Salvage is the currency of Armageddon and is gained by destroying buildings and exploring the immediate area. Salvage can be used for upgrades at upgrade stations, which are dotted around the levels. The salvage is quite hard to come by and often you’ll have to pass by an upgrade station to find more salvage before you can purchase that much needed upgrade. The upgrades range from health increases and bigger clips to stronger firepower. You are also able to upgrade combat abilities such as Impact, which fires an energy wave, hurtling your enemies into the walls or off cliffs and destroying anything in front of you. The upgrades are well balanced and you often have to choose very carefully which upgrades you’ll need for the mission at hand.
In addition to the upgrade stations, you will find weapons lockers, which allow you to swop the weapons you are currently carrying. As in Guerilla, you can only carry four weapons at a time and gun choice is crucial, as ammo for the more powerful explosives weapons, such as the rocket launcher, can be hard to come by and you will find yourself running from a battle, looking for ammo if you’ve chosen the wrong weapon.
The firefights and battles in Armageddon are chaotic affairs, with many enemies crawling the walls, floor and ceiling. The destruction mechanic of the engine means that cover is never there for long, which means either you can repair it using the Reconstructor or keep moving. There is no cover system (besides crouching behind something), but since the cover gets destroyed more times than not anyway, there was never a time where I felt I was disadvantaged without it. The AI is a mixed bag, with some cultists standing there while I shot them repeatedly in the head whereas the aliens moved and jumped constantly, making them difficult to kill. You have to use a combination of good shooting and Nano-forge abilities to defeat the enemy and save Mars. The auto-aim which is enabled by default (it can be disabled in the options menu) does help but it seems more for the console version and newcomers to the FPS genre.
Visually, the game mostly takes place underground, which can get a bit monotonous since there are only so many ways to model a cave, but there are so many enemies and buildings crashing around you, you scarcely have time to notice. The textures are sharp and the enemies are well detailed but what really stood out were the cut scenes. They look great and you can see they’ve used motion capture to full effect.
There is no competitive multiplayer or campaign co-op as, but when you get bored of the single player story line, there are two other modes to try: Infestation and Ruin. Infestation is a horde mode, in which you have to fight thirty waves of enemies, with one to four players trying to survive each wave. What makes this mode different in Armageddon is that the aliens could be anywhere, given their ability to scale walls and jump across rooms. This adds another dimension to the formula which has become so popular in recent games. Ruin mode’s aim is simply to cause as much destruction to the environment as possible, with a multiplier for constant damage and a par score to aim for. It’s your chance to see the destruction engine in action and to savour all the destructive possibilities without having to fend off alien swarms at the same time.
If you’re looking for a fun, action-packed shooter with incredibly destructive environments and original weapons without too much strategy involved, then Armageddon is for you.
[Played on a pre-release build on a PC]Last Updated: May 31, 2011
