It's hammer time! Every game has triple and double XP weekends these days. Volition wanted to take things a step further with its "Get Your Ass Back to Mars" event. From today through December 21st, logging in and blowing things and people up will net you five times the normal experience points, meaning that getting 50 achievement points or a gold trophy for hitting 100,000 XP will be easier than ever, not to mention unlocking the fabled ostrich hammer at 120,000 points.

During the event, be sure to follow the Red Faction Twitter for chances to score free downloadable content codes, which make great virtual stocking stuffers, possibly.

That's because "this game is so wonderfully conducive to space assholism that there was little need to consciously sync it up." Obviously, the title of the song is part of its refrain, making this NSFW.

Yes, assholism. It's just as much a disease as cancer or emphysema. I too am an assholic; I go to ass-anon every Tuesday down at the Baptist church fellowship hall. You have any idea how hard it is waking up in the morning and your first thought is always "God, I hope it's past 1 pm because I need to go to the convenience store and be an asshole to someone"? How much further can I continue this metaphor? Anyway, just watch.

Space Asshole: The Video (Game) [Idle Thumbs]

Of course, the game doesn't call it torture. I think the term they use is "extreme interrogation tactics." But when is something "interrogation" over "torture?" Is it just how badly you beat somebody up, or does it matter what you're trying to get out of the person/NPC?

In Brink, this is what happens: you're playing as a military operative in a futuristic setting. During a firefight, you sneak behind enemy lines and happen upon an injured rebel writhing on the ground. An option pops up, prompting you to press X to interrogate the guy and it looks like if you select it, your character pulls out an iPhone-iish device. Your character then shocks the heck out of the guy until he screams, "Okay! I'll talk!" Then your objective screen updates and a new icon appears on the map.

In the grand scheme of violence in video games, it's not graphic. It's actually similar to what happens to Snake in the first Metal Gear Solid when Revolver Ocelot has him strapped spread-eagle style and shocks him (as the player, you press buttons to Resist or Submit — Submitting kills Meryl and I couldn't hit that button fast enough). The difference in Brink is that my character is doing it to someone else. So on a gut level, I don't want to call it torture because I'm the "good guy," right?

But then there's the Punisher game with interactive torture. That's torture because I think the game goes so far as to call it so, but as a player I'm comfortable with it because I'm playing as the Punisher. Yeah, he fights for justice, but he's not what people would call a "good" guy. So it's okay for me as a player to play as him torturing somebody because that's what the Punisher would do — never mind what I would do. Besides, they were probably bad people who deserved it anyway.

Now think about Red Faction: Guerrilla where you're playing on the side of a rebel faction. Like Brink, it's a wartime situation and gaining information is crucial to the success of missions. In one scene, explored by Stephen Totilo, an NPC sidekick "interrogates" somebody for said information. With knives. Is that torture? If you're not sure, apply the same line of questioning to Killzone 2 when Rico gets a little "extreme" when interrogating an enemy.

To confuse you even more on the subject of torture, think about situations where it's not about information — it's about control. For example, there's the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City mission, Death Row and the Ransom mission in Grand Theft Auto IV. In both cases, somebody is deliberately hurting someone else for revenge or just because they're violent by nature. That's really easy to spot as torture — but at the same time, in GTAIV, you're playing as Niko, the guy that hits a woman tied to a chair and then takes a picture of her. You don't really want to call that torture, do you? It's easier just to play it down as no big deal or write it off because it's not an interactive part of the game — so "you" didn't torture anybody.

Lastly, let's talk about torture being inflicted on you, the player. In these cases, you probably wouldn't think of what you're going through as "torture," (unless it's a Saw game), but by definition, a game is deliberately inflicting suffering on you. Example: Missile Command. The game is about mutually assured destruction in the Cold War era, but at the same time, it's a psychological exercise that tortures the player: by design, you cannot "win" Missile Command. Sure, a lot of early arcade games were un-winnable — but by forcing the player to realize that no matter how good you are at the game, no matter how many quarters you sink into it, you cannot save six cities from a nuclear holocaust, the game is deliberately messing with you. A more obvious example of mental anguish inflicted on the player would be Fable II — because it's not just that your character is being electrocuted, it's that you're losing all of that XP you gathered and racking up evilness (which is torture to a goody-two-shoes gamer like me).

