Red Faction: Guerrilla marked Volition and THQ’s first attempt at bringing the series to the PlayStation 3. The sequel, Red Faction: Armageddon, will be the fourth entry of the popular series, and picks up directly where Guerrilla left off. At E3, we got some hands on time with the game, check out our impressions of the game below.
Upon completing Guerrilla, the rebels brought freedom to Mars, but a new war soon starts, and this pushes your character, Darius Mason, and the people underground. Throughout the game you will be able to venture both underground and above ground. Above ground, players will be able to visit old locations and landmarks from previous installments of the series, but due to Mars being terraformed the surface can be very dangerous, with the environment itself being the enemy.
The people below ground blame Mason for the chaos that has broke out in their settlement. It took them years to build their places to live, yet in three days it was completely destroyed by a new enemy. The entire underground area has been infested by creatures that have yet to be named.
The destructibility of the environment in Guerrilla was extremely popular, and, in Armageddon, this aspect has progressed significantly. The magnet gun has taken destruction to a whole new level, essentially turning the whole level into a weapon.
But this isn’t even the best part of the game’s weaponry, that title belongs to the artifact named Nano Forge. The weapon is attached to Mason’s arm, and allows him to completely rebuild anything that has been destroyed. So if your character has been overwhelmed by the enemy, players can simply run over to a building or crate that has been destroyed, and, upon activating the Nano Forge, the building or crate will be rebuilt, thus concealing you from the enemies. Technically if you take out an entire building, the Nano Forge can rebuild the entire building piece by piece.
Another addition that has been included in the title is mech suits. Simply known as the LEO, these monstrous mech suits will make taking on the countless enemies you will be swarmed with a tad less hectic. When questioned about the LEO being upgradeable or having different versions, developers were rather hush hush on the topic.
Multiplayer will be included in this title, just as it was in Guerrilla, but the developers weren’t willing to give full details on what modes would be available in the final release of the game. Considering how big it was in Guerrilla, it should be a pretty large focus in Armageddon.
Given the scale of the first game, this game looks to up the ante through the massive weapon selection and various locations that will be available in the final release. The game is currently slated for a March 2011 release.
