An occupying power has taken over a dry and dusty world, and the locals improvise weapons to battle the invaders. And you’re the insurgents. That’s the idea behind Red Faction: Guerilla, a sort of open-world action game set on a terraformed Mars and conquered by the forces of Earth.

Even though THQ was the first of the major publishers to hold a pre-E3 event this year, way back in April, and what we saw there was pretty much what we saw at E3, now it’s a lot more polished. The demo consisted of the hero using his mining hammer to bash out parts of buildings, causing them to collapse. This showed off the elaborate physics system, as destroying support pillars will place stress on the rest of the structure. If the hammer can bash out concrete, it makes short work of human beings, though there’s no gore; the bodies just go hurling.

The goal is to create support for the uprising by striking back against the occupiers. This is done by destroying their vehicles, equipment, and forces, but you also need to take out their sources of propaganda. So you want to destroy propaganda towers, signs, and the like. But there are also interesting side missions where you can just go on a joy ride with the goal of destroying a certain amount of Earth hardware. So you can ride shotgun on the gun turret of a vehicle and just blast the heck out of everything. A running total keeps track of the millions of dollars in damage you’re inflicting.

This wasn’t particularly a deep demo, as it glossed over the basics of the game. What we want to know is whether the world is divided into various factions, what interaction with civilians is like, and more. Hopefully these questions get answered in the coming months. THQ is in no big hurry, though, as Red Faction: Guerilla ships in 2009.

Source: Red Faction