Red Faction: Armageddon

I picked this up the other week on super Steam sale, although I haven't had many chances to play it recently. Now that the dust around its release has settled, I've gotten over the fact that it isn't a Guerrilla-style open-world -- although the story isn't very remarkable, it's solid enough, and the campaign pacing is sophisticated enough, that the moment-to-moment gameplay is actually pretty compelling. (Being able to blow everything up helps, too.)

While Guerrilla included an extra mode for just blowing up buildings with a time limit, Armageddon has the brilliance to include a "Free Play" version of this as well: so you can pick a loadout, with infinite ammo, and just blow the hell out of bridges, cooling towers, and multistory complexes. It's a small touch, but despite the absence of a proper open world, this Ruin Mode is a great way to jump in for a few minutes at a time and disintegrate some load-bearing walls.

So it's pretty fun so far, although it lacks the sheer intensity of a Gears of War, and its high-powered weapons and destructible objects don't feel like a perfect fit for the extremely linear campaign.

But the most important thing I've taken away so far is, when it isn't just farming the port out to a foreign contractor, Volition is very capable of making a good PC game. It's stable, it runs great, and it controls great. This is what gave me the confidence to pre-order Saints Row 3.

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