‘Armageddon’ good for bad gamers

I think what we've got here in "Red Faction: Armageddon" is a good shooting adventure for casual gamers. Usually, shooters are too hard for novices. But if you're bad at games, you should find "Armageddon" relatively easy to beat.

This sequel is set on Mars in the year 2170. Humans made Mars a habitable place by using a terra-forming system.

But dormant Martians -- ugly, vile and protective of their homeland security -- awake from the center of the planet and try to kill you and other invading humans.

So you go on a journey of slaying native Martians through tunnels, bunkers and underground buildings.

There's a lot to like about "Armageddon" -- awesome upgradeable weapons, serviceable dialogue, narrative cinema and smooth game play.

But it's half-stupid, like a good B-movie. And it starts lame even if it improves level by level.

The guns are righteous. Have you ever heard of a black-hole gun? You fire this little black-hole weapon at a Martian, and a brief black hole erupts into a 20-foot radius, imploding the Martian and his surroundings.

There's a fantastic magnet gun. You fire one magnet at a creature's head, then fire a second magnet at a ceiling, and the creature is pulled swiftly to its impacted death on the ceiling.

Another gun awesomely disintegrates foes in front of your eyes. Plasma guns slice and dice. A rocket launcher is explosive. A grenade launcher goes boom.

And you have an anti-weapon that lets you repair damaged environments. You just point it at a destructed building, hold a button, and the building time-reverses to become new again. That's a nifty way to fix bridges and other pathways you need to cross.

A puzzling thing: This is a third-person shooter, when many of us shooting fans prefer first-person viewpoint. Why not give us both options?

"Armageddon's" online multiplayer is cooperative only. Instead of gaming against other real players, you join up in groups to blast away at Martians on battlefields. Kill enough Martians and you proceed to the next, harder level.

I like the cooperative mode better than the solo campaign. The Martians are more difficult to beat. All the guns are at your disposal. And if you enter that online arena alone, you can play online levels by yourself and be entertained for a while.

Here's the thing. As a hard-core gamer, I find the solo campaign far too easy on the "casual" and "normal" settings. It's even quite easy for me on the "hard" setting. Therefore, hard-core gamers should ramp right up to the "insane" setting.

It's easy because Martians shoot weak weapons and, worse, they just stand around waiting for you to walk up and crush them -- or you just walk past them. These are the dumbest Martians ever.

("Red Faction: Armageddon" by THQ retails for $60 for Xbox 360 and PS 3; $50 for PC -- Plays fairly fun after a lame start. Looks good. Easy. Rated "M" for blood, gore, strong language and violence. Three stars out of four.)

Contact Doug Elfman at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.