Red Faction: Guerrilla (Xbox 360)

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The destruction physics are unrivalled

Punishing is a fair word to describe Guerrilla on the whole. When you're not doing side missions or key story missions you're trying to take down EDF buildings, but it's not easy. Mason looks hard, but he dies very quickly, especially if you're surrounded by enemies - which happens an awful lot towards the end of the game. There's a cover system, presumably designed to help you stay alive in fire fights, but enemies come at you from so many directions as soon as the alert meter hits red (which it will once you start blowing up buildings) that it's almost impossible to use effectively. Taking down massive buildings, such as a huge bridge that docks the EDF a massive 80 control points, is thrilling stuff and a wondrous sight, but dying over and over again isn't fun. If Mason had just been a little tougher (or worn even more armour) the game would have been less frustrating and even more enjoyable.

Don't take this the wrong way, Red Faction Guerrilla's single-player campaign is great and will provide hours and hours of fun, but it's just not as good as it could have been. Mars has been created quite superbly, with the various sectors each having their own unique look and atmosphere. Driving around the open world in one of the many well-designed vehicles will really make you appreciate the work that's gone into creating the alien landscape, but a little more activity and some subtler transitions from one sector to the other wouldn't have gone amiss. On the whole the presentation is top class, though, elevated to another level thanks to the stunning destruction physics - all the time managing to run at a decent frame rate too.

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Whereas the single-player campaign is slightly flawed, but good fun, Guerrilla's multiplayer offering is really quite superb. Volition has taken advantage of the game's key asset, its destruction, and built the various multiplayer modes around it. The most basic is Wrecking Crew, a four-player local play game mode selectable from the main menu. Here you take turns trying to cause as much damage as possible within the constraints decided on at the outset. This might mean limiting the ammo supply and giving you three minutes to plan a careful assault, or simply being handed a mega-powerful explosive-rocket launcher and letting loose for one minute. It's great fun and results in some truly staggering moments of next-gen physics.

This is just a small part of the multiplayer package, though, with a selection of full-on sixteen-player modes on offer. With the destruction from the single-player carried over there really isn't a multiplayer game on the market like this. Combined with some superb backpacks (something you can buy in the single-player campaign), each with unique abilities, we might finally have a new multiplayer game with some legs. Take the Rhino pack as just one example. This little beauty allows its user to charge straight through buildings like Juggernaut from X-Men, or simply into opposition if they're unlucky enough to get in the way.

Multiplayer is the icing on the cake

These backpacks effectively give the game a very strong class system, so team games will require the right amount of offensive, scouting and healing players. With the destruction, rebuilding mechanics, backpacks, a decent levelling system with unlocks and some superb weapons, Guerrilla is one of the best multiplayer games of the year.

Had Red Faction Guerrilla's campaign been at a consistent high throughout we might have had a real game of the year contender on our hands. Even with some flaws, though, Guerrilla is a great game that comes highly recommended, in no small part to some superb multiplayer game modes that should see the game gain quite a following. More importantly, blowing things up is cool, and no game lets you see the destruction caused better than Volition's latest.

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