by Angie Pollock

Created on: February 05, 2010   Last Updated: May 04, 2012

Red Faction Guerrilla is a 3rd-person shooter game based on the world of Mars.  You play as the hard core character Alec Mason who left Earth in search of a better occupation and mining on Mars had intrigued him the most.  When he gets there, he meets his older brother on the planet and finds out he is a little more than just a miner.  In fact, he was a key player in the revolution against the EDF - the controlling power over Mars that ruled unfairly and killed civilians often for no purpose.  The game was expected to be a big disappointment but fortunately it turned out to be far greater than I had hoped for. I didn’t stop playing until I had completed almost everything the game had to offer.

The game didn’t really offer too much in character design besides purchasing armor plating for your character. Character graphics weren’t that great either but the terrain graphics were absolutely mind blowing.  The destruction physics were some of the most realistic I’d seen in an Xbox game.

In Red Faction Guerrilla, you earn money to purchase new weapons and upgrades. There is armor plating but the weapon that became my personal favorite and most used was the regular assault rifle.

In Red Faction Guerrilla, you are given vehicles to drive like the small buggy and the huge walker.  Some vehicles will be upgraded when you unlock safe houses.  The walker has three forms (which is ultimately the more powerful vehicle) can only be found in certain areas.  Regretfully the biggest walker can only be driven in special side missions and one main mission so the fun of the ultimate destruction is taken from you.

The controls in the game are simple enough to understand.  The game makers even did a great job with vehicle controls - keeping them simple but giving enough options to make each vehicle unique and fun.

The multiplayer in the game is quite fun but after about a week of playing you may start to feel like you are doing the same thing over and over again just on different maps.  But some of the weapons that you unlock are some of the most humorous weapons you may ever see in a game.  The ostrich hammer is an ostrich you hold by its neck and use it as a melee weapon.  On the down side, players that are into earning things the right way may not appreciate these types of weapons because of how easy it is to boost  your points and cheat your way to the top of the leader boards.

This game may not have the most serious multiplayer or provide the campaign you were looking for but I definitely suggest at least renting it and giving it a chance. 

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