The History of Red Faction: Blowing Shit Up

The good people at Volition have created a dev diary of sorts, discussing some of Red Faction's history, it's legacy as a science fiction series, the enemies, and of course, blowing shit up. 

If you're not familiar with the Red Faction series, you can watch this to acquaint yourself a bit, but you really should play some of the past entries. If you're strapped for time, then maybe just give Red Faction: Armageddon a shot. It looks like Armageddon will continue the franchise's streak of quality gaming, and lovely destruction. Don't like the way that wall is looking at you? Blow it up! Guilty conscience, wall-killer? Rebuild it again with your Nano Forge. Destroy, build, destroy; Andrew W.K. would be proud. 

In other news, have a look at Red Faction: Armageddon's pre-order bonuses, by way of these silly ads. Best Buy gets the Recon Pack, featuring a nice looking set of Recon Armor, XNG-5000 rocket launcher, and the chain-lightning spitting Arc Welder. Gamestop pre-orders fetch you the Commando Pack, whose odd looking Commando Armor looks like a hybrid of Mass Effect's N7 and Final Fantasy XII's Judge armor. Also, fucking SWEET Laser Pistol and flame-throwing Plasma Launcher. Amazon pre-order is less flashy, but worth it in its own right. $10 worth of video game credit, and a free download of the addicting vehicular slaughter action of Red Faction: Battlegrounds. Where will you pre-order?

Get Your Red Faction: Armageddon On Sooner, Then Later

Show of hands, who here loves Red Faction? Sweet, so do I. Look at that, we have so much in common. Are you busy Friday night? Maybe we can enjoy a candle light dinner followed by some Guerrilla action. But I digress! This is a good news/bad news post. As usual, you'll get the bad news first.

The bad: the release of Red Faction: Armageddon will be delayed. I hear the collective groan, but wait, let me finish. The delay is only a week, which is completely bearable. The date has been bumped back to June 7, as opposed to the scheduled release of May 31. That gives you plenty of buffer time to finish up with L.A. Noire.

Now the good, so you can leave this post feeling positive about life. Mark May 3 on your calendar, because that will be the day that we all receive the Red Faction: Armageddon demo on Xbox Live and PSN. Though who knows if the latter will ever be back online, let alone by May 3.

When I spent some hands on time with Red Faction: Armageddon at PAX East last month, I walked away thoroughly impressed. And though I didn't get to try any of what we'll probably see in the demo -which I'm sure is a sliver of the campaign mode - messing around in Ruin Mode, putting all of the glorious instruments of destruction through their paces made my evil little heart flutter with sadistic glee. Really looking forward to this one.

Get Your Ass Under Mars

Fact: Red Faction is a highly underrated series. Red Faction Guerrilla came out a few years ago with little fanfare, great reviews, solid gameplay, a seamless transition to the open world, and was a lot of fun. It flew under the radar for a lot of people, even with the RF series' solid lineage of past releases. 

Now here we are waiting for the newest Red Faction, Armageddon, where much has changed from Guerrilla. As we can clearly see from the title, shit is going down. Gone are the days of freedom fighting, we're now in a time of living underground and warring with an unknown mutant-monster type of enemy. I'm gonna miss the dusty red surface of Mars, but as long as we can disintegrate the hell out of some underground structures, I'm still game.