Demons of the Badlands features a new area to explore, deadly new weapons and the same awesome destructive opportunities
Contains: Moderate Fantasy Action Violence
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Demons of the Badlands is a single player downloadable content package that focuses on Samanya's past as a Marauder in a fantastic but short romp through Mariner Valley.
In this prologue for Red Faction: Guerrilla you delve into the history of the outlandish Marauders and play a key role in the events that unfolded on Mars before Alec Mason's arrival, and realise that the presensce of the EDF has effected more than just Alec Mason's band of guerrillas. You play as Samanya, the weapon inventor specialist, and despite only 4 missions, they are much longer, more dramatic, and pack a similar destructive punch as before. These missions tell the relationship between Samanya and her more versatile sister Vasha, and the unfolding events that split them apart. Its an interesting and well put together little prologue story that focuses mainly on Samanya's internal monologue than actual direct approach to conversation based scenarios, but works well, despite being a condensed narrative that could have benefited from being expanded.
The gameplay and controls play the same as Red Faction: Guerrilla, but for a few extra weapons and vehicles with new deadly abilities. From one of the EDF's submachine guns with high fire rate and deadly accuracy, to the antipersonnel Spiker, where the name tells you all you need to know. Salvage isn't integrated in this DLC pack, and upgrades are simply attained from completing missions and marauder actions (all similar to Red Faction: Guerrilla's side missions). The presentation of these upgrades are great, just like before, and the marauder actions set some challenging moments, especially the new and trickier demolition tasks which may test your patience.
And of course, Demons of the Badlands wouldn't be the same without the thrill of destruction, and more opportunities arise for you to engage into that addictive hunger with a sledgehammer yet again. The graphics are identical to the main game which is good, however while driving, you'll often notice a lapse in framerate which is noticeable.
Lasting approximately 3-4 hours, your money will certainly be well spent with Demons of the Badlands if you enjoyed the destruction and mayhem present in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Although most of the upgrades are attained in the main game, the new set of weapons to experiment with here are excellent and deadly additions to the ones you've already played with, and are well created along with the more vehicle variety. Along with the sustained ability from Red Faction: Guerrilla to demolish any structure you see, Mariner Valley is a great new map to explore with a well made back-story that connects it to the main game.
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 8.5/10
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Good Points: More destructive opportunities in an entirely new map, Deadly new weapons and vehicles, Interesting backstory that connects to the main game.
Bad Points: No new side mission variety from the main game, Stuttering framerate is evident while driving.