Battle for the Red Planet

Prepare for the impending war on Mars in Red Faction: Guerrilla on PlayStation 3.

Red Faction: Guerrilla takes place 50 years after the events of the original Red Faction that appeared on PlayStation 2. Players take the role of an insurgent fighter with the newly re-established Red Faction movement as they battle for liberation from the oppressive Earth Defense Force (EDF). Throughout their fight for freedom, players carve their own path, wreaking havoc across the vast, open world environment of Mars, from the desolate mining outpost of Parker to the gleaming EDF capital city of Eos.

Weapons of mass destruction

Using improvised weapons, explosives and repurposed mining equipment and vehicles, Red Faction: Guerrilla allows you to tear through fully destructible environments in an unforgiving Martian landscape swarming with EDF forces, Red Faction resistance fighters, and the downtrodden settlers caught in the crossfire. Developed by the team at Volition, the series has undergone a significant number of changes since PlayStation players last saw it. First and foremost, the acclaimed science fiction series has made the shift from first person shooter to third person open world action game.

"When we first had the game up and running, we were just dying a lot," explains producer Rick White. "What it really came down to was that now that destruction was such a big part of the game, and that it could hurt you and have an impact on you and how you played the game, we needed to pull out the camera and switch the perspective."

Once the team had decided to switch perspectives entirely, the rest slotted into place during the five-year long development cycle, including the eventual move to open world gameplay says White. Featuring over 20 main story missions and a plethora of side missions for you to get to grips with, Red Faction offers up a heavy helping of space age warfare utilising a state of the art destruction engine that allows you to destroy any object that stands in the way of your ultimate goal - freeing Mars from the clutches of the EDF forces.

Developing such technology took time explains White. "Originally it was just a programmer, a technical artist, a designer and two other tools programmers who worked on the game for about a year. Then my team finished working on The Punisher for PlayStation 2 and began looking at the technology that was there and what we could do with it. After that, it was just a case of trial and error." In the game, players can wield up to 15 different weapons including machine guns, pistols and more space age weapons such as an Arc Welder which spews out a devastating electrical pulse that cripples enemies in an instant. Plus, with the addition of clever proximity mines that you use to level large structures, the possibilities for carnage on Mars are endless.

Character development

The game also features a number of frenetic multiplayer modes pitting players against each in a series of challenges such as destroying or protecting buildings depending on which side you are on. The twist here is that aside from the arsenal of weaponry available in the single player campaign, you can don various backpacks. These range from jetpacks to Cloaking devices and another called Rhino, which allows you to shoulder charge an enemy with such force, it counts as an instant kill.

White also explains that the lead character, Alec Mason, went through a large number of changes. "Prior to naming him we were just thinking 'yeah, that's him' but nobody really bought into him emotionally. As soon as we named him and worked up a bio we then began properly developing him as a lead character," explains the producer of the evolutionary process of Mason. Now, through months of alterations, Mason has become a substantially well rounded character with a deeply rooted history and a reason to be on Mars, fighting the good fight against the EDF forces.

With a vast array of missions, a gripping storyline and a hard hitting arsenal of massively destructive weapons, Red Faction: Guerrilla is an open world science fiction action adventure game that looks set to pack a mighty punch and plenty of challenge.