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Red Faction Guerrilla was one of those sandbox games that I genuinely enjoyed, it had a large expansive world with many things to destroy. Sadly, those sentiments weren’t shared with the rest of the people in the gaming industry. Many dubbed it as a bad game over reasons I would not understand. Volition had decided to make a new Red Faction, something to be more accessible (more than running around in an expansive world and blowing up things?), this is where I had to worry.
You play Darius Mason, the grandson of the protagonist from Red Faction: Guerrilla. A group of cultists capture the terraformer that keeps life sustainable on Mars. You try to stop them and fail in you mission as the terraformer gets destroyed, forcing the inhabitants of Mars to dwell underground, a while later you are hired to excavate an ancient dig site where you unearth an ancient race of martian instectoids from the dark, hostile undergrounds of Mars. The games starts pretty well, who ever wrote the first bit of the story clearly was influenced by Call of Cthulhu and At The Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft as the bits from those two stories are very apparent, and that is A-Okay in my book.
The third person shooter play is better than what I anticipated, the controls are pretty much the same as Guerilla, except that there are a few more controls. One of the main highlights is that not only can you destory but also repair breakable objects, this does come in handy in many places where vital parts of the levels (destroyed generators, stairs, cover, etc) need to be repaired. It’s an interesting mechanic, but it does reach a point where it becomes really redundant and very boring. There will be points in the game where you will be rebuilding what you’ve destroyed many times.
In Guerrilla, the destruction was an interesting and very gratifying mechanic that made the game so much more fun, you were destroying buildings and walls without a worry in the world. In Armageddon, it just feels very different. You are worrying about the parts that you rebuilt and sometimes it won’t be clear that you had to rebuild.
Another feature is that you’re using salvage this time to buy abilities for Darius. Every 1000 pieces of salvage equate to be able to buy a new ability from the ability canteen. These canteens divide levels from each other giving you a chance to level up between each level depending on the amount of salvage you have. The game plays much more differently than Guerrilla, I came in expecting that from the start. It’s not how different that bothers me, it’s how much it reminds me of Doom 3. Linear, overly dark corridors and the game is up to its ears with monster closets.
Those who know me well, know how disappointed I was with Doom 3. It was a boring game with mechanics I did not like, and worst of all was that if I was lost, any path that has monsters in it is the right way. I wasn’t too happy with Armageddon, I embrace change when it’s good, but when it’s the exact opposite of something already good that’s where I draw the line.
What We Think: New gimmicks that can potentially be fun, but hammered down by brutally dated game design and decisions. It’s not entirely bad, but nothing notable or memorable. Without a doubt Red Faction: Guerilla is the better game of the two.
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