And so the scene is set! If you've read our Red Faction 2 preview you'll already know that the Red Faction struggle against future fascism has now moved to Earth from Mars and is set five years after Parker helped defeat Ultor. The background story of the original game really only provides a reference point for this latest adventure but all the great themes are still there. The best thing about this is that although a sequel in name, Red Faction 2 does not continue directly the events from the first game so you don't necessarily have to have played it (although we recommend you do of course!) or be familiar with the story.

In Red Faction 2 you play Alias, a top demolitions expert and member of a squad of six nano technology-enhanced soldiers who were once part of Chancellor Victor Sopot's legion of super soldiers. That is until Sopot saw the 2000 troops he'd "enhanced" as a threat to his oppressive regime and declared them all enemies of the State to be hunted down and destroyed by his elite guard. Alias and the five other members of the squad have survived this campaign and are now allied with the rebellious Red Faction. Their combined objective is the elimination of Sopot for his crimes against humanity! However Sopot is using every means at his disposal to discredit you and Red Faction and through saturation propaganda and manipulation of the media has branded you a traitor and put a price on your head so that the Commonwealth sees you as the bad guy instead of him.

The intriguing storyline goes a long way in itself to set the atmosphere here but it's the presentation that has you sitting back being wowed. The overall production value in Red Faction 2 is obviously much higher than in Red Faction and it seems like every element in the game has been given a good crank-up and buffed to produce a glowing sheen. The game engine itself looks to have had a fairly decent overhaul with everything from the characters to the larger, more detailed and varied levels plus all the special effects looking a lot more polished and more convincing than Red Faction's occasionally sketchy appearance. There are a few little faults here and there such as some fairly basic AI behaviour in places (despite an overall improvement) but these are very minor amidst the overall spit and polish that you'll probably hardly notice them.

So what of the great Geo-Mod in Red Faction 2 and how much have Volition improved on things since Red Faction? Well firstly for the unitiated, Geo-Mod was the big technological breakthrough drawcard for the first game, or so we were told. Geo-Mod allowed the player to destroy larger parts of the environment than any other game to date to the point where large hidden areas could be revealed and new pathways could be created through otherwise impenetrable obstacles. Whilst being a truly fun feature of the game and one that oozed potential for non-linear gameplay the fact was that there were still limits to how much terrain could be blown away with many areas remaining impervious to large amounts of explosive bombardment. This soon made you realise that still had to follow a predetermined path and that in fact Geo-Mod may have been probably nothing more than a much-updated version of an earlier geography-altering feature seen in games such as Duke Nukem 3D.

In Red Faction 2 Geo-Mod is utilised quite well throughout and is integrated much more closely into gameplay, but don't expect it to do a whole lot more in terms of eliminating linear pathing than it did in the first game. There are still areas here that can't be destroyed thus ultimately forcing you to follow that predetermined path again but this time that path may be split several ways. There are so many places in Red Faction 2 where you can blow yourself another shortcut or a safer path past danger that it disguises any linearity quite well. It gets you to approach some areas believing that you aren't on a linear path to your objective thus making you think about how to create alternative routes and ways to get around obstacles to reach new areas. The sheer amount of destructible objects around the environments is also commendable and much fun can be had going on destructive rampages to see just how much stuff you can blow up (just watch your ammo though!).