Red Faction: Armageddon preview
We sit down with the new sequel to one of gaming's most destructive franchises
After keeping this up for a few shots, Darius had unfortunately launched all his cover at the rapidly approaching enemies. Durall then took this opportunity to show us one of Darius’ new Nano Forge abilities, Repair. The Nano Forge, a high tech gun that uses nano technology,returns from Guerrilla though this time it will be much more than a cool gun that disolves things. Now devoid of the cover he had so hastily launched at the aliens, Durall quickly selected the Nano Forge and proceeded to recreate the wall that had just been in front of him, the concrete slowly reappearing out of thin air. With the wall now restored, Darrius was quickly resupplied with ammo, or cover depending on your strategy.
While the aliens were doing their best Wile E. Coyote impression getting repeatedly crushed by boulders, Durall hustled Darius to the other side of the map, showing us the Leo Walker Assault suit. This sexy suit replaces the bulky industrial walkers of Guerrilla, looking more marathon runner than power lifter, though its destructive capabilities are certainly still intact. Durall proceeded to tear through the ever increasing number of Ravagers with the Leo, shooting some with its arm mounted cannons and simply tearing others down with rushing attacks. It was about at this point that an enormous wyrm type monster burrowed out from the ground and growled in an extremely unpleasant fashion at Darius and the demo ended. We can only assume they sat down and peacefully worked out their differences.
THQ is taking a big risk fiddling with what made Guerrilla a success, but the more linear style and tense horror atmosphere might give the game more emotional drive than it had before. Whacking down buildings with a sledgehammer in Guerrillawas fun for a little while, but eventually you need a reason other than “Ultor are jerks”. With the Syfy channel movie Red Faction: Origins in the works, THQ has obviously put a huge investment into Red Faction’s story and characters, so much so that they’re tight lipped about why exactly the Red Faction has been pushed underground, and what exactly the EDF has to do with all of this. Looks like we’ll have to wait until March 2011 to see if the gamble pays off for Armageddon, but as it stands, we’re intrigued.
July 20, 2010
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