Demons of The Badlands, the downloadable content pack for Red Faction Guerrilla is the first one for the series, and fans of the game will be delighted that it lives up to the destructive action that the original game delivered. The new downloadable-only expansion offers a prologue to the original campaign, with the same level of destructiveness and lots of new weapons. The story is quite an interesting one, as developer Volition didn’t simply chose to continue the campaign where it left off, but instead told an important part of the story — what happened before the arrival of Alec Mason’s and the fight between Earth Defense Forces and Red Faction. The story is set eight years before the original game, and offers a good, but short view of the events that occurred.

Players assume the role of Samanya (female, in case you’re wondering), who fights alongside a group of rebels through the four missions with an assortment of new weapons — some of the quite powerful. While there aren’t that many levels in the expansion pack, there is still a solid 4-5 hours of gameplay value, and the destruction — a key element of Red Faction — as as good as it always was. Actually, it’s even better this time. While the expansion pack features a new protagonist, not much else has changed besides the name and looks of the character you’re controlling, in that sense, we would have loved to see some more difference between the two. You enemies are a tough bunch and the missions aren’t exactly a walk in the park, so to say, but you’re aided with a series of powerful weapons, like the Spiker, a super anti-infantry rifle, and the missile pod, which fires missiles at a rapid rate and pretty much destroys everything you point it at. And the destruction of enemies, vehicles and buildings looks as good as it always did in Red Faction. However, certain features have been stripped away, like the Morality bar and you don’t have the option of collecting salvage and unlocking weapons — you’ll simply get them unlocked as you complete the missions.

Technically, the game is up to par with the original, and in some cases, most noticeably the destruction, it’s even better at times. It runs pretty smooth and with no stutter or frame rate issues, and more importantly, we didn’t encounter any major bugs or glitches during our play time. While it’s only $10 and thereby great value for Red Faction Guerrilla owners, we would have loved to see some more in-depth storytelling, as the missions themselves don’t reveal much. The prologue and the setup is great, but it’s not used to its full advantage.

The Good:
Lots of destruction
Good value

The Bad:
Could have used some more back story
Action can get repetitive at times

Overall score: 7/10