Red Faction Armageddon Diaries Part Two

This is my ongoing exploration of the Red Faction Universe. Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-goer, I hope to make this something you can read along with and enjoy. I continue Red Faction Armageddon.

Having destroyed the Terraformer keeping the weather decent on the surface of the planet, the leader of the Marauder cult Adam Hale waited years to trick Darius Mason into unleashing something from the bowels of Mars…

Mason awoke from his crashed mech suit and discovered that it had been 47 hours since he was knocked unconscious. He decided to make his way back to the underground town nearby, to warn them of what Hale had planned, despite not yet knowing the details.

As he traversed the caverns, S.A.M. warned of lifesigns. Luckily Mason was armed with his hammer, a pistol and the magnet gun from his mech. Creatures which had long claws and spat something unpleasant began to attack, but luckily they weren’t difficult to dispatch. I came across a -- for lack of a better term -- hive and destroyed it before moving on.

Oh good, Ultor never did anything wrong...

There were ruins from an old Ultor facility -- the antagonists of the original Red Faction -- all around the place, which was worrying to say the least, but not entirely unexpected after the hologram of Capek from last time. I tried remaking them with the Nano-Forge but it wouldn’t go for it…

It turned out that there were bigger, bipedal monsters which were a little harder to kill, but the magnet gun managed to throw them far and fast enough to kill them. I destroyed more hives and managed to escape (through various cave-ins) to the town. Which was burning, with most of the inhabitants missing or dismembered around the place. And more monsters attacked me.

Now I know why Mars is the red planet... and orange... and charred...

I killed them and made my way to a meeting point where the survivors had gathered and were aboard some APCs. There was apparently no room for me, but once more monsters attacked (and I killed them), they allowed me to escort them through the tunnels.

There were a few choke points and we discovered a building which had been covered in some kind of biomass, so I destroyed that -- just before the creatures destroyed a bridge as an APC was crossing it, casting it into a (presumably) bottomless crevice. I killed a load more monsters and rebuilt the bridge before the remaining APC and an ambulance crossed, and I led them into a quarry.

Of course, more of the monsters attacked and I slaughtered them before discovering there was no more tunnel. Except for the massive tunnel digging industrial excavator parked nearby. I jumped aboard and it began tunneling whilst I fended off tons of creatures. After far too long, the excavator broke through into another tunnel -- and fell off of a cliff. Trying to avoid a running theme of big falls and unconsciousness, Mason managed to leap out and get to safety.

I went up the nearby hill and found another decimated outpost, where there was an organic spire which was burping out monsters through a portal, much like the hives I had seen but much bigger. Luckily there was a mech suit parked nearby which I hopped in -- it was armed with rockets and machine guns, letting me destroy the infected buildings, creatures and the spire with ease.

I was joined by an ambulance, and we both went to a nearby gondola -- one for transporting ambulances along a monorail, not a boat. A quick repair and activation, and we were attacked by tons more monsters of varying sizes appearing through portals. Luckily the mech suit had rockets, unluckily they blasted away at parts of the gondola as easily as the beasts I was aiming at, so I had to check my fire lest I destroy the damned thing.

As we arrived at the far end, we met up with two other vehicles -- it would have been three but one was exploded before I could help them. Safety was within our grasps, once we got up the elevator. It just had to be repaired, and a few waves of monsters to be taken care of.

Everyone boarded the elevator to Bastion, and we were finally safe… Yeah right...