There used to be a building here, I reflect as I put down the controller, ending my preview session of Red Faction Armageddon. I think back to what just happened: how the tower first collapsed after I disintegrated its base with my plasma rifle, before I pulled out my magnet gun and propelled a giant globe at the wrecked building, shattering the remains to pieces. For good measure, I aimed my singularity launcher at what was left and fired off a "black hole," ensuring that nothing would be left.

Like Guerrilla before it, Armageddon has been designed for emergent gameplay -- those uniquely entertaining scenarios that arise spontaneously out of a game's openness to the player's own creativity. It's the sort of fun that relies heavily on awareness of the entire gameworld, and thankfully Armageddon has the right toy box to inspire the level of engagement necessary to create the over-the-top destruction. When the "rocket launcher" is the most uninteresting weapon in a game, something's being done right.

Sure, Armageddon is, in many ways, the same game as its predecessor, but it appeared much more polished to me. The switch from Guerrilla's open-world design to a more linear one may seem regressive, putting greater limitation on the emergent gameplay, but, according to Roje Smith, of developer Volition, "It allows us to give the player much more focus in the experience -- not wander around and get lost in a huge environment."

"In order to really tell the story in Armageddon, it had to be much more linear," he added.