So what's really going on in Brink? When I zap the guy with my iPhone-looking device, am I committing torture or just "extreme" interrogation? I didn't see an option to just question the guy before shocking him. I'm not sure if there were other ways to get the information that the subject had. I do know that if the game actually called it "torture," I'd be way less inclined to play as that class of character. For me, that would be the worst kind of torture: role-playing as a character that I want to play as benevolent, and then being forced to do something I'm not okay with because the game has other ideas about where the line between torture and interrogation lies.

P.S. You want the line clearly drawn? Check this game out.

Image Cred — GTAIV
Image Cred — The Punisher
Image Cred — Fable II
Image Cred — MGS

Having seen and played Red Faction: Guerrilla on the PC, however, I no longer feel so bad for PC gamers. In fact, I think I envy them.

What Is It?
Red Faction: Guerrilla is a third person action game set in an open world version of Mars that might make NASA's collective head explode. A major draw of the game is just how much stuff you can blow up, knock down or otherwise wreck with various explosives and weapons.

What We Saw
I played through part of a mission in the Demons of the Badlands expansion before getting blown up. You'll be relieved (or possibly dismayed) to know the difficulty level hasn't been tweaked at all.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is out for PC September 15.

What Needs Improvement?
My Computer: The minimum specs for Guerrilla on PC aren't that scary – but seriously, you're going to want to play the game on the high-end specs. Windows Vista for DirectX 10 makes a world of difference in improving the way Mars looks. Lighting looks better, dust trails in the wind seem more realistic and the shadows look way sexier. Sadly, I wouldn't see any of this running the game on my machine. I guess I should be happy that I even can run Guerrilla on my machine – but still, I've been spoiled by seeing what I could have if I just upgraded my computer.

What Should Stay The Same?
The Price Is Right: Though PC gamers had to wait that much longer for the game to come out, they are getting a lot of the DLC plus the full game for much, much cheaper than their console counterparts. Guerrilla on PC includes at launch two exclusive multiplayer maps, six maps from the Wrecking Crew DLC that's not even out yet, plus the multiplayer modes from the Multiplayer DLC. That's approximately $70 worth of stuff for only $40.

It Looks Good and Plays Well: Producer Sean Kennedy says that developer Volition learned its lesson with the flaws in Saints Row 2 on PC. He says you've got to deliver a top-notch experience to them just as much as you need to for console owners – if not more so because PC gamers have to wait longer for the game to come to them. After observing the fabulous-looking graphics and feeling just how well the game plays on PC (and it does), I'd say they nailed it.

Final Thoughts
Depending on how you look at it, Red Faction Guerrilla for the PC is either a salve to PC gamers wounded by stuff like Saints Row 2 on PC, or a revolution in PC gamer expectations. Granted, PC gamers may never get their games first on account of publishers' piracy concerns – but if they get the game better than their console counterparts, who's to say it's not worth the wait?

I'm a little bit worried about playing a game over Xbox Live Arcade or the PlayStation network that requires players to keep hold of a bag. If the reasoning behind my trepidation isn't abundantly clear, then you obviously haven't spent enough time playing multiplayer console titles online with your headset activated.

Better still, myself and guest co-host Russ Frushstick from MTV will be taking your live calls, comments and questions.

To listen, head over to our BlogTalkRadio page. Unfortunately, you can only listen live on the BlogTalkRadio website.

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That new Wrecking Crew "challenge mode" adds three rounds of distinct submode/weapon/backpack settings per level, also making Wrecking Crew available for single-player play. The update also unlocks a handful of levels in Wrecking Crew previously only available to pre-orderers. Oh, and so much more.

