How many missions you complete and how you complete them, is largely up to you. If you feel like taking on an EDF barrack with a pistol and hammer, go for it, although I’d ponder that decision a moment. One mission tasked me with destroying a key building at a refinery. I suppose I could have, and should have, strolled through the front gate with the workers, strategically placed remote charges on canisters of compressed hydrogen, and watched the show from across the street, but no. I had the bright idea to grab the biggest truck I could find and drive it off a cliff, smash through three stories of concrete, and lodge my ride nose-first in the ground floor. I emerged in the lobby only to hear the groaning moans of i-beams above. To top it off, I had hit the wrong building.
Failed heroics aside, I hammered a path out of the rubble and completed the mission, if only because of my loyal supporters. Many missions raise the morale of your brethren, spurning them to offer vehicles in times of need or bear arms at your side. They’re mostly diversionary bullet-cushions in combat, but any help is better than none against the dozens of EDF troops and APCs rolling in. Adding noxious fuel to the inferno, it’s not uncommon for battles to pour into neighboring properties, buildings to “accidentally” topple, and even more troops to respond. The only way I survived that last mission was by felling a smokestack and fleeing through its protective hollow and over the hillside.
Guerrilla exudes a sense of epic accomplishment and self-importance that few open-world games can boast. It’s the frantic and improvisational battles, the visible remnants of your actions, and the intersections of missions and freedom. Many of the optional missions, called Guerrilla Actions, don’t offer points for control or morale, but may yield hidden upgrades for weaponry and salvage – the currency of the rebellion. You can even play the part of a real miner and cruise around for ore deposits that produce salvage. This in turn gives you access to more expensive upgrades for the common good of becoming the baddest mofo this side of the asteroid belt.
Guerrilla is a rare game that doesn’t trade action for adventure, and the hefty, FPS-inspired multiplayer sessions prove it. The levels range from claustrophobic apartment buildings to multi-tiered swathes of collapsible metal, and unlike other games, the rubble of unrelenting devastation doesn’t flicker and fade after a few seconds. You might be embroiled in a third story firefight one moment, and the next, using the inverted ceiling as ground-level cover after someone brings the whole shebang down. Because of the battlefield’s unpredictable nature, Guerrilla requires a level of adaptability and awareness rarely seen in a FPS, let alone an open-world game. Just because you sniped one opponent from a water tower doesn’t mean it’ll be standing for a repeat.
