Red Faction 2 (Xbox)

By JON MINIFIE

(Herald rating: * * *)

Every time a new first-person shooter is released for the Xbox, the question immediately be-comes how does it look next to Halo? Which is about as fair as throwing a promising fighter in the ring with a young Mohammad Ali. Red Faction 2 will never scale to the dizzying heights of Halo but it is an entertaining shooter nevertheless.

If you are unfamiliar with the series, players assume the role of a key figure in the rebellion, a demolitions expert known as Alias. You and your syndicate are trying to remove an oppressive Saddam-like dictator from power.

There is an elaborate, contrived storyline but as it should be in any first-person shooting title, plot is secondary to the fact that you get to run around with really big guns.

With that in mind, Red Faction 2 encourages players to shoot anything that moves, along with a lot of the stuff that doesn't. They have managed to build on the delightfully destructive Geo-Mod technology, creating a huge, even more interactive environment for you to blast your way through.

Red Faction 2 also features engaging vehicle play, placing you as driver of the vehicle or riding shotgun as the trigger-happy gunner. The gunship and tank provide genuine strike power and the sections that feature the battle suit and the submarine are equally memorable

The game's simplistic control system is painless to master and moving around the levels is a breeze, even during the heat of battle. Single-player missions can be challenging but players can also go head-to-head against some friends using split screen options, even adding bots to increase the body count.

Red Faction 2 on the Xbox offers various enhancements but anyone hoping for true bonus features is out of luck. This is a no-nonsense port of the PlayStation 2 version, with sharper textures and improved sound, but beyond that it is precisely the same game.

Price: $99.95