The official list of changes and additions follows.

New Features:

• New Wrecking Crew mode: "Challenge Mode" introduces three rounds of distinct submode/weapon/backpack settings per level. Each participant plays through all three rounds in an attempt to get the highest score possible. All wrecking crew modes, including Challenge Mode, can now be played in single player.
• 
  
• Wrecking Crew Leaderboards: Scores are automatically uploaded to leaderboards (1 per level) so you can compare how you're doing against your friends and the world. Leaderboards are only available for Challenge Mode.
• 
  
• Bonus Wrecking Crew levels unlocked: The 4 pre-order bonus Wrecking Crew levels are now unlocked for everyone, delivering 10 additional levels.
• 
  
• Weapon and Backpack disabling in Multiplayer: Custom matches now offer the ability to prevent specific backpacks or weapons from spawning in a level.
• 
  
• XP multiplier for matchmaking playlists: Double XP playlists are now possible (and will be used).
• 
  
• Ore Deposits on Minimap: Mining ore that has not been mined will now show up as purple pulsing dots on the minimap. This will help players to obtain the "Working the Land" achievement/trophy.
• 
  
• Support for upcoming DLC: Demons of the Badlands, our first DLC pack, which will be released on August 13th.

Other Fixes:

• House Arrest icons now reflect their proper completion status after the last mission is completed.
• 
  
• Convoy spawning is now fixed after the last mission is completed (previously, some convoys were prevented from spawning).
• 
  
• Scale of some icons on the full-screen map and minimap has been fixed
• 
  
• Parties are no longer allowed to matchmake into Anarchy through the "Any Playlist" selection option
• 
  
• Ties no longer count as losses on the multiplayer leaderboards

THQ's take of nearly a quarter billion dollars during the April to June quarter was a hell of a lot better than the same period last year, in which it brought in $137.6 million and lost $27 million. This quarter, however, THQ saw net income of $6.4 million, again, thanks to sales of UFC 2009 Undisputed and Red Faction: Guerrilla. This year's trimming back of nearly a quarter of those previously employed by THQ probably didn't hurt.

The publisher doesn't have anything on its publishing schedule for the current quarter, ending in September, so it expects to make much less. But it also plans to lose less than it did last year. Again, thanks to those cost cutting measurements.

THQ has plenty planned for the rest of its fiscal year, ending in March 2010, including Darksiders, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010, MX vs. ATV Reflex, Marvel Super Hero Squad and Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter.

We'll let you know how that goes for 'em.

Demons of the Badlands, the first of three planned DLC packs for Red Faction: Guerrilla, is a new story arc that takes place three years before the start of the main game. It follows the story of Samanya, your in-game source for tech upgrades, during her time with the savage Marauders. I find it extremely refreshing that Volition are actually expanding the lore for the game, rather than tossing us a few new multiplayer maps and calling it quits.

Demons of the Badlands will be available on August 13th for 800 Microsoft Points and $9.99 on the PlayStation Network.

Of course the new areas included in August's Demons of the Badlands DLC are still a rather coppery color, but the action is guaranteed to be fresh. Demons is a destructive single-player story arc that takes the players outside of the boundaries set in the main game. Hopefully there's a great deal of content stuffed into the pack, as it will set you back 800 Microsoft Points or $9.99 when it hits on August 13th for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

No word yet on what the other two DLC packs will consist of, but I'm hoping that at least one is multiplayer focused, as multiplayer is where I felt the most fun in the game is to be had. Fingers crossed!

Things have taken a turn for the worse since the ending of the first Red Faction game, which saw the Earth Defense Force arrive to aid Martian settlers escape the oppression of the villainous Ultor Corporation. As the saying goes, here's the new boss - same as the old boss. Now it's the Earth Defense Force themselves doing the oppressing, and it's up to Alec Mason and the Red Faction to restore freedom to the people of Mars, one sector at a time.

Taking full advantage of the latest console technology, Volition has taken the destructibility the first two Red Faction titles and amplified it exponentially. Have they crafted a smashing success?

