Red Faction: Guerrilla

It's been seven years in the real world since the last Red Faction game, but it's been over 50 years in the game world. Things are still hostile for workers on Mars, but now they have to live in fear of the Earth Defence Force, who were the "faction" in the original game. The EDF has now taken to kidnapping people and making them work in labour camps.

You play Alec Mason, who arrives on Mars just in time to see his brother murdered by the EDF, and he gets swept up in the wave of popular resistance. These themes fit well with the game's co-opting of soviet style imagery, and the whole Red Faction name. But the Red of the name is the Red Planet, Mars, and the arm holding a hammer aloft comes from the game's setting amongst the Martian mining colonies.

Unlike previous Red Faction games, Guerilla is a third person game, but beyond this it has many similar themes and features to the first title in the series. Players can use melee attacks, weapons and explosives to mount an operation against the EDF. The aim is to use explosives to destroy their installations and weaken their control of various regions of Mars. The game is set in a large scale open environment, so the inclusion of vehicles is vital to getting around.

The GeoMod engine that made the first games so innovative has been improved, and the ability to deform landscape and buildings is key to progressing through the game, as is creative use of explosives.

There are a range of on-line multi-player modes, including the usual deathmatch and capture the flag gameplay styles, but there is also a set off-line multiplayer modes called Wrecking Crew which centre on causing as much damage as possible with limited time or ammo.