Open world games are typically a tough sell for me unless they involve a superhero who can demolish buildings (Ultimate Destruction), a moody hard-ass who eats people with tentacles (Prototype) or rhymes with “Sackdown.”

Or if they have a gimmick that is just too hard to ignore.  The gimmick in Red Faction: Guerrilla is destruction, and it’s tech that has my vote for some of the most impressive of this generation.

All the stuff in the large-ish Martian game world can come down in a glorious heap of explosions, steel and debris, and demolishing these buildings with some well-placed remote detonators, a thermobaric rocket or a big-ass truck is one of the most satisfying feelings in gaming.

While destruction powers the game, there is a story and though it’s simple, it’s engrossing.  You’re Alex Mason, a new Mars immigrant who gets caught up with the renegade Red Faction, a military group fighting against the evil Earth Defense Force.  The EDF are real d-bags, so wasting these guys is a treat, and as the story moves forward and more territory is scooped up by the Red Faction, the game is very good at making you feel like a true revolutionary.

Like any open world game, the mission restarts and endless driving grew old, though a checkpoint system in longer missions is present to defuse some of the aggravation.  And once I finished the single player campaign I didn’t necessarily feel compelled to go back and run through the mayhem again.

Overall, this was an extremely cool summer diversion, action-heavy, super fun and simpy astounding in its technical achievement.