Eurogamer
The language and iconography is surely too specific to be an accident. This is Iraqi Insurgency: The Videogame, by any other name, and you're playing as the terrorists. Despite the fading influence of Dubya's era of flag-waving good-vs-evil jingoism, it's still an incredibly bold (some might say stupid) parallel to incorporate into a major videogame, even if the story never really develops this timely theme into anything deeper than the old truism that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

Xbox 360 Magazine UK
The beauty of Red Faction: Guerrilla is that every set piece is of your own making. The game has no linear structure because the goal in every area is the same: clear the region of EDF control. This is represented by a bar that drops every time you wipe out a key EDF building or complete a side mission. Here's the fun bit, though: you don't have to do any of the game's weak sub-missions, such as saving hostages – this is almost impossible, due to weak ally AI – or driving a vehicle from one side of the map to the other within a set time limit. Instead, Alec can just raid any area marked with red on the map, then blow it to kingdom come with a combination of stupidly overpowered tools.

CVG
The magic behind Guerrilla's bangs is a true physics-based destruction system, which sees individual bricks and support beams dynamically falling to the might of your weighty sledge hammer. It looks impressive and feels all the more satisfying; ploughing a truck through a load-bearing corner of a three-story building will send brick and mortar collapsing to the ground - and crushing whoever might be loitering underneath it. It's instantly gratifying and lots of fun. You'll probably spend the first few hours of Red Faction knocking things down just to watch them fall, which is a pretty good proof of concept if we've ever seen one.

VideoGamer
Whereas the single-player campaign is slightly flawed, but good fun, Guerrilla's multiplayer offering is really quite superb. Volition has taken advantage of the game's key asset, its destruction, and built the various multiplayer modes around it. The most basic is Wrecking Crew, a four-player local play game mode selectable from the main menu. Here you take turns trying to cause as much damage as possible within the constraints decided on at the outset. This might mean limiting the ammo supply and giving you three minutes to plan a careful assault, or simply being handed a mega-powerful explosive-rocket launcher and letting loose for one minute. It's great fun and results in some truly staggering moments of next-gen physics.

ZTGameDomain
Red Faction: Guerrilla is an in your face, balls to the wall, destroy everything in your path treat. With a ton of missions to complete, an entire planet to destroy, and online modes that will have you sitting in front of your television for hours upon hours, this game has it all. I know this has been said a ton of times before, but it holds true for this game; if Red Faction: Guerrilla doesn't get your blood pumping, check your pulse. Red Faction: Guerrilla should not be overlooked by anyone, period.

Kotaku
Red Faction: Guerrilla is a moment generator. The destruction, the physics, the teeming population all combine to create moments you're going to have to tell your friends about. For me, it was when I finally took down that six-lane bridge. It took quite a bit of effort and lots of planning. Once it collapsed, dust billowed into the air, clouding the entire screen. Seconds later, standing under the jagged remains of the bridge, I saw cars that had been moments ago speeding down a highway begin plummeting off into the wreckage, piling on one another until they all exploded. It was amazing.

As strong as a sledge-ostrich to the forehead

The two online retailers were both listing the title for $20 below its normal asking price, a surprising drop for a game less than two weeks old. It appears the market has responded to that price point, though, as NewEgg has since sold out of the Xbox 360 version and Amazon.com appears to have ratcheted up the price—though it's still selling it below MSRP.

The PlayStation 3 version seems to be unaffected, however.

It's not completely out of the ordinary for games to be hit with quick price drops. Sega and Ubisoft tend to be pretty hasty in marking down underperforming games. Whether Red Faction: Guerrilla is performing below THQ's expectations or the stars of savings have simply aligned today, we're not sure. But things are tough all over, so a reactionary mark down wouldn't surprise us.

With Red Faction: Guerrilla, players return to Mars to once more stir up trouble in an open-world game promising unheralded destruction from a third-person perspective. Can a third take on the same general concepts deliver a third great game?

