At a recent THQ game event, another writer asked me about the original Red Faction. I told him it was one of the first games to use destructible environments. And then as I kept talking, I added qualifiers and backed off from that statement. Eventually, I rambled on to say it was also the first not-fully-successful game to do that in a long line of unsuccessful games. It was still cool -- smashing through a window was impressive -- but it didn't give the destroy-anything sense that the developers pushed.

Due late this year, Red Faction: Guerrilla could finally deliver on that promise, although it has caveats of its own. Still on Mars, this time you play almost the entire game above ground. I had fun smashing holes into buildings and even destroying them with a sledgehammer. But I missed the underground, mining elements of the original. If everything is supposed to be destructible, why not the ground, too?

On a technical and design level, it makes sense that a destructible ground would be a lot to ask. But it sure would be satisfying. Even without that option, Red Faction: Guerrilla could be a great game