually battering your way through a structure. It also points out the fact that you can't hide from enemies indefinitely, because your enemies will smash through cover as well to get to you. Whether that means throwing grenades or driving cars into buildings, you'll have to constantly keep your eyes peeled because the enemy soldiers will try to figure out the best way to get to you.

If you need some help working on your skills, you can always refer to your Guerrilla Handbook, which acts as a repository of all the information that you receive in the game. Not only will the book pack information on different game mission modes, but it will also provide additional information on elements that you come across. For example, as you move through the game, you'll also discover that the Badlands pack a mysterious gang of enemies known as Marauders. While their methods and motivations are unknown, these seemingly indigenous people attack both Red Faction and EDF soldiers alike, making a potentially dangerous situation even worse. For example, I launched one attack on a base and was surprised to see a group of these screaming lunatics attacking soldiers around me. As the area degenerated into chaos, I turned and saw more of them pouring from the hills. Needless to say, that was surprising. Apart from information on different groups or individuals, you'll also be able to see cutscenes, specs on weapons and other items.

While playing the single-player was an amusing time, I also had a chance to check out a new offline multiplayer mode known as Wrecking Crew. Up to four players will be able to pass the controller around and take on four separate gameplay modes, all with the objective of causing the most mayhem possible in a specific amount of time. Barrel Dash tasks you with destroying five red barrels spread out across a map in a minute, while Total Chaos tracks how much destruction you can cause in a minute with unlimited ammo. Escalation, on the other hand, limits the amount of ammo you have within a certain time limit and Rampage gives you three minutes overall, but every shot decreases your overall time. At the end of a round, the winner gets the chance to dictate which weapon and backpack augmentation are allowed in the next round and players continue from there. It's an amusing way to test your destructive skills with friends without having to focus on someone blowing you away.

While I only managed to get into the fourth area of Red Faction: Guerrilla at the event, the open world nature of the game provided a large amount of flexibility in how I wound up approaching different attacks on the EDF. Because I wasn't tied to a particular location, I could easily work on causing mayhem in one section of Mars, race away when the heat seemed to be too high in that area and come back later when things calmed down. That definitely felt like an insurgency tactic and might come in handy across the entire game, when it finally gets released later this year.

Nice work eric cant actually w8 4 dis

ye i cant believe i did it . took so much efort lol , i love dis demo aswell