Red Faction: Guerilla – Demons of the Badlands

As an unabashed fan of Red Faction: Guerilla, I was eagerly anticipating the chance to hop into more destructive single-player action. Set as a prequel to the game’s mainline story, we meet back up with a younger version of the Red Faction’s go-to gun specialist, Samanya. We learned she was a marauder at the end of the game, leaving the chance for a great storyline to dive into. The DLC is soley focused on the Marauders, and while it offers plenty more destruction, it’s somewhat more of the same.

The DLC stands apart from the main game, dropping players into a completely new area. It’s interesting enough, but the fact that it’s disconnected from the sprawling map that was uncovered by the end of the game, as well as the lack of salvage, you as the player feel less inclined to explore every nook and cranny. The missions that are available do, however, pack quite a punch. The story element, though only 3(some might count it as 4) missions long, is a lot of fun and the amount of variety stuffed into them is fantastic. It’s important to note that the developers very purposefully put many of the objectives on high ground, or behind walkways that are non-navigable by vehicles. This forces the player to do a lot more hands on destruction. This destruction spills onto the EDF points you need to destroy in order to advance toward the final missions, with some areas being surprisingly difficult.

Luckily, some new weapons are put into players’ hands to handle it. The weapons aren’t revolutionary, but if you enjoyed the marauder style weapons towards the tail-end of the main-game, you’ll love weapons like the Spiker and the Misslepod. Using your melee while having charges equipped will send Samanya into a spin with dual blades, perhaps the highlight of the new cache. A small suite of side-missions will occupy you for a bit more in this new area, but there’s not anything terribly different about them. That’s not a damning judgment. If you enjoyed RF:G; priced at 800 points, the DLC will bring you more of what you loved the first time around, and that isn’t such a bad thing.