Red Faction: Armageddon

is a very satisfying game, but the only problem is that it's predecessor Red Faction: Guerrilla offered more in that it was a sandbox game. And that's a shame because people heard this and dismissed Armageddon, and that is why we may never see another Red Faction game again because the studio was shut down.

There are many improvements in Armageddon: the gun-play, the enemy variety; the destruction engine, while not specifically featured this time around, is also better. You fight a bunch of different kinds of aliens all with different abilities. It's very satisfying to use the grenade launcher to blow up a clustered group of bugs or bring down an entire structure with one plasma blast.

This game does have some drawbacks. It's fairly short and linear, which, again, is what sets it apart from Guerrilla. But not too short; it doesn't overstay its welcome.

The story is not too great, especially with the magic plot-hole device known as the nanoforge. Apparently only you have one otherwise all of Mars' problems would be solved as it can fix things just by pointing at them. It does have a gameplay usage and allows you to repair destroyed walkways so you don't trap yourself, though it does get very annoying when you are walking on a catwalk that was hit by a pea-shooter and crumbled like a graham cracker left out on the counter. You fall through a man-sized hole and die; and then you have to start the whole encounter over again.

I did finish this game in two days, but one of those days was a Sunday, this game was fun enough to keep me on the couch for most of the day. (7/10)