Previews

My fellow journos are bouncing around the map like mad men desperately trying to kill the other team's flag carrier. The kills on both sides tick over, but the flag doesn't reset. I'm sitting with the enemy flag gripped only metres from the capture point, waiting patiently for my chance to score. The whole time I know they're coming, bringing weapons that won't just destroy me - they'll destroy the world around me.


"...ram a flagpole up their colon."

My strategy is simple - if they can't see me, they can't kill me. The flag itself is a decent weapon - a longer version of the basic melee hammer weapon you can use to take down walls, fences and other people. Of course, just holding the flag means they can see roughly where I am even if they can't shoot me yet, so my plan is to make the time they can see and shoot me roughly equal the time it takes me to close the distance between us and ram a flagpole up their colon.

It's been working so far - Red Faction: Guerilla has more than just weapons, it features "backpacks" with powerups. These range from Healing (a nice one to have any time) to Stealth (the pro pack for getting the flag in the first place) and the Jetpack (get highly explosive weapon, fly up high, fire weapon in general direction of enemy and then marvel at the explosive spectacle). My backpack was the Rhino - a charge attack which knocks down everything (walls, fences, other people) in it's path.

So the enemy would land, I'd charge in and knock them down and then I'd smack them for six. The tactic worked well until they started coordinating - their flag carrier died just as three of them landed in front of me. I saw the remote charges fly from their hands as I charged for the flag - I punched the Rhino powerup just the charges began expoding behind me, walls crumbling everywhere as I surged forward for the score...


I'm the f***ing Juggernaut!

The CTF mode in RF:G was my standout favourite, but all the modes were well done. The maps are very well balanced and designed - each one has multiple chokepoints and a variety of options. Damage Control, Team Anarchy and Destroyer were the other modes we played - the first is a Capture-and-Hold type game where you destroy and rebuild the points, the second is Team Deathmatch and the last has one person on each team competing to destroy as much as they can before the rest of the players kill them.

The weapons can radically change the game as well - take the nanorifle for example. This gun dissolves everything in its path, making cover essentially worthless. Instead of running around or jumping over obstacles I'd simply dissolve them away - drastically streamlining how I'd travel about the map when I had the gun. I also spent quite a bit of time not actually attempting to kill anyone at all and just trying to dissolve things beneath them. Because it's funny.

Meanwhile the Thermobaric Rocket Launcher (the BFG of RFG) turns any mode into a "how many rockets can I fire before I'm dead" mode as the world shakes and explosions destroy everything around. One of the funnier moments came when I handed the controller over to one of my THQ hosts, a TRL in hand and decided to get a drink. With the buildings around him annihilated, he fired a rocket in the other teams direction - only to have the rocket explode on a piece of rebar sticking out of the ground metres in front of him, killing him instantly.


Yeah! Big bada boom!

The thing about Red Faction: Guerilla is - the MP game is full of great moments. Using the Rail Gun (it's back baby!) to kill an enemy through three walls just as he swings his hammer at a teammate and hearing the cursing is brilliant. Double tapping a wall with the nanorifle and having the second shot dissolve an opponent's face - that's satisfaction you can't buy (well...). The biggest problem I can see with the game is going to be a lasck of community - if there aren't enough players online the game will fall faster than a building with no support beams.

I can definitely see it getting a decent community though - I'll play the hell out of it. The game's out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in June, and it's definitely worth watching out for.