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As far as I'm concerned, the first game in the "Red Faction" franchise was 2009's "Guerrilla." Yes, I'm well aware that the franchise has existed since 2001, but the initial installments were forgettable shooters, emphasizing the ability to shoot through walls as a reason to drool over a game. "Guerrilla," however, figured it out. "Red Faction" should be about blowing the crap out of the world around you. About watching giant buildings crumble into dust, crushing your enemies beneath them. About leveling cities with a single, well-placed singularity bomb. Although flawed, "Guerrilla" was a blast. "Red Faction: Armageddon," the latest in the series, had such solid footing to work of off, and yet, something happened along the way. The developers seemingly forgot what made their last game so good.

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Tags red faction, red faction: armageddon, thq, volition

Mike Kulas, the founder and president of Volition, has announced he will resign on Monday. Kulas co-founded the company, then known as Parallax Software, in 1993. In 1996, after the company split, Volition was born; the company was purchased by THQ in 2000. The 49-year old Kulas told The News-Gazette that he had been thinking about leaving since last year.

Kulas said that his decision to leave the company wasn't brought on by any particular event, despite the fact that the company announced lay-offs of 16 employees earlier this month.

Best known for their "Saints Row" and "Red Faction" franchises, the company will now be steered by Dan Cermak, Volition's VP since 2003. Volition has been at work on two new releases for each of those franchises: "Saints Row: The Third," and "Red Faction: Armageddon." The new "Saints Row" is slated for a holiday launch, while "Red Faction: Armageddon" has been delayed yet again.

Thankfully, this is only a week-long delay, forcing the newest "Red Faction" title back to a June 7th release date. The game's near-completion appears to have actually factored into Kulas' decision to leave. Though he had previously thought of leaving last year, he decided early this year to actually resign. The company's two largest franchises being completed, or "in the home stretch," made now a convenient time to go.

"It's very important to me that things at Volition continue smoothly," Kulas told News-Gazette.

Long-term, Volition is working on a game trilogy with film director Guillermo Del Toro, titled "inSANE." There have been very few details on the trilogy yet, but hopefully Kulas' departure doesn't cause any stress on the project.

Tags red faction, red faction: armageddon, thq, volition

If you played "Red Faction: Guerilla" then you know that Volition nailed one thing really well: the ability to destroy the world around you with a great big hammer. It worked brilliantly with the game's open world setting and open-ended mission structure. The upcoming sequel, "Red Faction: Armageddon," is a more linear experience. That doesn't mean you won't be tearing things down though. In fact, we learned today that a newly announced multiplayer mode called Ruin will focus entirely on reshaping the world around you into lovely piles of rubble.

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Tags red faction, red faction: armageddon, Red Faction: Guerilla, thq, volition

I found "Red Faction: Guerrilla" rather charming and enjoyable. Sure, it was far from perfect, with ugly graphics, so-so controls and an unbalanced difficulty, but damn if I didn't really enjoy knocking buildings down with a sledgehammer.

When I discovered that "Red Faction: Armageddon," the direct sequel, would be ditching the open-world map of "Guerrilla" in favor of more linear maps and structured missions, I was concerned that the charm would be lost. Early trailers and screenshots seemed to imply that the team would be turning this into a gritty, underground, alien-fighting action game.

As it happens, they have basically turned "Armageddon" into a gritty, underground, alien-fighting action game, but after playing it for about an hour, I'm totally fine with that.

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Tags red faction, red faction: armageddon, thq

Now that THQ has made "Red Faction: Battlegrounds" official, they are going to need to some willing beta testers to help work out the kinks for release. It just so happens that the PlayStation Plus service needs surprises to offer up to its subscribers, though, so the two parties appear to have found a mutually beneficial solution.

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Tags PSN, red faction, red faction battlegrounds, thq

A THQ domain name buy prompted speculation about what "Red Faction: Battlegrounds" might be last week, but a Monday morning program at GDC Europe this week pulled back a few of the curtains and confirmed that the title will be a downloadable Xbox Live and PlayStation Network release that will support "Red Faction: Armageddon."

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Tags PSN, red faction, red faction battlegrounds, thq, thq digital, thq digital warrington, xbox live

The last time THQ started registering Red Faction domain names, we ended up with advance titles for a SyFy movie and game for 2011. Now, they've claimed the name "Red Faction: Battlegrounds," which doesn't have a project publicly attached to it at the moment, but sounds suspiciously like it could be a multiplayer game.

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Tags red faction, red faction battlegrounds, thq, volition

Both of the domain named-related "Red Faction" mysteries appear to be solved now that "Red Faction: Armageddon" has been dated and THQ and SyFy are using "Red Faction: Origins" as a "working title" for their new TV movie and potential "Battlestar Galactica"-style backdoor pilot. The two-hour production has a March 2011 premiere planned, along with some newly-publicized story details.

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Tags red faction, red faction: origins, syfy, thq

"Red Faction: Armageddon" is no longer just a registered domain name. THQ has now made the new sequel official, and it's slated to arrive on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC next March.

The new title from Volition will continue the Martian adventures of Darius Mason and feature Geo-Mod 2.0 technology and new "physics-based weaponry," according to a press release. That includes but probably won't be limited to "reconstruction technology" and the use of the game's "Magnet Gun." Additionally, both "single-player campaign" and "multiplayer co-operative" modes get name-dropped in the announcement.

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Tags red faction, red faction: armageddon, thq, volition

It could be a coincidence that someone found registered domain names for two new "Red Faction" projects the same week that "Red Faction" the SyFy made-for-TV movie was announced. Without any solid evidence, though, these events belong to you the reader to figure out. URL's for various spellings and misspellings of "Red Faction: Armageddon" and "Red Faction: Origins" now belong to the fine folks at THQ, which probably means that they're game-related rather than movie related, but that's not a given.

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Tags red faction, red faction: armageddon, red faction: origins, thq