


It’s a timed single-player mode that includes five maps, and gives the player a minute to cause as much destruction (thus, achieving as high of a score) as possible. Red Faction: Armageddon’s other online mode is called Ruin. Tactics and precision aren’t really key players in Infestation, and a (thankful) lack of friendly-fire damage ensures much spamming of the game's over-the-top heavy weaponry. As the rounds proceed, the enemies get bigger, badder, and more numerous, and being in the nexus of four teammates firing rocket launchers and deploying Nano Forge abilities really creates a sense of all hell breaking loose. "Chaotic" and "intense" are the two words that first spring to mind when I think about my experience with Infestation mode. They can be as easily obtained playing the single-player campaign, since a common upgrade system is shared with the multiplayer component. Players also won’t find themselves grinding away to unlock weapons and abilities. They are joined by Corvallis, a Marauder warrior siding with Red Faction against the alien scourge, and Snake, a lone-wolf “badass colonist” Red Faction once tried to recruit.

There's Red Faction member Frank Winter, who plays a minor role supporting Darius in the main storyline, and his younger brother, Snipes, a long-range expert. Infestation mode brings in four members of the supporting cast. The single-player campaign of Armageddon centers on Darius Mason, grandson of Red Faction: Guerrilla’s protagonist, Alec Mason. Deep pockets of shadow illuminated only by player-mounted flashlights made sticking together and working as a team even more critical to avoid becoming alien snacks. Progressing through the initial eight maps unlocks “Dark” versions of them. There’s a good amount of variety in the maps provided, and my experience teaming up with three other journalists to blast the hell out of scores of various types of alien beasts proved to be intense and chaotic. Defend maps add a handful of structures that the team must prevent the aliens from destroying (while surviving, of course). Survive maps are exactly like they sound a fight just to make it to the end. Infestation’s eight primary maps are broken into two groups of four by mission type. Players do their best to repel thirty waves of progressively more intense alien attacks. Infestation can be played either solo or cooperatively in a group of up to four. "Infestation" and "Ruin," as they're named, each offer their own twist on the Mars-based mayhem developer Volition has cooked up. At a THQ-organized event in San Francisco I got to sit down and spend some quality time with the online modes in Red Faction: Armageddon.
