Red Faction: Armageddon
Preview
Hands-on with the single-player and the newly-revealed Ruin Mode
by Chris Capel
previewed on PS3
Exo suit to the centre stage
Of course the big new star of the show is the EXO suit, which I had a good go with. Just like F.E.A.R.2’s mech, machineguns are on one hand, rockets are on the other. You can get in and out of the suit at will, so if you screw up and destroy a key platform (very likely) you can get out and repair it yourself, leaving Mason exposed to alien attack. You can charge forward too, splattering aliens and dismantling scenery as you go.
However, you’re most definitely not invulnerable. The suit can get destroyed quite easily if you’re not careful. And even if you are, you eventually won’t be able to go further while wearing it. One such occasion to drop the suit seems to be right before a boss encounter. Yes, I had one of those too. I won it by dropping a skylight on his head, although the 20 rockets I pumped into the huge git probably had something to do with it too.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
There are definitely a couple of problems that I’ve seen so far. The first is simply that the Martians are far too reminiscent of Dead Space’s Necromorphs, albeit more colourful versions. The second is far more pressing, and is something that has never improved any game that’s used it: respawning enemies. It actually seems to be built into Red Faction Armageddon’s gameplay, with the aliens primarily spawning from cocoons that you have to seek out and destroy.
There can be several of these, and they can be well hidden, so it quickly becomes a chore. As this is the only way I could see that enemies appeared, there has to be loads of these in a level, and hunting these respawn points got tiresome after five minutes. Hopefully these cocoons are only confined to the particular level I played, as I hate to think the whole game was built with them in mind. There’ll be a lot of complaints come May if so.
Aliens were a silly idea anyway...
The Ruin mode dispenses with this silly alien malarkey and just asks you to do what we all go to Red Faction for: pure, unbridled destruction. It’s a Score Attack mode really, and is lots of fun. You can choose up to four weapons, although the precious time it takes you to change them means you’ll probably stick to just one (the Nano-Gun or the Plasma Cannon were my favourites here). You’re given a short time to destroy as much scenery as possible, with a points multiplier building up the quicker you blow up things. Build up the scores, stick them on the internet, brag until someone beats you and try again. Simple, but lots of fun.
The one thing I should point out was that the menu I saw suggested that Ruin is going to be DLC. According to a PR person on hand at the event, a code for it will be included with the game, meaning that anyone who buys Red Faction Armageddon used will have to pay to access the mode. This may change between now and release, but with companies like EA having DLC incentives to persuade people away from the pre-owned market I wouldn’t be surprised if THQ started doing it too.
I live, I destroy, I am content
Red Faction Armageddon will upset a lot of people by veering closer to Dead Space rather than the sandbox anarchy of Guerrilla, but Armageddon still holds a lot of fun value. If developer Volition doesn’t go overboard with the bizarre alien-respawning pods throughout the entire game, the hilarious scenery destruction alone could be enough to create one incredibly fun shooter. We’ll come back to talk about the multiplayer in the game later, but for now the single-player alone has a lot of promise. Let’s hope it lives up to it.
