Red Faction: Armageddon

If Red Faction: Armageddon isn't treated like it's going to revolutionize the gaming world, it won't disappoint. It's a solid third-person shooter, there are a bunch of cool weapons and nasty surprises down in those mines. At the same time, there is an immutable sense of repetition at play and things are pretty simplistic in the design department.

If it weren't for the endlessly brown, generically sci-fi and personality-deprived caves of Mars, Armageddon could be hugely enjoyable.

The[] ability to tear apart and repair the environments at will is a hook that keeps working, and when the campaign gives you plenty of stuff to tear apart it's easy to lose yourself to a primal need to destroy.

Visually spectacular alien-blasting action; another fine port from Volition. [July 2011, p.60]

This could have been a seriously awesome game. Instead, we get a clone that blows its own legs off with a clichéd storyline that ignores the internal logic of it's own world.

Armageddon lacks ideas that could help vary the experience. It's hard to tell the missions apart, because in almost every room and every tunnel you have to do the exact same things. The developer made a mistake of betting everything on just one feature – total destruction. [July 2011, p.60]

Short of an outstanding visual appeal, and with a rather poor level design and uninspired story, Red Faction Armageddon won't be able to raise itself above the TPS usual crowd. But despite its shortcomings, the appeal of destructibility and of a very playable action remains efficient enough to see through the solo campaign. Multiplayer may be fun a couple of hours, but it's very forgettable.

Technically accomplished and mechanically sound. But unfortunately that's not enough in a world of Dead Spaces and Gears of Wars. Aside from marvelling at the odd collapsing building, there's little here to hold your attention for more than a few hours. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination; it's just an entirely forgettable one.

Armageddon's visuals are borderline awful, but the primitive gameplay is what looks the worst.