Red Faction: Armageddon

Volition did a great job creating a variety of missions -- Darius' battles between the Cultists and aliens intertwine extremely well, and don't overlap each other or feel too overwhelming.

Red Faction Armageddon is a step in the right direction – heavily focused on storyline, and easily cresting over a dozen hours of well-written gameplay to tackle is a far better experience than the open world of Guerrilla. Toss in the far-more-fun-than-it-should-be Ruin mode and the 4 player cooperative Infestation mode and you have a game with some legs. Look over my review of Guerrilla – there is a reason why Armageddon is scoring so much higher. All of those reasons add up to a solid product worthy of your cash.

Without the creative destruction elements that Volition's Geo Mod 2.5 engine allows, Red Faction: Armageddon would be an average shooter, but because it revels in twisting and snapping almost every object throughout and integrating it into the overall strategy of the game, Armageddon is not to be missed.

A worthwhile follow-up, a splendid sci-fi shooter with lots of destruction to go around and awesome supplementary modes, both solo and with friends.

As a whole, this is the best Red Faction title to date. I missed the 'sandbox' style of Guerrilla but I enjoyed the story focus (and not having to travel from one end of the map to the other) to complete objectives.

Armageddon is not quite as much fun as Guerilla, but its arsenal, particularly the magnet gun, and destructible environments make it an enjoyable game on its own.

Red Faction: Armageddon delivers on its promises, even with the uneven level design, soap-opera storyline and bizarre objective choices. The sheer fun to be had with the game's fascinating weaponry and visually stunning scenes of destruction is what makes the series so popular to begin with, and in this respect it is worth every penny.

Technical marvel with truly unique appeal - a Dead Space without the borders or boundaries.

Overall, Red Faction: Armageddon is a game that grows on you. The more you play the more you really start to become immersed in this alien rich world where everything is destructible.

I enjoyed my time with Red Faction Armageddon. There will be some people disappointed with some of the changes that were made, however, in my opinion, it made for a really fun experience.

Leaving the open-world and adopting a more confined, linear environment, Volition's newest entry in the popular franchise promises a far more engaging story and less distractions without compromising what the Illinois-based developer has been building upon. The result is quite different...but pleasantly interesting.

The action does start to drag in the last couple of hours...If you're excited by even the slightest hint of carnage, though, the rubblelicious Armageddon delivers. We absolutely got what we came for: an exciting sci-fi shooter with carnage galore and some of the most crazy-powerful guns we've seen in ages. [June 2011, p.50]

It might not be as big as Red Faction: Guerrilla or offering the same open-world, but Armageddon is nonetheless a worthy sequel with enough new ideas of its own to set it apart. Play around with the magnet gun and the plasma weapons, and you'll be hard-pushed to find something as mindlessly fun.

That inherent, unapologetic, child-like fun is still present in Armageddon.

It is an enjoyable 6 – 8 hour romp that, while imperfect, has shining moments. The Geo-Mod 2.0 engine provides the tools for destruction, but the level design elevates beyond being a gimmick.

In conclusion Red Faction: Armageddon gives fans of this series what they want... destruction plus mayhem and it works on so many levels. The beauty of the destruction is that it is not put in as an afterthought but rather, part of the gameplay which must be used in conjunction with your strategies.

Catapulting aliens by force of gravity through the air is one of the most entertaining things absout this action-packed shooter. The other is watching buildings topple and crash to the ground, destroyed by powerful and original weapons. The level design may be partially flawed, the story may seem bland, but what Red Faction: Armageddon excels in is it's fun and rewarding combat.

This shows why Volition is a great studio capable of making great games. Armageddon will not make history, but it will keep you entertained for many hours.

It's well paced, offers cool vehicle sections to break the routine and still has you wanting more at the end.

You can tell a lot of effort has been put into the GeoMod technology, and making sure everything is as polished as it can be. This has to be one of the most technically sound releases we've played in a long while, and it's draw backs mainly come from the content itself, and not the design.

Red Faction: Armageddon both satisfies and disappoints, depending on your camp. The single-player campaign may feel too restrictive for some because of the lack of open-world areas to play with, but the weaponry and mass destruction you can inflict still make the somewhat-lengthy experience fun. While co-op multiplayer is great, the lack of competitive modes will turn off those who have come to expect a more refined multiplayer experience. Still, the game is enjoyable enough that fans will not be terribly disappointed in the final product, especially those who prefer single-player over multiplayer games.

Though Red Faction: Armageddon isn't the most creative game on the market, it's one of the most entertaining action games to hit the market in a while. Fans of previous virtual mining expeditions (scratch that; uprisings) on the red planet will feel at home with the game's easy to grasp control scheme and incredibly exciting mechanics.

In conclusion, Red Faction: Armageddon succeeds at being an enjoyable and entertaining sequel despite itself. Compared to its predecessor, it lacks the freedom of exploration, mission variety and more regrettably, the competitive online player that helped put Guerrilla on the map in this console generation, but on the positive side, Volition's narrower focus on the single-player campaign and online co-op has resulted in a significant trimming of fat, leaving a lean, mean and undeniably fun game that continues to revel in destruction, which is the calling card of the franchise.

Although too linear and unrelated with the previous Red Faction: Guerrilla Games, it is a fun, intense and frantic game which is sometimes espectacular, with a great physics engine that allows dynamical destruction of the environments, although the game not always makes the most of it.

The versatile magnet gun marries beautifully with the series' signature destructibility to make Red Faction: Armageddon an exciting and explosive shooter.

Red Faction: Armageddon is a nice successor to the mediocre Guerilla. The new gameplay elements are a plus, but in the end the hordes of alien enemies are just a tad too much.

Some brilliantly innovative weapons but we miss the freedom of Guerrilla. [Aug 2011, p.82]

Quotation forthcoming.

Draws up a completely new plan that spells out every last detail of the player's job with little room for deviation, but the crazy damage model that's always defines the series plays as well here as it did in an open world. The destruction certainly packs a punch, it's just not quite enough to blow us away.

This is a well-polished ten-hour campaign, but it loses all of the things that made Guerrilla special in favor of a generic action experience. Also, there's no competitive multiplayer.