Red Faction: Guerrilla is the third Red Faction game and like the others the gist is that you're a oppressed miner guy on Mars and naturally you want to fight against said oppression.
This involves a lot of shooting guys and blowing stuff up.
Blowing stuff up is the games biggest strength.
Geomod 2.0 allows destruction on an epic scale.
I won't say it's realistic because I've never blown up a building before, I've never watched a building get blown up - but the way buildings collapse under their own weight if you take out the right supports is super satisfying and all the best parts of the game take advantage of this.
Perhaps my favorite part of the game was the Demo Challenge side missions.
These give you generally a limited amount of a weapon, explosive or a mech looking walker and then also a building or something to demolish. At their worst, the these challenges are simple enough that you can just run in, blow everything up and win the challenge. At their best though these side missions are puzzles that might take a few tries before you figure out how to bring the building down. Where you should be sledgehammering, where to plant the charges or fire the rockets. They can strain your brain a little bit, but the payoff of watching the thing blow up or collapse afterward is immensely satisfying.
The other side missions are only okay and range from hostage rescues to point a to point b time trial races.
The combat is also kind of average. The guns don't sound especially impactful.
The only weapons that sound right are the ones that explode, the rest might as well be toys.
Also I think enemies generally take too many bullets. Another problem remedied by the use of explosives, though.
After finishing the game I read that there was a cover mechanic.
I don't remember there being one, though I'm not sure how useful it'd be anyway.
My idea of cover is generally hide in a way off corner where dudes can't see me while health regenerates.
The game is kind of hard early on before the armor upgrades, staying out in the open will get you killed pretty quick which I guess makes sense, but it makes some sections harder then they'd be otherwise.
This game might be a pain for you completionists as there are a lot of collectibles.
Audio logs, propaganda and priority targets to blow up, ore to mine, crates to smash.
Personally I think it crosses the line. I dislike collectibles but I don't mind them being there.
I just dislike them when there are A LOT of different things to collect.
Anyway I really like the game.
As I mentioned there are a couple of things I'd tweak but they didn't detract from the experience enough to diminish the sheer joy I feel when I bring down large buildings with a only a sledgehammer.
