Just two more to go in our Games of the Year 2009 ramblings.  Next up: features editor Andy Johnson has a blast while smashing up the barren surface of Mars in this 9/10-scoring open-world action game…

Volition didn’t make things easy for themselves with Guerrilla. They waited a whole seven years to add a third game to the Red Faction series, and they then decided to make that third game third-person in its perspective – risky stuff indeed. When screenshots were first released, many responded with scepticism with regards to the series’ new direction. Which is understandable. It’s a testament to Volition’s ability, though, that they stood up to the challenge they set themselves and created a valuable sequel that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best games released in 2009.

The one thing about Guerrilla that mildly ruptures my love for it is its lack of narrative ambition. But I wouldn’t have any oppurtunity to care about its failure to try hard to tell a proper story if it weren’t for the fact that its mechanics and atmosphere are all pretty much spot on. This game is about blowing stuff up – its arsenal of amusingly over-the-top weapons and gorgeous GeoMod 2.0 physics technology make it among the purest sources of daft and ultraviolent entertainment released to any platform for a long time.

Guerilla presents to us an entire Martian colony in which we can (relatively) freely move around and strike successive blows against a greedy and brutal regime. Following very much in the footsteps of other post-GTA destruction-focused sandbox games like Mercenaries and Just Cause, Guerrilla focuses less on size of explorable area and more on sheer depth to which that area can be unmade. In one area, there’s a little building on the crest of a sand dune on a route between two key areas of the Martian colony. Each time you drive through the area, you can gleefully race up the hill and bash a bit more masonry (no pun intended) off the structure just for the fun of it. Destruction is the player’s legacy, his or her consistent impact on the world. Guerrilla is a game based almost solely around a single gimmick, but so fun and multifaceted is that gimmick that it succeeds nonetheless.

Given how reliant the game is on the fluid nature of its action, we’re fortunate that the PC port is so well put together – Volition even saw fit to bestow upon us PC gamers the first of the game’s DLC packs in the boxed version for the princely sum of naff all. While I initially thought that preserving the hotseat multiplayer mode from the console versions would be pointless upon the game’s transition to PC, I’ve actually had lots of fun with the Wrecking Crew mode since the port appeared, and it’s not just because I’ve not played any online games for some time.

Guerilla is one of those precious few games of recent years which, imbued with modern technology, is actually able to let us live out our action film fantasies. From the first time I saw a Schwarzenegger film, I wanted a game that would let me do things like jump off a building as it exploded and collapsed, and for years I was frustrated. High art it may not be, but then again neither is Total Recall, and Guerilla often feels like a slightly more serious version of that cinematic classic of Martian murder. It is a triumph of fun over seriousness, facilitated by some mightily impressive physics code – which, if there’s any justice in the world, will become increasingly commonplace. Sometimes games are accused of being excessively focused on technology, and not enough on communicating emotions and ideas. While I think there’s sometimes some truth to that, Guerrilla, like Total Recall, is a vindication of the idea that sometimes, dumb is best – provided it’s done with intelligence.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

//Cryostasis (Review – 7/10)
This intriguing horror shooter was undoubtedly flawed, but also definitely among the most interesting games I’ve played in 2009. Clunky it may have been, but its combat was often rather impressive in its execution, conveying a real sense of threat as you moved through a thoroughly spooky Soviet icebreaker. It’s nice to see a shooter try some new things, especially if they are things like Cryostasis’ convoluted and shattered narrative. For making such a concerted effort at innovation, I can forgive the failure to completely get the basics right.

//Spelunky (Review – 10/10)
I can’t help but feel that some of the things said about Spelunky have been hilariously over-the-top, but at the same time I can’t deny that I love it. In fact, it’s probably absorbed very nearly as much of my gaming time as Red Faction: Guerrilla. Consistently refined over several months, this addictive indie game is an example of what can happen when a simple, retro concept is polished as throroughly as it can be. There came a point when I was completely exhausted by Spelunky’s repitition – and that came before I ever completed it – but I had a ball while I was hooked.

//Men of War (Review – 8/10)
Another rough-around-the-edges Eastern European game, Men of War is the latest in a long line of confusingly-retitled strategy games released by the same publisher as Cryostasis, Russia’s 1C Company. Despite its clumsy HUD and poor cutscenes, Men of War is a gripping game that proves there’s some life in the old WWII strategy dog yet – especially in the form of a few brilliantly epic and challenging missions that pit you against overwhelming odds while commanding just a tiny number of crack troops, resulting in a combat experience that would make the Green Beret cack his pants.

By Andy Johnson

No doubt you read Lewis’ informative review of the new Red Faction, back on its console launch date in June of this year.

So now the task falls to me to add Resolution’s verdict on this newly released PC version. Rather than rehashing much of what Lewis had to say – that this is a brilliantly fun, wonderfully kinetic third-person action game – I’ll instead talk a little about one or two specific issues. I expect I’ll also carry on waxing lyrical about what fun Guerrilla is.

Yet in a way, I’ve found Guerrilla to be an agonising experience. It’s one of those games that excels so brilliantly in so many departments that its failings stick out like sore thumbs, and make you wish, long for them to go away.

