Dude! This month's issue of Game Informer has given me a promise of gamer sustenance in the current barren desert of not-so-cool game releases.
- Aliens: Colonial Marines
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- Red Faction: Guerrilla
Many games claim to have "destructible environments." Gamers have since come to recognize that phrase to mean "shatter-able crates" or "exploding barrels" or even "whorishly bright-colored satchel icon on some surface right here which, upon explosion, turns to rubble!" These are neat script-based animations, but, sadly, not "destructible environments."
Way back in 2001, a game called Red Faction came out which actually allowed players to destroy their surroundings. You could put holes in walls, floors, and ceilings! Multiplayer matches mostly deteriorated into tunneling matches: combatants would use explosive weapons on cave walls to create and deepen holes to snipe from or to make alternate flag-returning routes. This technology made for many new and surprising multiplayer experiences.
Unfortunately, Red Faction II did not update or expand this technology. The developers of Guerilla recognize that flaw and seem to be back on the right path. In the game review, Red Faction: Geurilla is all about real "destructible environments." Imagine coming up to a building full of enemies and, instead of going inside to clear them out of each room, you place a few charges on the support pillars and just bring the whole fucker down killing everyone inside. Someone camping around the corner with a shotgun waiting to blast you? Put a hole through the drywall behind him and blast him. Someone on the roof above you? A few artfully placed rockets could drop him down a few floors. Think you're safe behind that concrete barrier? Think again.
Gamers have been waiting for this sort of realism for an eternity. Adam and I have been waiting for developers to combine real destructible environments with Half Life 2 physics in a World War 2 FPS setting for much, much longer.
