From the archives: This story originally ran in PC Gamer #321 (UK, Sep. 2018). The review appears as originally written, with only minor changes in formatting and presentation.
It’s a damn crime that no game ripped off Red Faction: Guerrilla’s Geo-mod destruction feature. You take a hammer and you use it to smash out a panel of a wall and break through a pillar. Smash out a few more walls and maybe the building creaks. A few more whacks of the hammer later and the whole thing comes down, perhaps with you inside. And hey, maybe it knocks through another building on the way down. It’s still amazing to watch.
Guerrilla does this one thing really well. It’s an otherwise uninspired open world game, with okay driving, unimpressive shooting and a boring story. Hell, Mars doesn’t even look that nice, because it’s Mars. But knocking down buildings in an open world is more than enough to carry this game.
You’ll crash a jeep through a base. You’ll detonate mines and blow up a bridge, which will then collapse on top of an enemy settlement. You’ll melt the beams of a tower and watch it fall over. This destruction felt great in 2009, and it still feels goo...
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