The strengths this game displays are often astronomical. The combat is brilliantly realised. Built almost solely around the demolition of buildings and structures, it’s aided by a very finely struck balance of risk and reward. At every step of the way, the game challenges you to cause more destruction, complete more diverse attacks, rescues, assassinations, and at every turn the game rewards you with a gleeful trickle of unlocked weapons, upgrades, items, and the salvage required to buy them. Travelling between these tasks involves taking advantage of the great driving, allowing you to tear around the Martian colony in trucks, buggies, taxis and more. Every journey is a thrill – after one mission involves the destruction of a bridge in the colony’s Dust sector, you notice a convenient dirt ramp which you can use to soar over the rift below, whenever you need to cross that area.

The game’s focus, the demolition, is its crowning monument to fun. Ramming a truck into a barracks, jumping out through the new hole in the wall, then detonating the charges attached to it so that the building is torn out from under the feet of the guards on the floor above is glorious.

//Revolting
Guerrilla’s trouble, though, is that ostensibly all these things are meant to happen as part of a revolution. This theme of throwing off the shackles of oppression is what the Red Faction series is all about, and the shift to third-person from first- doesn’t change the focus. But as fun as the chaos and destruction of the game’s action are, there just isn’t enough of an attempt to make any of the player’s actions meaningful in anything more than a purely mechanical, reward-based sense. Missions reward you with morale (increasing the number of rebels that help you out) and salvage, and reduce the villainous Earth Defence Force’s control over a specific region. When the enemy’s resolve is shattered, they just naff off – victory sucks the life out of a given zone, meaning that there’s almost nothing at all to do there any more. After a few cycles of this process, you realise that the revolution you’re engineering is rather a hollow one. Repitition sets in, and no adequate story is told.

Which is what, ultimately, holds Guerrilla back from true greatness. And I mean true greatness earnestly – this game could have been one of the very best of the last several years had it woven some emotion and soul between its cathartic explosions. The potential for a well-told story is laced through the game.  Whether via propaganda broadcasts, idle rebel and civilian chat or the character exuded by the silent red dust of Mars itself, it all hints at an altogether deeper and more involving world than the one we actually find ourselves in.  The game even has the odd colonist speak Spanish or German, in a lovely but underdeveloped attempt to inject diversity and life into the fiction. But instead of getting caught up in the plight of these oppressed peoples in their vicious conflict with the jackbooted EDF, we are simply swept up in a treadmill of combat and ensuing reward – which, while enormously fun, offers little lasting resonance. Guerrilla masterfully stole my attention as well as anything I’ve played in ages, but it largely failed to capture my imagination. Surely, to do both is what games are meant to be aspiring to…

But aside from narrative shortcomings, Volition have done a wonderful job here. This PC version of the game is a damn solid port in my experience – it demands a fairly muscular machine, but has a decent level of scalability. Sure, on all but the most Herculean PCs, you can expect at least a little slowdown when larger buildings get shredded rapidly, but that’s understandable given the impressiveness of the technology. Guerrilla is to destruction physics what Crysis was to graphics – before long, every PC gamer will have a machine that can cope much better with the tech, and it’ll look absolutely glorious. Additionally, this PC version comes with additional single-player prequel content to add even more longevity to the game, and retains the turn-based “pass-the-controller” demolition mode from the consoles. The latter creates a bit of an oddity – a PC game with hotseat play – but though small, it’s a very welcome annex to Gueilla’s huge appeal.

8/10

What does this score mean?

By Lewis Denby

Red Faction: Guerrilla requires an investment. There’s nothing particularly interesting about its opening hours, save for the dynamic scenery. The Martian landscape is tired and uninspiring, and there’s no pretence of a real culture or political struggle on the planet’s surface. Initial reports suggest there is no life on Mars.

Stick with it. The opening mission, and the first area of Parker, serve as an extended introduction to the ways of the game. Once it’s all over, in an admittedly impressive bulldozing session, something quite special begins to emerge. If you’re after a deep or engaging story, rounded characters or any semblance of emotional depth, you won’t find what you’re looking for here. But if you’re after reams of rubble, brutal gunplay and almost limitless opportunity for wild explosions… well, then you’re in for a bit of a treat.

//Bring your A-Z
A lot has changed since the start of the Red Faction saga. The Earth Defence Force, once the saviours of the mining populace of Mars, are now vicious oppressors: a cold and ruthless dictatorial regime, mad with power and well-equipped with heavy machinegunnery. Parker, protagonist of the original, is long gone. But he’s not forgotten: an entire region of the planet now bears his name. More importantly, the unimpressively linear mine shafts and office complexes of the earlier iterations have been replaced by an enormous freeform world.

Split into six huge sections, it’s a daunting prospect to navigate. Drives from one side of a region to the other regularly take upwards of five minutes, and that’s with your foot pressed firmly to the floor. Alien rock stretches over the horizon in every direction. Make no mistake: Red Faction: Guerrilla is huge.

