Red Faction 2 - Xbox

The last time we played Red Faction 2, it was so good, the earth moved. After the initial honeymoon period had elapsed and we had gotten used being around each other so much, we decided it was time for a break from all the death and destruction and time to go play the field a little. But the heart wants what it wants, and we are once more thrown together, this time with Microsoft's Xbox playing cupid. What were we thinking, going off and playing elsewhere? Red Faction 2 still rocks, and we're beginning to regret our recent wanderings. We missed the sheer noisiness of this game, see?

Red Faction 2 is set on Earth, in the 22nd century, five years after the events of the original Red Faction. There's a new situation for the central character, Alias. He's the super-soldier that you control in the game. The Ultor Corporation is no more, Parker is long gone. There's very little reference to what went on, on Mars, five years ago. Alias and his fellow nano-tech'ed-up colleagues are charged with toppling the mercenary dictator Chancellor Sopot, and overthrowing the government in the process. Sopot is, to put it mildly, a bad man. The Commonwealth's economy is in a downward spiral, and the time is right for revolution. Similar stories have been told in video games many times, but Red Faction 2 does it so well, and it is, after all, gameplay that really matters. RF2 has oodles of it.

It's telling that the character you control is a demolitions expert. RF2 is packed with explosions, and much has been made of the fact that a lot the game environment is destructible. With your seemingly inexhaustible supply of weapons - grenade launchers, rail drivers and the like - it's easy to get carried away with blowing things up. By trial and error, you'll soon find whether your incendiary actions are a help or a hindrance. There are many puzzles to solve in RF2, and a great deal of them can be overcome with the help of something in your arsenal that makes a loud bang.

With a huge number of dynamic environments just waiting to be destroyed, and a host of vehicles - including tanks, submarines and hover flyers - ripe for commandeering, Red Faction 2 and it's radically re-thunk gameplay offers hours of replayability in single-player mode. In multi-player, the options for enjoying the noise-fest are greatly increased; different game endings lead to different objectives in subsequent missions, and multi-player modes that come on like an unholy hybrid of the best bits of Quake, Unreal and Half-Life are just the highlights. Plus, if you're a Halo veteran, you may just find a new friend in Red Faction 2 for Xbox. more