(Red Faction: Guerilla Beta Hands-on which I wrote some time ago)

THE BETA'S OUT!

 So as you've no doubt heard, there's a beta floating around for Red Faction: Guerilla. I had a late night session with it and here's is what I found.

At first glance it didn't seem all that special. So yeah there's destructabillity but that doesn't mean anything if the mechanics behind it don't work. After playing a few rounds though I quickly came to realize that when using the destruction to your advantage it suddenly makes for a much more fun, and obviously, explosive experience.

For example, I used a jetpack to get on to this big tower on Radial and I was taking potshots at people running in circles down below. After a while they had finally noticed that it was me who was reigning terror from above so instead of trying to kill me in a conventional way, (ie: stop - drop - roll into cover - take a few shots and feel the wrath of my unholy powers) my nemesis just took his hammer out and started clubbing down the structure from the ground! Suddenly without knowing it I had put myself a much worse situation then my enemies down below were and soon the building (with me still inside it) came crashing down. Splat. Dead. Awesome much? Even though I got my arse handed to me, it was a great way to go.

I was also suprised at how effective and the unconventional the weaponry actually is. Apart from your typical arsenal such as pistols and assault rifles, you can also get your hands on a weapon I like to call The Decapitator (I actually forgot what it's called, sue me). It basically shoots these ninja discs of hell. A very satisfying weapon to say the least when you get to kill someone with that. Also in the mix are a rocktet Launcher and remote mines. The latter of which, you guessed it, can be detonated remotely. Ordinarily these two weapons are considered to be standard fare but thanks to Volition inc. and the emphasis they put on "Yes you can blow the living **** out of everything" they suddenly become a whole lot more deadly and fun to use. It's great just to blast away with those things in the enemies' general direction and have them run around in panic as crap blows up around them.

What also sets RF:G apart from the rest of the herde are the backpacks which are simply put temporary special abilities. These are placed around the map for the players to pick up whenever they feel like it. When used aggresively though be prepared to get your behind handed to you when on the recieving end on one of these things. For starters there's a rhino pack which boosts the player forward and cuts through buildings like a knife through hot butter. Very, very hot butter. You can also pick up a firepower pack which makes the weapons you equip even more deadly, a fleetfoot pack which makes the player move at a higher speed, a jetpack which makes you leap or fly great distances a concusion pack which gives headaches I guess and makes them turn of their consoles. Again, an innovative way to beat your opponents. Thanks Volition.

Visually speaking the game looks rather bland. Then again, the fact that it's set on Mars doesn't exactly help it either. It's red and barren. I would know because I've been there so I know what I'm talking about. Shut up.

Though all is forgiven when you get to destroy every thing in sight.

So far I'm enjoying it but there's still a lot of work to be done by Violition in order to make this a worthy multiplayer portion of it's upcoming game. The addition of a CTF gamemode would be start as the current line-up only consists of TDM and Damage control. All of the different backpacks do liven things up and offer different tactical choices. In the end though the main thing you'll want to be doing is destroying things and you're going to be doing that a lot.