Red Faction was Volition's first first-person shooter, and helped establish them as action game giants. While they have previously made the fantastic Freespace games, Red Faction had a much broader appeal, so drew more players in than the space simulations that had come before. Part of this was due to the massive FPS boom that was going on at the time, and part was due to Red Faction's rather unique selling point, at least compared to other games of the time.

While physics have been around for a while now, as well as destroyable objects, not many games had incorporated destructible terrain into their game. Red Faction was one of the first, and is still one of only a few games that actually allows the player to dynamically alter their environment through the judicious use of explosives. While this is used to limited effect in the game itself (most of the levels are invulnerable to this destruction), the multiplayer is where it really shines, with tunneling and such playing a major part in the gameplay. It is still, to this day, one of the best times you can have in a multiplayer game.

Red Faction also introduced Ultor, which is incredibly important to Volition-developed games. Ultor was revealed to be a corrupt mining corporation that was exploiting miners to research nanotechnology as well as gain cheap slave labor for use in the mines of Mars. It was revealed in Saint's Row, though, that Ultor started out as a humble clothing company, before rising up to the status of extremely powerful corporation by the events of Saint's Row 2. While it may just be a nod to the series, there are links in missions and storylines that tie the Saint's Row series into the Red Faction series. Who knows? Maybe this is the sign of a common universe for the rest of Volition's games to come.

Finally, Red Faction introduced two characters that play a aprt in the mythos of Red Faction Guerilla: Parker and Eos. Parker is the player character, a miner who was tricked by the Ultor propoganda and left to work in the mines until the revolt. Eos is the leader of the Red Faction, a group that seeks to overthrow Ultor and reestablish peace and fair working conditions in the bowels of the mines. The biggest influence these two had, besides the philosophies of the leaders in Guerilla, is the names of two of the districts. The first district you liberate is Parker, where the last, a gleaming metal utopia, is Eos. Funny that the sectors would be named after visionaries that would inspire rebel leaders a generation later.

Red Faction 2 was, naturally, the sequel to the original Red Faction. While it shares names with the previous title, a lot was changed and toned down, and it's not necessarily for the better. Due to its nature as a PS2 port to the PC, the biggest feature, online multiplayer, was completely cut, leaving many players out in the cold. It was a kick in the face, and Red Faction 2 recieved worse critical and commercial reception than its predecessor due to this complete blunder. After all, when the previous game, made three years before, has online multiplayer and the current one does not, being ticked is understandable.

Red Faction incorporated the Geo-Mod system as its real innovation. As a lot of the game took place in the mines, the biggest focus was on the environment being destructible as opposed to man-made objects. In Red Faction 2, this focus is about half-and-half, with some environmental elements and some artifical elements being destructible. It was not all that consistent due to the linear nature of the game, which was a shame. Finally comes Red Faction Guerilla, where the environment is impervious to your weapons but every man-made structure crumbles at the slightest touch. It's an interesting transition through the series, and we can only wait for the day that we are allowed to destroy both land and structures. Collapsing a building by digging under the foundation? Sign us up!

Red Faction 2 did, fortunately, introduce a streak of simple fun that would later permeate Volition games. Saint's Row 2 is a perfect example of this, with cartoonish, over-the-top missions and behaviors being par for the course. While Red Faction Guerilla marks a return to the darker revolutionary themes present in Red Faction, its gameplay of completely annihilation resonates greatly with this arcade-like sensibility that was developed in Red Faction 2. It was not a great game, but at least it inspired later games to move past dark, dusty themes and into the realm of excellent fun.

Red Faction Guerilla is not a game that is completely out of the blue by any means. It draws upon a rich history of gameplay and story alike that Volition has crafted into every one of their games. The open-world gameplay shares much in common with Saint's Row, but the destruction is reminiscent of the original Red Faction. The storyline touches upon themes that have been present for almost a decade in all Volition games. If you haven't, now is definitely the time to check out the previous two titles, both for the nostalgic value and the knowledge of where all these things are coming from. It's importnat to know your history!