London MCM - Red Faction: Armageddon Preview: Rainbow Farting Unicorns and Destructible Environments
Destruction is good. It allows us as gamers to modify and change the gaming environment as we see fit, creating a unique gameplay experience depending on how you want to destroy the immediate area around you. It is with this mentality that Red Faction: Armageddon seems to be executed, and according to the game’s designer, “destruction is at the core of our game. Everything man made can be destroyed.”
From what we saw at London MCM, the great focus in Armageddon is the idea of destroying and rebuilding the environment as you see fit - anything that is deemed man-made in the game is said to be totally destructible. Don’t like the look of a metal walkway? Why not blow it up with your plasma thrower? Is that massive building in the distance annoying you with its giant-ness? No worries, get rid of it with whatever you can find. Not only is this pretty fun to do, but it can also be used strategically to get rid of enemies. I don’t know quite what it is, but dropping buildings onto the heads of enemies is immensely satisfying – must be the crunch of concrete on alien skull.
If you, however, find that destroying a building was a bad decision as you’ve then exposed yourself to fire through the now destroyed environment in front of you, Volition is also going to give you the opportunity to rebuild whatever you blow up as you play Red Faction: Armageddon through the usage of repair grenades. These nifty little glowing blue devices can be chucked absolutely anywhere at will, where they will promptly begin to reconstruct the environment before your very eyes. So basically what you’ll be in Red Faction: Armageddon is the world’s most indecisive demolitions expert – you’ll blow stuff up then end up feeling bad and repairing it when you have a change of heart.
In terms of the game itself, the majority of it is to be set underground in a more linear fashion. Bad news for all you fans of open-world, but the game’s designer elaborated on how this allows them to tell a more contained story than if it was strictly open-world, which apparently benefits the gameplay as well. He also mentioned that some of the game would take place on the surface of Mars, where you’ll be visiting old locales from the older titles in the series.
The game itself is a typical third-person shooter style affair that will have you wielding a selection of different weapons to battle the many monsters of Mars who apparently haven’t taken kindly to you invading their planet. The decision to switch to third-person shooting was made because it allows gamers to see more of what they are doing and ultimately benefits the scale of destruction you can achieve.
What exactly are the weapons like in Red Faction: Armageddon? They’re pretty varied - as well as having such typical firearms such as pistols, machine guns, etc. there’s also weapons such as the ‘maul’ (a giant hammer) and even the much talked about Mr. Toots, the Unicorn that spurts forth highly destructive rainbows from his rear end. This latter ‘weapon’ will only be unlocked by Volition if the demo of Red Faction: Armageddon gets downloaded over a million times, so if you want to see him, you best hope everyone is busy downloading it. I must say it sounds immensely worth it – in a Q & A session at MCM, the game’s designer elaborated on how the decision to include Mr. Toots literally came from a random outburst from one of the developers after they couldn’t decide what to do, resulting in a unicorn who, when squeezed, can destroy a vast portion of the level using the incredibly destructive power of his bottom-rainbows.
Vehicles are also set to play a big part in Red Faction: Armageddon, but will definitely not be used just as a means of transport. The smallest vehicle in the game will apparently be 14 feet high and able to shoot barrages of missiles, while the largest will be a huge ‘walker’ that is larger than the vast majority of the tall buildings that litter the Red Faction landscape.
If there was one aspect of Red Faction: Armageddon I wasn’t impressed with, it was the graphics. Sure, the building destruction is all well and good, but to be honest, most of the locales looked a bit dated. Here’s hoping Volition polishes it up a bit before release.
The preview build of RFA was also showcased at the MCM Expo, so I got the chance to play a bit of multiplayer offline involving working together with four others to fight off ‘up to 30 waves of enemies per map.’ This was actually really great fun – I enjoyed being able to blow up the buildings and most of the map (providing it was man-made, of course) and working together to battle the aliens that would jump around the map, sticking to walls and generally trying to avoid my gunfire. In amidst all this shooting chaos you’re meant to stick by your ‘base’ and make sure it remains intact by repairing it as the enemy damages it. It basically works in a similar way to COD’s zombie mode, but with the added mechanic of repairing an entire base rather than just putting a few wooden boards over a door.
Overall, Red Faction’s latest effort isn’t looking too bad – if you love destroying things and shooting anything that moves, this is probably the game for you. If not, I’d give it a try anyway, you may be pleasantly surprised.
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