Loved
Destruction: Plenty of other games have done destructible environments, but never to this degree. Not only is virtually every man-made item in the game breakable, it breaks in detail. When you take your sledgehammer to a wall you break away the outer shell first, then you start digging into the concrete, and finally you hit rebar. Not only is the game's destruction fun to deliver and watch, but it also has a pretty big impact on how you play the game. When tasked with an assassination, you can sneak in and shoot the target or just take down the whole building the person is in. Tired of enemies sending reinforcements over a bridge? Take down the whole bridge. The level of destruction in Red Faction: Guerrilla deepens gameplay in ways I never would have imagined.

Weapons: Besides the trusty sledgehammer, assault rifle and pistol, there are plenty of other fun weapons in the game. I made most use out of the timed charges which let me coat a building in explosives and then take it down with a button push. Another great weapon, the Nano rifle, disintegrates entire structures, cars and even people, one piece at a time. The coolest looking is the singularity bomb which sucks the surrounding area into a small gravity well.

Multiplayer: Multiplayer in Guerrilla involves plenty of running and gunning, but the many of the mode's chief focus is in taking down buildings or protecting them. The new focus, and inclusion of power packs that let you charge through walls, fly and speed, among other things, makes the multiplayer bits of Guerrilla some of my favorite in a shooter.

Surprising Major Mission Mix: While a bulk of the game is about roaming around the territories of Mars rabble-rousing, taking down buildings and killing people to incite revolution, the game ends each territory's campaign with a difficult and innovative mission. The missions can be anything from riding shotgun in a speeding vehicle, to using a space-based weapon on land targets, to piloting a monstrous tank. While frustratingly difficult at times, they all add a unique twist to the sometimes repetitive gameplay.

Physics: Having destructible environments is fine, but what really makes the game sing is how those environments topple once they take enough damage. It's not just about tearing down a building, it's about figuring out where you can attack to take down an enormous structure with the help of gravity and weight. Slap some charges in the right place on a tower and you can make it topple onto the roof of a nearby building, taking it down too. This could be the entire game for me, the shooting is just a fun addition.

Open World, Massive Scale: Mars is broken down into six sectors, all but the first of which have to be unlocked through play. As you unlock them, the areas you can roam expand. More interesting, though, is how the game makes use of all of that space. There are several moments in the game when the rolling landscapes and cities are teeming with warring factions, everywhere you go people are shooting at each other, buildings crumbling and you can stop, mission or no mission, to help out if you want. Even more impressive are the epic set pieces, things like towering six lane bridges that can be methodically picked apart until they collapse into a mushroom cloud of dust.

Hated
Load Times: The load times and poor save point planning for some of the bigger missions in the game can be a torturous combination. Why do I have to, after restarting, still drive for five minutes to start the mission every single time?

What Now?: I ended up spending way too much time trying to figure out what exactly I needed to do next to move the story forward. There were always plenty of things to do, but not every side mission you take on actually moves the plot forward. That can get really annoying after awhile.

Bland Backdrop: For all of its destructive glory and its vast landscapes, Mars' surface is a rather monotonous place filled with browns and way too many shades of pastel red.

Annoying NPCs: Enemies were, for the most, part relatively clever in dealing out death and avoiding my return fire. The non-combatant NPCs, though, were a real annoyance. They'd get in the way of battles, walk in front of hammer swings and clog up doorways with their non-scripted walking. Good thing it only takes a button push to knock them out of the way and create a second door in any building.

In many ways, Red Faction: Guerrilla reminds me of Crackdown. The thing I liked most about Crackdown was its ability to tear things up and create mayhem in a relatively open world. The missions and the campaign were at best distractions. For Guerrilla, it's the ability to neatly demolish entire towns. There is something cathartic about taking a big hammer to a wall, even a digital wall, and seeing it slowly crumble under the punishment. The key difference between Crackdown and Guerrilla is that while Crackdown's missions really didn't add much, Volition did an amazing job of allowing their destruction tech to play a chief role in how you complete Guerrilla's missions.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is a moment generator. The destruction, the physics, the teeming population all combine to create moments you're going to have to tell your friends about. For me, it was when I finally took down that six-lane bridge. It took quite a bit of effort and lots of planning. Once it collapsed, dust billowed into the air, clouding the entire screen. Seconds later, standing under the jagged remains of the bridge, I saw cars that had been moments ago speeding down a highway begin plummeting off into the wreckage, piling on one another until they all exploded. It was amazing.

