Red Faction: Guerrilla Preview

A tragedy has just taken place. A man lies face down on the floor. His skull has been smashed in. Blood is spewing across the Martian sands, flowing over bone fragments and lumps of brain-flesh. You are standing nearby, weeping. In your hands is a sledgehammer, covered in the remains of your sibling's face.

"I didn't mean to!" you cry. "I was just testing out the controls!". But the game will not listen. It has already passed judgement. Within seconds a large box has appeared on screen, delivering its damming verdict: "WTF? You killed your brother!!!"

My first attempt at playing Red Faction: Guerrilla may just be the quickest screw-up of my gaming career: epic failure in under 10 seconds. My poor in-game brother was attempting to explain the delicate political situation on Mars when I accidentally caved his head in. I restarted the game a few seconds later (and lasted a bit longer, thankfully), but the message was clear: this is a world in which stuff gets broken very quickly: buildings, people - you name it.

As Wez noted in his previous hands-on experiences with Guerrilla, the destruction factor in this game is really quite something: if you're trying to get into an important building and you don't fancy using the front door, you can blow a hole in the wall and get in that way instead. Or if you know a convoy of enemy troops is going to be heading under a particular bridge, you can rig mines to the underside and then detonate them as people pass by. It's genuinely thrilling the first time you watch a tower collapse because you've just gutted its insides; it's the kind of thing you'll want to do again and again - which is good, because you'll be destroying a lot buildings over the course of the single-player campaign.

It's genuinely thrilling the first time you watch a tower collapse because you've just gutted its insides...

While there's no doubt that Guerrilla's destruction physics engine is going to get a lot of people talking, it's the rest of the game that will largely determine its long-term fate. All the technical wizardry in the world will count for nought if the core gameplay fails to strike a chord - but we think Volition has taken a smart line of attack. Because despite the sci-fi setting and the Red Faction series' FPS heritage, the game that Guerrilla most closely resembles is actually Volition's own Saints Row 2.

Why do I say this? Well, the rampant vehicle hijacking certainly helps conjure memories of Stilwater, but the major common ingredient is a plethora of things to do at any given moment. After a brief introductory episode, you'll find yourself in control of Alec Mason - a troubled miner who's joined the Red Faction Guerrillas in their battle against the military Earth Defence Force. There's a whole open world to explore, split across six distinct zones, and you're more or less free to go wherever you want. To advance the plot you'll need to help your comrades to overthrow the soldiers in each region. To do this you'll have to complete specific story-missions and carry out other tasks that damage the enemy's reputation while promoting your own cause. It's in these non-plot objectives that the game gains much of its SR2-ness, because pretty much any offensive action you carry out will help your cause. Fed up with all the EDF propaganda that surrounds you? Take down some billboards with a truck. Feel like some wanton carnage? Head out and destroy one of the prominent enemy targets marked on your map. Or if you just fancy a drive, steal a vehicle and explore the rest of the world.

What links most of these activities, apart from the emphasis on destruction, is a brisk pace. The game may become more drawn out in its later stages, but for the opening sectors it's possible to tear through missions in a matter of minutes. This is no bad thing, but it makes for an overall experience that's more arcade-like than I expected. One particularly addictive set of mini-challenges require you to demolish a particular structure as quickly as you can using a provided set of weapons. Each attempt will take you no longer than a minute or two, but once you successfully complete one challenge you'll suddenly develop the urge to beat your best time. There's almost a puzzle-like quality to the way you'll go about finding the tactics. I got hooked on a task that asked me to trash a guard tower using nothing more than a pistol and several explosive barrels - and before I knew it, half and hour had flown past. Personally, I take this to be a good sign.

These smaller activities and mini-games are not the be-all and end-all of Guerrilla, but they ensure that there's a constant sense of momentum to the game. Exploring diversions is entertaining enough in its own right, but it also earns you salvage - essentially a form of currency that can be used to unlock new weapons back at the Red Faction base. Furthermore, taking part in side missions greatly contributes to the overall sense that you are taking part in a larger act of political rebellion. As the Red Faction's control of an area grows stronger, the EDF will start using stronger weapons and vehicles in an attempt to gain control. At the same time, boosting the RF's morale will encourage the locals to support your cause: get into a gunfight with a group of soldiers, and you may see a civilian pick up a weapon to help you out. But of course, the reverse is also true: If you kill innocent passers-by - accidentally or otherwise - your morale will drop.

The nice thing about this system is that it totally reinforces the revolutionary atmosphere without hijacking the basic gameplay - it adds depth to proceedings, but not at the expense of fun. The result is that when you do get around to taking part in a proper story mission, it'll feel like more of an event. I only saw a handful of these during my hands-on time, but of those I tried the clear highlight was "Start Your Engines" - the set-piece fight that ends your time in the first sector of the game. While your friends attempt to relocate their camp to the next area, your task is to create a distraction with the aid of a mine-spewing armoured truck. Your assignment is to take out 12 radar towers before your vehicle is destroyed - no mean feat given that the EDF sends out a small army in an attempt to stop you. As it turned out, a limitless supply of mines proved to be a double-edged sword - most of the damage on my first (failed) attempt was due to me driving over my own explosives. Still, the whole battle was highly entertaining - so I can't say I minded having to give it a second go.

My hands-on with Guerrilla was largely based around the first of the game's six sectors. While this was enough to get a good sense of the general atmosphere and the mythology surrounding the two central factions, the central plot is still largely something of a mystery. Volition has revealed that an important role will be played by the Marauders - the original inhabitants at the planet who are initially hostile to both the miners and their military foes. They certainly look interesting, with a design that echoes the Sand People from Star Wars - albeit with a touch of Mad Max 2. They also carry large halberd-like weapons - so if you get bored of hammering people into the ground, you can always steal one of these and slice up your opponents instead. The developers have hinted that the Marauders may eventually join forces with your freedom fighters - but how and why this happens, we'll have to see.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is a game with real potential. The move from FPS to third-person action game was a risky one, but it feels like Volition is genuinely attempting something new. It would be easy to just sit back and to sell the game purely on the back on the admittedly awesome physics, but it's clear that's not what the developers are trying to do. It was a bit disappointing to hear that that THQ has put back the release until after April 2009, but we'd always prefer a delayed product to one that was rushed to market.

Red Faction: Guerrilla will be released on PC, PS3 and Xbox360 at some point in THQ's next financial year... which means some time after April 2009.