Hello Dear Reader,
So on a total whim, I downloaded the “Red Faction: Armageddon” demo, and much to my surprise I enjoyed it. The story seems terrible, even the quick sample of the writing I got was eye-rolling, but the basics of the gameplay are surprisingly solid. I won’t say that I’m in love here, but as long as I was playing, I did not immediately wish to be playing “Borderlands” instead. And that’s accomplishment enough.
As with all the games in this franchise, lots of things go boom: walls, buildings, vehicles, you name it. Of course, unlike the last one, “Armageddon” is a close-quarters, mineshaft experience, so frankly the level of destruction isn’t quite as impressive. And yet it can prove even more confusing, as the upcoming anecdote will prove.
Volition really takes this destructible world thing seriously. I had a head-scratching moment early on when I, caught up in a lusty vigor for life, destroyed a staircase I needed to proceed to my next objective. Desperate for another route, I asked my in-game GPS to guide me, but it continually insisted that I should be able to ascend a flight of thin air. There was no other way. I needed those stairs, and I blew them up. End of story.
For a long time, I wondered if I had broken the damn thing, if I was some kind of sociopathic genius that took destruction to a level Volition had never intended. I imagined the developers sitting in an office, watching playback of my footage, their hands over their mouths and their eyes wide. Yes, I was the Anti-God of “Red Faction,” the black Shiva who wrestled the weapons of war from the hands of simple scientists and turned them on their makers.
Then I realized Volition had included a “fix everything” button. Oh. I rebuilt the staircase in about three seconds and went along my merry way.
But I still think I’m some kind of deity tangentially related to death and/or destruction. Just saying.
-AA
what’s the first thing you remember?
