Red Faction: Guerrilla Demo Impressions

Destructible environments. Almost every new game boasts this attribute in order to attract more people to buy it. Most of the times though, these environments range from a few doors to boxes or specific walls that allow you to break them with certain weapons or tools.

But Volition's Red Faction franchise changed that, as it introduced environments that were nearly completely destructible with almost any weapon. After its first two iterations, the franchise is heading back to Mars in Red Faction: Guerrilla, and will see new characters, corporations and organizations fight it out with some more mindless but creative fun.

Now the former allies of the Red Faction, the Earth Defense Initiative has become the main antagonist and it is up to you, playing as Alec Mason, to crush them and drive them off of the red planet and make sure that the rebels win. I recently got a chance to play through the demo of the game, which was released earlier in Europe, and I can now share some of my experiences.

The beginning of the game sheds some light on the basic plot but doesn't prepare you, if you haven't played the first titles, for the action that will ensue. You can only play one mission in the demo, which needs you to literally bust in some EDI garages and run off with a Walker so that the Red Faction can use it against them.

You only have a few weapons, but they are more than enough to get through the terraformed Mars and engage in battle with the enemy soldiers. For my first playthrough, I decided to play it safe and adopt a stealthier manner of gameplay that worked up until I ran across a few soldiers and things started getting hectic. Sadly, if you want to change weapons, which takes a few seconds, the game doesn't pause so you're practically a sitting duck, thus I got killed.

For my second playthrough, I decided to throw caution into the wind, and start busting stuff up in a quite chaotic manner. I found a truck that I could hijack, meaning that even more destruction would arrive in the small mining colony in which I was. After busting through a few buildings I forgot about the brakes and plowed through the garage of the EDI, but I managed to stop. 

I hopped out and entered the Walker. Let's see what this machine can do. You are introduced to the controls, with you being able to make sweeping actions, good against infantry and smashes, good against vehicles. What followed was a rampage although the Walker respected its name and moved quite slowly.

The next checkpoint was at a rebel truck, in which I “parked” the Walker and picked up a fixed gun in order to defend the truck while it was racing towards the base of the Red Faction. Although this was a typical on-rails segment that would annoy me, the sheer amount of destruction that I brought upon my chasers made it extremely fun. The fact that I could blow up any building on the road and the vehicles of the EDI was something unforgettable.

The graphics sadly aren't something you would expect from a next-generation title, but the sheer amount of fun that you can get while fighting, shooting and smashing your way in the game makes up for it.

Look forward to Red Faction: Guerrilla on June 9 in North America and June 12 in Europe, when it will be released for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.