It's explosive, chaotic and insane - but my God, is this an enjoyable game...

Red Faction: Armageddon starts some time after Red Faction Guerilla, and with a new Mason: Darius Mason, the grandson of Alec and Samanya Mason. The struggling colonists have been driven underground by earth forces led by Adam Hale, the EDF cultist leader. He is hell-bent on seeing the destruction of the Mars colony and will even destroy his own forces to achieve it. Darius, has, of course, been thrust into the thick of it.

Upon opening a disused mining shaft, Darius finds a long lost chamber deep underground. Unwittingly, Darius soon realises that he has removed an ancient seal that had been sealing the entrance/exit to this underground colony, and it will come as no surprise that our hero has now unleashed complete and utter mayhem. Coincidentally, Darius comes to the conclusion that he has - although accidentally - inherited his family’s reputation, one where his own people have turned on him and a rampaging hoard of indigenous Martians are after his blood.

So, that’s the premise of the story - you, as Darius, must fight your way through the underground, before then dealing with the problems of betrayal above ground. However, throwing a delightful spanner into the gears of Red Faction's engine, Armageddon pays as much importance to the rebuilding of said environments as it does to their destruction, taking the Red Faction franchise in a pleasing direction.

Story driven over?

Red Faction Armageddon has a simple story to get into, even if you’ve never played any of the previous instalments. It’s dialogue is typical of the genre, but I could see beneath the American butt-kicking cover, to one longing to be a Princess of Mars or Dune of a new generation. I'd go as far as saying that there’s even an element of feeling of FireFly thrown in. I think Ray Bradbury would wince at how the idea of colonisation has been handled, but I reckon there’s some that Herbert and Bradbury would find compelling to say the least.

On the whole, there are ancient alien temple dig-sites, crazed baddies, sexy/intriguing love interests and even an esoteric subculture thrown in for good measure. Yet, while it all sounds so appealing, it is in fact one of my main criticisms of the game; the fact that it all feels like a load of genres chucked into a quick beauty pageant procession. They jostle along together at a storyline pace, but don't exist long enough for the player to explore or savour any.

Perhaps this is a short coming of the game; or, on a greater scale, an indictment of both the game and movie industries as a whole. Either way, it's annoying as hell and a real waste.

Game On

If you think you have the full measure of this game now, or even after playing a demo, think again. Armageddon has three modes of gameplay. The first is the main story-driven game, which as I’ve alluded to, is frantic - with even the cut-scenes giving you little chance to catch your breath. Unlike Guerrilla, the story mode is far more fast paced and focused, which is a vast improvement on what, ultimately, was Guerilla's main failing.

Expect to find yourself challenged - not just by the aliens and colonists baying for your blood, but by the variety, complexity and depth of weapons and upgrades available to use as you progress.

Now for the big one. Anyone with previous experience of the Red Faction genre will understand the importance of their environments, and just how essential they have become to the game itself. From total destruction to minor structural damage, the gamer is given free helms on there aggression, with each and every building available for total devastation should they chose to do so. Again, if you have played Guerilla you will know that there is serious fun to be had from this mindless destruction, but Armageddon's true destructive achievements will leave even the most experienced of gamers staring blankly at their screens - jaw dropped - as the beauty and range of the games extirpation reveals itself. It's a beautiful thing to watch a powerplant swarming in monsters collapse and send them into oblivion.

Volition/THQ  have pulled out the mathematical stops on this one. It must have hurt – I know it did – to develop the physics for this behemoth.

This latest iteration of Red Faction though brings a new twist -  you can reconstruct things. Floors, walls, machinery bridges, machines - you name it, you can repair it. This premise can totally change the action and pace of the game and creates puzzle challenges under pressure. Sometimes you need to run and build a wall to save your ass. The rebuilding sequences are again equally satisfying to watch.

The armoured exoskeletons of past ventures appear once again in the game and are devastating in their fire-power, but also have a natty trick of ramming things. This can get you quickly in and out of trouble, as you career though pipework and bring structures of all shapes and sizes tumbling to the ground. There’s plenty of action with new vehicles and their devastating weaponry – mind you, you will need it. Your adversaries are no pushovers.

