Red Faction Guerilla picks up fifty years after the original Red Faction left off. The EDF, once the saviours of Mars, have now replaced the Ultor Corp. as it's oppressors. Single player follows Dan Mason, a demolition engineer, as he helps the Red Faction insurgency drive the EDF of Mars to get revenge for his brother.
While this plotline doesn't seem especially original, it is quite well done and since you spend most of your time blowing EDF stuff up… well, let's just say there's plenty to keep you occupied. The difficulty settings are, well, difficult. Seriously, Volition has not made it easy for anyone (I hear it's the same on the console version), which doesn't bother me in the slightest – I like a challenge. Anyway, if you're really struggling, most people should be able to manage on the lowest difficulty setting. If you turn it up though… be prepared.
The visual effects are great, especially if you are running DX10. RFG runs surprisingly well on a near minimum spec. machine and if pretty explosions are your thing, then it won't let you down. I suggest considering tweaking the mouse sensitivity to your liking though – it may not default to what you'd consider normal and it will definitely feel quite different to what you're used in third person. It'll make getting used to being in third person for a PC shooter a bit easier.
GeoMod2 is a main feature, and plainly appeals to the inner vandal in us all – practically anything that has been ‘built’ in the game can be torn down by whatever means you please (rockets, hydrogen barrels, explosive charges, crashing a fuel tanker into it, among many others), so be creative The terrain damage from the original game seems somewhat lacking but I never once felt this was a drawback – there are more than enough man-made items around to pulverise. You collect salvage from just about anything you blow up. Salvage is basically the game's currency. So, the more stuff you blow up, the more new toys you can buy. Better guns, gun upgrades, a jetpack, etc, etc. You also receive bonus salvage for completing main missions, based on the morale of the civilians in the sector you're in, and yet more salvage as payment for certain kinds of Guerilla Action (i.e. optional side missions that spring up all over the place.) Blowing up EDF property reduces their control of a sector and can (if you do enough damage) increase civilian morale. Killing civilians in the crossfire reduces civilian morale, and therefore reduces payouts on some missions. Morale also affects how much ammo you get in hidden weapons caches (this can be pretty important, if you're on the way back from a big outing and either are under assault by half the entire EDF and need ammo to cut your way through to a vehicle, or if you just seem something nice that you want to blow up but looks like it will need a quite bit more than what you have on you.) High sector morale also increases the likelihood of civilians joining your cause and helping out. A car of rebels rocking up to the middle of a fire-fight can be very, very handy (lifesaving, in fact), especially in some the harder missions, particularly on harder difficulty settings.
The P.C. version includes 2 exclusive multiplayer maps, some (six, I believe) of the DLC maps, an additional multiplayer mode, the Wrecking Crew game type, and a prequel mini-campaign called Demons of the Badlands, which is essentially most of the content of three DLCs planned for the console version (IIRC, only two are out as of right now.)
My one complaint is that this is third person only, unlike the original Red Faction, but I actually got used to it surprisingly fast. By the time you finish Parker sector you'll probably have it down, if not before that. Besides, vehicles are a key component of survival in this game, and I've always found third person driving much easier to manage. Especially when there's a small army of armoured vehicles close behind you.
I haven't had time to try online multiplayer, but it looks set to be great too. Especially if the original RF community (which is still out there, around nine years or so after the original game was released…) gets onboard.
So for ninety bucks, how can you go wrong? 5/5, I am a huge fan of the original game and I absolutely loved this, third person or not. It feels very polished, and I also got the vibe that Volition still gives a damn about it's PC gamers. I think they learnt an important lesson from the Saints Row 2 port.