By Cody Webb

Does anyone remember the original Red Faction? It debuted awhile back on the Playstation 2, and promised to make environments fully destructible. Due to the technical limitations of the PS2, all it could do was allow players to be able to tunnel through the ground and a few walls. That alone was pretty amazing for its time, and it promptly put Red Faction on the radar of many gamers. Sadly, the sequel took a radical turn from the uprising theme that the first game had established, which turned a lot of players away from the series.

Fortunately, the Red Faction series seems to be back on track with the release of the third entry: Red Faction: Guerrilla. Red Faction has been developed by Volition, the folks behind Saints Row, and the newest entry is available on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. It’s rated M, because of violence and language.

The story starts off innocently enough, player character Alec Mason traveled to Mars to get away from life on Earth and find new beginnings. His new life is quickly derailed by a tragic turn of events, forcing him to join up with the Red Faction and help them take back Mars from the grips of the Earth Defense Force. Unfortunately, this is where the narrative stops trying to get your attention and it slides back as the game’s true objective takes the spotlight: destruction.

Guerrilla delivers destruction in spades; just when you think you’re out of ways to blow things up, the game gives you a new weapon to play with! You start with simple gadgets: remote charges and a sledgehammer. It won’t take you long to evolve into ramming cars through buildings, or knocking out supports in order to cause the building to collapse on top of your foes. Every building you see in this game can be destroyed. That’s not me exaggerating, either, I mean every single building in the game. The level of destruction this game can provide is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. In my opinion, Volition deserves an award for creating the technology that makes this all possible.

While the story fails in putting itself in the forefront, it does manage to convey the sense of actually overthrowing an empire. You’ll find yourself going out of your way just to destroy EDF-owned buildings in order to lower their influence in the sectors that make up Mars. Most of the side missions center around the theme of destroying things, which isn’t a bad thing, but it can get a bit stale after a while. Still, you’ll find yourself stopping to watch buildings crumble after you’re done with them.

Luckily, the rest of the gameplay doesn’t falter because of the focus on destruction. The gunplay is solid and precise, while vehicles are easy to drive. You’ll feel invincible if you manage to find a Walker, which are large, two-legged mechs that are capable of simply walking through buildings. Not so luckily, the environments you’ll be traveling through are sparse and open. It’s debatable whether this is a bad thing, though, since I’d imagine Mars wouldn’t be a very lush planet even with terraforming.

Guerrilla doesn’t stop once you finish the single-player campaign; there’s more destruction to be had in the Wrecking Crew and multiplayer modes. Wrecking Crew is a pass-the-controller game mode where players compete to see who can do the most damage in a variety of modes. If you somehow get bored with Wrecking Crew and the campaign, there’s multiplayer with stat-tracking! Deathmatch has never been more exciting; hiding in a building becomes a gamble when you know it can be brought down upon your head. Plus players can level up through 125 ranks, much like Call of Duty 4.

So if you love causing destruction, or maybe just like watching buildings go tumbling down, pick up Red Faction: Guerrilla and give it a shot! I’ll give it an A, and I’ll give you a friendly warning: be careful when taking down a building. If you’re trapped inside when it comes down, you will regret it!