Opposites Attract

A word about the weapons, they are not original in their conception. There’s been shot guns, machine guns, rocket launchers, beam weapons, magnetic guns and singularity weapons in games before, but they are done really well here. Each one has a nice affect in both its graphics and in the destruction each device can cause. The star of the arsenal has to be the Magnetic gun, with sticky magnets that can be used to pull structures down into creatures or - as a connoisseur of the infamous bug swatter - has the ability to stick one magnet to a creature and the other to a structure, before watching your advisory flung mercilessly across the map. Remember, the further the object has to travel, the more force it impacts with - it’s different each time - so be sure to send them a long way.

The other star device akin to Fallout 3’s ‘Pip-Boy as a strap-on' aid... to your arm, is the Nano Forge. This allows you to literally paint back structures and use them to your advantage. It can really save your ass if you are in a tight spot. I found that I could paint a wall to block my pursuers and then quietly move on. Maybe it's just me, but I'm sure I could feel even the relief of Darius at the hands of such cunning.

Built Not to Last

The second game mode is Ruin, where the challenge is to cause the most damage in a set time limit. For me, this is the additional game mode that’s pure fun and one you will want to keep dipping in and out of; key to its appeal is using the aforementioned array of weaponry.

The most entertaining and efficacious weapons are the beam and high-ex systems. But as the Zero-Gravity Gun and the crow bar are the signature weapons in Half-Life 2, the magnetic gun and Power hammer are to Red Faction: Armageddon. Those sticky magnetic attractors will pull together anything with devastating and satisfying affect. If you get your head around the logic of the physics, which is excellent, you can cause total mayhem with a few strategic shots. Inevitably, this is key to its success, and why you end up finding yourself playing the same level many, many times, each time trying to better your previous score.

Bug Hunt

Finally - but in no way least - is the third game mode Infestation, where players need to either survive multiple waves of aliens attacking them, or defend key buildings where aliens are trying to kill you and take over the base you are protecting. Teamwork is an essential element of the mode - while one player is blowing up bits of the base to destroy the alien invasion, others need to make sure there’s enough of that same base to defend, by using the Nano forge to reconstruct it. I’m not sure this really works as a multi-player game, even though it should; it felt quite flat in pace as the levels progressed.

There are plenty of nice upgrades that can be earned in the same way they were in Red Faction: Guerrilla, by collecting scrap and cashing it in using various consoles that are around, or that can be re-constructed with the Nano Forge.

The Nano Forge, the updated Geo Mod engine and the weaponry certainly made the game play different. The story plays out fast and intense, but this game is definitely orientated towards the shoot-everything type of player as a baseline. For those who like to develop a certain destructive player and get the better of your foes in increasingly more imaginative ways, this game is for you. However, If you are looking for Half Life 2/ Portal problem-solving at a slow pace, you may need to persist with it because this is hectic!

Overall

Red Faction: Armageddon shows how a franchise can be built upon in a very positive direction. It pulls on all the positive things of its predecessors whilst deftly removing things that were not so good.

Is this the next Halo franchise? Not yet. I say that because I felt that Armageddon lacked a few things that make a great game brilliant. Whilst the sounds that make up the game are very real and the aliens’ noises really are quire creepy, the game is seriously lacking a strong musical theme that makes games like Halo or Half Life so memorable. Such is the intensity of the battles - and the frantic nature with which this story-mode entails - that music would struggle.

Another vital aspect I felt was missing from the final product was dramatic pace and fluidity. A really good example of this would be Gears of War. The ‘quiet before the storm’ affect was beautifully used in Gears 2, along with a powerful narrative to what was, in effect, just a shoot ‘em up.

Through the co-development of Red Faction: Origins the movie and the release of Red Faction: Battlegrounds on XBLA and the Playstation Network - plus the lingering possibility of a book series -  there is plenty coming up for existing Red Faction fans. If the movie is a success, the franchise may grow beyond the game world, forcing its gaming counterpart to further raise its game...a win-win for gamers.

On the whole though, Red Faction: Armageddon does not disappoint. It has enough to keep a Red Faction fan happy and lots to introduce newbies to a long running story. With the great care given to the gameplay - and the Pièce de résistance of its destructive/re-constructive tendancies - Armageddon is a welcome and enjoyable addition to this long running franchise, and THQ/Volition should be proud of what they have achieved here.

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