I was able to get a sneak peak at the Red Faction: Guerrilla demo through a UK based gamertag and a code given to THQ registered members.  Even though I had already beta tested Red Faction: Guerrilla last year, I was eager to play this.  Not only would I be able to see what had changed since I was involved last but I would also grasp how the campaign play was going to be setup.

For those who didn’t get into the beta last year, Red Faction offers an environment where building are fully destructible.  In multi-player this works out well as one game style revolves around this and the ability to restore damaged building.  It is similar to Halo’s territories but instead of standing in a certain area you instead destroy and re-build a building to capture it.  Multi-player was excellent in the beta supporting a full 16 player match.  Weapons and extra abilities are well balanced and the pace of the game is comfortable.

The demo that is coming out soon features only one short campaign with the ability to unlock a harder difficulty once completed.  Alex Mason, part of the Red Faction, sets out to recover a mining vehicle that the EDF, the current ruling faction, has held from the miners.  On easy the AI is easy to beat single handed but once they come out in numbers its best to play strategically.   In all actuality I found myself to be more of a threat than the AI.  I kept smashing through structures that held gases and fuels, and imeaditely found myself dead and restarting the mission.

One noticeable difference from most first person shooters is a reputation system.  When playing through missions, destroying EDF controlled facilities gains a good reputation from the miners for the Red Faction but accidentally killing miners will draw away from that reputation faster than you can earn it.

Once I reached the under guarded mining Walker I quickly boarded it and started the short phase two of the mission; getting the damned thing to the truck.  A brief walk carried me through the EDF controlled facility, through several men, and a bridge or two.  Yeah, that thing is pretty much indestructible so I can’t understand how the EDF wrangled it away from the miners in the first place.

Phase three, aka drive away while defending, was pretty much my favorite.  Here I mounted a back cannon gun on the vehicle hauling the Walker away and defending against all the EDF vehicles that persued us.  Why they chose to drive past all those points I will never know but it was certainly fun none the less.  Once passing a bridge that my friends blew up behind me, with planted charges though my cannon certainly would have done the trick, the campaign and the demo ends.
I certainly cannot wait for more Red Faction: Guerrilla, everything about this game just seems right to me.  Maybe I just like destroying things too much?