Red Faction

My friends used to make fun of me because I liked Red Faction. I don’t know why. But I do know that their distaste of this futuristic, working-class revolution-themed shooter franchise was their loss. To be fair, my memories of the earlier days of this franchise are a little fuzzy as I get on in years, but the more recent Red Faction: Guerilla remains a satisfying game to play. Sure, it falls victim to the condition of having a large open world that is a little too empty, but the destructive physics systems which detail intricate and satisfying collapses of buildings and objects never gets old.

And hey, with a game that is about literally smashing the status quo to build a better future, there’s a narrative cohesion between the game’s systems that makes the whole experience just more entertaining and immersive. It’s also been 15 years since Guerilla’s release date (it was re-Mars-tered six years ago), and 13 years since it’s so-so follow-up Armageddon, so it’s safe to say this one’s probably gonna continue sleeping for the unforeseeable future. Which, like many other dead franchises, is a shame given how computing power has grown since Guerilla arrived on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 release a decade-and-a-half ago. I mean, look at stuff like Teardown!

Our gaming machines are so much more powerful these days and I long for more wildly destructive physics simulations while uniting the Martian working class. — Claire Jackson