Red Faction Guerrilla Gamers Day Sony Headquarters London

This weekend we had the pleasure of attending the Red Faction Guerrilla Gamers Day, held at the fantastic Sony Headquarters in central London. I met up with CuriousOnion’s own Richard and Darren for the first time and had a fun packed afternoon checking out the not even released yet game, Red Faction Guerrilla!

Before I tell you a bit more about Red Faction Guerrilla I just want to say a big big massive super thank you to Sony and THQ for organizing the day and looking after us all so well, thank you very much guys totally appreciated.

When I got asked if I wanted to go down to London to check out Red Faction Guerrilla I jumped at the chance, I personally hadn’t played either of the previous Red Faction games and before Saturday I had only played the single player Red Faction guerrilla demo, so the experience for me was all new.

After arriving at the impressively industrial Sony HQ building which featured a stark minimalistic look with exposed pipework, concrete flooring and very stylish PlayStation related touches, we were promptly given a controller and the fun started.

After a short introduction from the guys from THQ which essentially got us eager gamers up to speed with the controls and the game types we dove right in there with a 16 player multiplayer LAN game. I instantly got my arse kicked spending a lot of the time getting stuck on the scenery, fumbling with the buttons or changing the the most inappropriate weapon at the precise moment the whole opposing team come round a corner!

As I eluded to earlier this was one of my first experiences of Multiplayer Red Faction Guerrilla so a lot of what I saw was very new to me and I play a much more in depth look at the various features of Red Faction Guerrilla when I get my grubby mitts on the full game later this week.

During the day we played a selection of game modes some were the usual suspects, capture the flag, death match an a zones type game where you had to destroy the control point with your massive hammer and then rebuild it to secure the zone. As well as these normal type games there are a selection of new games or old style games with a twist. The maps as you would expect are all rugged and rocky featuring a wide variety of buildings and structures all of which I was happy to find were destructible! Why don’t all games have this feature, to be able to go up to anything and let rip with your gun and blow a door for yourself is immensely satisfying and really adds an element of realism to any game. This also makes for some interesting kill opportunities and the fact you are constantly dealing with a changing environment, it keeps you on your toes!

Red Faction Guerrilla features a massive selection of diverse weapons and interestingly rather than the bog standard pistol you see in most games as your standard weapon in Red Faction you get a devastatingly brutal hammer! Great for close combat scuffles. Not only are the maps littered with different weapons for you to pick up, there are also loads of different backpacks that you can equip your character with that give you extra abilities like stealth (imagine the shimmering Predator effect) or a health pack that can be deployed just when you need it! I will talk more about all these once I get the full game.

I felt like I had only been there for like 2 mins and it was lunch time! After a very nice lunch topped of with trifle and ginger bread men we got stuck in for a bit more nerd… erm game playing LOL

We got into groups of two to check out one of the fun modes available to you in Red Faction Guerrilla, Wrecking mode is a fun little mode were you take it in terms to complete various forms of, blowing shit up. Due to the excellent building physics involved in Red Faction this is a very funny game mode which often ends up with whole buildings crashing down on top of your head. Wrecking mode offers numerous game types but mostly its blowing up stuff, lots of fun!

Now it was time for us all, well some of us, to get serious and have a Red Faction Guerrilla competition! We competed in groups of six with 2 being dropped at each round and the winners progressing onto another knockout phase. As I predicted I failed miserably to get though this stage! Although my 17 kills was not too shabby and I was only 3-4 kills of going through, but hay ho, I got a Red Faction Guerrilla t-shirt and a PlayStation 3 ManBag as a consolation prize

I’m happy to say that our very own Richard made it through to the final representing Curiousonion.com! Throughout the day rumors were rife as to what the prize for being the best Red Faction Guerrilla player was going to be, would it be one of the Grand Turismo circular gaming seats from the canteen? Very unlikely but the hope was there! We knew the prize was going to be a beauty and Sony didn’t disappoint us with a lovely 32″ 1080P TV for the eventual winner! Get in! Shame I got knocked out at the first hurdle… I could though get behind Richard in the hope that one of us would be crowned the Red Faction Guerrilla King!

Sadly it wasn’t to be as Richard came dead last, but he didn’t seem too fussed as he got a nice little model of a Red Faction Walker as a runner up prize The winner was…. erm I have to admit I have completely forgotten the name of the guy who won.. DOH! But congratulations to you, well played that man!

After that it was time to go out side into the real world and battle through the crowds of shoppers in Oxford street and go home. All in all a fantastic day out and I’m very much looking forward to the copy of Red Faction Guerrilla which should be with me very soon, as soon as I get it I’ll make a start on a proper review!

Again I want to thank the guys at THQ and Sony for their hospitality, very much appreciated!

I met a few other Gaming bloggers at this event and they have done similar posts to this one, if you want to read more make sure you check out their reviews too, NoodleGamer and TheLostGamer.

Below you will find some more images to have a gander at, most of these were taken by Charlie from Sony and I’m so glad she took these as I forgot to take my camera so only had my Phone.. anyway enjoy

[View with PicLens]

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