Guerrilla is a flawed but fun game, one that demands patience but rewards with cinematic destruction you design yourself.

Red Faction: Guerrilla was developed by Volition and published by THQ for the PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360. Released on June 2. Retails for $59.99 PS3 and 360, $49.99 PC. Played the Xbox 360 version. Completed campaign on normal difficulty (though I used a cheat for the final section). Played multiple online matches.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Sounds like a completely appropriate and amazingly creative way to promotion the new Red Faction game, in which smashing things with a sledgehammer accounts for a vast majority of the fun to be had. Over the course of the day, hundreds of passers-by took up arms against the innocent vehicle, many walking away with copies of the game for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, while many just felt like beating a car to death. THQ PR manager Simon Watts explains.

"Because Red Faction Guerrilla features the world's most realistic destruction engine, we thought that it would make for an interesting experiment to find out how many people, going about their everyday business, would stop in a busy city street to work out some stress by smashing their way into a car to earn a copy of the brand new game."

Brilliant. If there's one thing missing from my day-to-day life, it's opportunities to hit things with sledgehammers. I shall have to rectify that.

Sadly, though, none of those modes include vehicles like the giant robot mech that you can use to stomp on buildings. This means no mech-to-mech combat; but fear not my communist-themed comrades. You can still wreck a ton of stuff in a short amount of time with only a sledgehammer and your proletariat will to bring down the glass and concrete towers of the capitalist pig Earth Defense Force.

What Is It?
Red Faction: Guerrilla is a third person/sandbox shooter that's a sequel to Red Faction and Red Faction II. In the multiplayer modes, players will not be using the game's main character but rather a set of special characters with their own names and distinguishing features. Multiplayer comes in two formats: one is a standard online mode with six traditional modes like capture the flag and death match (called Anarchy), and the other is a party mode for up to four players called Wrecking Crew, where the basic goal is to destroy as much of an area as possible under certain conditions.

What We Saw
I played one capture the flag match, one team anarchy match, one damage control match (which is like King of the Hill where you're building and rebuilding on set points in the map), and two rounds of Wrecking Crew's Rampage mode which is where you're trying to do more damage in dollars than the other three players.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is due out June 2 which should be enough time to address a few minor graphics issues spotted in the multiplayer modes.

What Should Change?
A Couples of Hiccups in Online Mode: Aside from a few graphics issues like lines appearing above a character's head, I noticed one or two hiccups that would complicate a match. For example, I was playing damage control where the idea is to find empty points to build structures on, or points occupied by an enemy structure so you can knock it down and build your own structure. I happened to be standing on a point where my teammates where going to build a power station and somehow, they wound up building me inside the geometry of the structure. The only way I could get out was by wrecking the whole damn thing, which cost my team points and manpower to come back and rebuild it. It's like… worse than team-killing and totally not my fault.

Stat Screen For Wrecking Crew: There's no breakdown of points awarded in Wrecking Crew, which can lead to confusion. For example, I thought I was doing pretty well in a match where all I had was a sledgehammer to do damage. I found out if I hit green fuel barrels on the tops of builds, it would cave in the roof and sometimes collapse the whole structure completely. Sure, I died doing it, but it seemed like the best way to rack up points and I spawned back at the beginning of the map anyway, so no biggie. However, the dev monitoring my gameplay told me stop getting myself killed because it'd cost me points. After careful experimentation, I'm pretty sure it didn't cost me points – but without a stat screen, there's no way to know if I had a winning strategy or the build had some kind of bug where it wasn't penalizing me for suicide.

