This is like a GTA style take vehicles to locations to start missions along with side activities to do...only those activities ALWAYS involve blowing everything to pieces and watching it fall over!
It feels like a game fairly ahead of its time in terms of a ridiculous amount of the environment being destructible. If you smash into a light pole it explodes into fifty little pieces that bounce according to physics. Throw a barrel against a wall and it will break through the plating. Take any building apart down the foundation and then smash the final toothpicks holding it up with a hammer to watch it all crumble to the ground.
It's extremely fun for awhile, and the upgrades you earn with salvage is an incentive to search for scrap and knock down towers. I like that as you weaken the hold of the EDF other martians start to rebel, similar to The Saboteur. Places that used to be patrolled by enemies will start to be populated by friendlies who will restock your ammo at caches.
The story is nothing special: EDF are bad, killed your bro and your homies, go blow them up. No nuance.
And that lack of polish is why the lack of a star. This game feels ABSOLUTELY out of your control. What blows up, where your charges land, what you hammer hits, if your vehicle stays upright, where the enemies run to, how many bullets it will take to kill them, time limits for missions...it all feels a bit random.
But it IS pretty. Nice texture work tightened up. Things go boom in spectacular ways casting up clouds of red dust, the sound design if great, there's always something to do, and it's not too unforgiving, allowing you do overs if you fail or die or just don't do as well as you'd like to.
If you don't mind a game feeling more like a physics puzzle occasionally interrupted by enemies, this is a fine choice.