And as you delve deeper into the world, you begin to understand it more. There’s a reason why it lacks abundant life, or the thriving communities of similar open-world titles. Sure, it’s a little characterless, and it would have been nice to catch a glimpse of what life on this planet is like away from the tyranny of the EDF. But filling it would have been a mammoth undertaking, one that would almost certainly have led to a more artificial feel than what’s on offer. Instead, it’s filled with the possibilities of ferocious action at every turn.

To progress through Guerrilla and unlock missions in new areas, you’ll need to liberate your current region from the EDF. This is achieved through the completion of mandatory missions, as well as a vast array of optional tasks, that gradually lower enemy control until they’re weak enough to be fought head-on. These range from intercepting vehicles and stealing important data, to all-out assaults on opposition outposts, to action-packed hostage rescues. You’ll also increase your chances by taking out key buildings, with whatever explosive devices you can get your hands on.

//Structurally unsound
It’s taken a while, but Volition have finally established how to successfully utilise their own technology. Red Faction is no longer a game in which you can blow stuff up. It’s a game about blowing stuff up.

The difference is enormous. To start with, it’s distracting that the planet’s surface is completely immune to your firepower, particularly since your character is a miner. But you quickly forget. It’s not important, as there’s never any need to hack away at the rock. And you’re so absorbed in the destructive possibilities elsewhere that it leaves your mind in an instant. Blasting through rock isn’t relevant. Blasting through buildings is what’s at the heart of this game.

Every man-made structure in Red Faction: Guerrilla is realistically weighted, balanced and constructed. Take out the supports on the inside of a hut and the roof will come crashing down. Rig mines to one end of a building, detonate them, and it’ll collapse sideways. It’s genuinely impressive, and puts most titles’ “real-world physics” systems to shame. And there’s a real, cathartic satisfaction in seeing that huge tower topple piece-by-piece to the ground, crushing the enemy troops below it.

One time, having had a few unsuccessful attempts at destroying an EDF camp, I tried out a new tactic. I headed in with my gun held high, attempting to clear out the guards one-by-one before bringing down the buildings. It went chaotically wrong. The EDF called for reinforcements, and I was totally surrounded, with little hope of survival.

I decided to be adventurous. Switching to my remote charges, I began to lob them every which way into the crowd of troops, then pressed the detonation button. Most failed to make an impact, but one lucky throw had stuck a mine to the side of a gargantuan cooling tower behind the camp. It exploded, and the tower fell forwards, crushing each and every building on my hit list and creating a barrier between me and my endless foes. I hopped in a truck and drove off. Mission complete.

//Explosive opportunity
It’s this sort of unstaged mayhem that makes Guerrilla such a riot. No amount of scripted sequences could replicate the sheer joy of this messy madness. It’s dynamic, thrilling and consistently wonderful. Few games offer anything in the same league.

It wasn’t a perfect scenario, mind. Having to make such a hasty getaway meant there was no time to collect salvage. This is Guerrilla’s currency, collectable from the wreckage of opposition buildings and spendable on new weapons, armour and upgrades. To begin with, there’s little variety in your approach, as you’ve only a handful of tools at your disposal. But as you collect more salvage and buy more firepower, each task opens up. Do you clear out an area then hack away at the structures with a hammer? Do you rig explosive charges to the walls? Do you line up hydrogen canisters and hit them with a long-range rifle? Do you find a distant hiding spot, shoulder your rocket launcher, and get the job done from afar? Do you charge in atop a big, stomping mech and plough through everything in your wake? They’re all perfectly viable options, all equally satisfying, and few tasks pan out the same as a result.

The variety isn’t in the missions themselves. It’s in your choices. You shape the destruction to your own desires, and the game responds wonderfully. It’s a truly masterful work of player-centric design, and once you’re wrapped up in it, you’ll want to stay there for a very long time indeed.

//Reconstructed
I have some reservations. The story, what little there is of it, is clichéd nonsense. Gun-based action is satisfying, but occasionally awkward: there’s rarely the opportunity to progress carefully, given the barely existent cover system. Vehicle handling flits between adequate and erratic, and driving quickly over bumps often inexplicably causes tonnes of damage. Animations are stiff and clumsy. The destruction is impressive, but occasionally means getting stuck on scenery or getting crushed below collapsing buildings. It takes too long for the game to really get exciting. And the visual design is inconsistent: there’s been little effort to fuse the contemporary and futuristic technology in any cohesive way.

All this stuff bothered me to begin with. After a while, I couldn’t care less. It’s a small price to pay for something this physical, this dynamic, this invigorating.

Even more impressively, it’s all complemented by a fantastic, diverse multiplayer component, one that relies as much on unwanton destruction as the main game. The largely team-based modes revolve entirely around structural damage and reconstruction, and it’s often agreeably tactical, with players fulfilling different roles to get the job done. If there’s any justice at all, Guerrilla will prove very popular indeed with the online communities.

It’s just so good, and there’s just so much of it. A week on, and I’m still nowhere near exploring everything Red Faction: Guerrilla has to show. It’s a vast, brutal playground; a true next-generation sandbox. It’s one of the most stunningly enjoyable games I’ve played in months.

It’s eight years since the original game, and it’s taken a long time to perfect the formula. But the dedication shows. This is the definitive Red Faction experience.

9/10

What does this score mean?