Stealth Packs Don't Stealth Enough: With all the stuff blowing up and most of the environments I saw being bright red or orange, it was pretty useless to run around in Predator shield mode. Everybody could see me all of the time and holding still wasn't really the best strategy for capturing a flag or killing an enemy.

What Should Stay The Same?
Straightforward Multiplayer: All the basic modes you could ever want are there, plus the theme-specific demolition and damage control modes that urge you to blow up and wreck as much stuff as possible.

Wrecking Crew: Aside from the stat screen concern, I really did find party mode fun. Even if you kept losing the various modes to better-skilled players with faster fingers, it's still kind of like a puzzle or a scavenger hunt way where you're looking for all the load-bearing walls in an area.

Easy Controls: Everything worked like it was supposed to and it was never hard to change and use weapons or items.

Planning For The Future: Volition has stated that it's committed to supporting Guerrilla long after the launch date. Downloadable content is planned but not yet announced.

Final Thoughts
Just a heads-up: you cannot really use cover in this game. Everything blows up, everything can be caved in. So get used to jumping around in the air a lot to avoid enemy fire.

Overall I can say that Red Faction: Guerrilla is not my kind of game; but I had a lot of fun playing the multiplayer modes. The controls were simple, the modes were familiar and there was a savage appeal in tossing a singularity grenade into a glass-lined hallway just to watch all the windows shatter. If only they would add mechs, I would totally convert myself to a shooter fan just so I could have the privilege of plowing through buildings and enemies alike.

Seriously, all you have to do is get chased into a building, find the right load-bearing wall, shatter it with your hammer and then rocket out the nearest window before the whole thing caves in on your attackers. Genius, comrade!

Red Faction Guerrilla's multiplayer modes come in two flavors: the traditional online shoot-em up modes (capture the flag, death match, etc.) and a party mode called wrecking crew where you try to out-do other players by causing the most amount of damage under different sets of special conditions.

Keep it here for a full preview in about an hour and in the meantime, enjoy the new screens:

In a show of supreme confidence in their game, THQ releases the single player demo for the next game in the Red Faction series into the wild, letting PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players sink their teeth into the experience far ahead of the title's June 2nd release.

"The press and consumer buzz for Red Faction: Guerrilla continues to build, as gamers prepare for a new standard in open-world, destruction-based game-play," said Kevin Kraff, vice president of worldwide marketing, THQ. "The single-player demo will give consumers an exciting taste of what the full game will offer on June 2nd."

Which is exactly what a demo is supposed to do. Go get it, and report back here with your findings.

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Red Faction: Guerrilla [Official Site]

GameStops across North America are reporting the arrival of demo codes for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Red Faction: Guerrilla, handed over upon receipt of $5 or more down towards the purchase of the game. European fans, however, need not set foot upon retail ground, as THQ offers them single player demo codes in exchange for signing up to the MyTHQ section of their website. The publisher warns that a limited number of codes are available, so you might want to hurry, lest you get lost in the mad rush.

The codes are locked to European PlayStation Network and Xbox Live accounts, unfortunately, so unless you know some magical way around regional restrictions, this offer is for Euro eyes online.

Red Faction Demo Keys [THQ UK]

In what some are calling the winning video game 'prank' of April Fool's Day 2009, Volition released a hilarious video on Wednesday revealing the Ostrich Hammer, a brilliant response to NeoGAF comments regarding an early batch of Red Faction: Guerrilla screenshots. Brimming with excellent comic timing and one of the best beards ever, the video caused many of our commentors to declare the game a day one buy, as long as the Ostrich Hammer was included. Volition is going to be holding you to that.

The team had already created the Ostrich Hammer for the game, and the April Fool's video was their way of announcing it to the world. The Ostrich Hammer will be one of many multiplayer hammer unlocks available when the game ships this June. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to get birdf***ed.

"We're Giving Them The Bird!" [Red Faction: Guerrilla]