Back from a Cola-fuelled break, sat with controller in hand, it was time again decimate alien life. This time though, a trio of recruits were at hand to help as we attempted to survive wave after wave of enemies in Red Factions new Infestation mode. As a co-operative mode, Infestation looks and plays a lot like Gears of Wars’ horde mode. Teaming up with up to three friends you have to fight through thirty waves of increasingly difficult enemies that not only require more bullets to take down, but also become far tougher. As a result, it requires a lot of teamwork to finish of the bigger enemies.

Before starting, you choose four weapons to use for that particular wave before you have to pick again for the next wave. The barrage of enemies are an assortment of all the aliens you will encounter during the single player campaign ranging from the basic Crawler to temporarily invisible Wraiths. Thinking we had the upper hand, my teammate for the day and I suddenly became overrun; hastily discussing tactics, we decided that one should focus on attacking and the other on defence. As I rebuilt our defences, my human companion used a combination of explosives and the surrounding environment to fend of the attackers. With debris causing a delightful squelch against the aliens, we set off the explosives and took out the rest of the wave.

With only seven selectable waves available to us, we jumped straight from the first to the last not knowing what it held in store for our incompetent and skill-less hands, as the difficulty jump was obvious and perhaps by too much. Hopefully, the increased death tally was just due to the preview build, as wave thirty would be practically impossible, no matter how good you are. With this short little demo of the survival mode over, we were ushered onto another variation of Infestation mode. Focused of defending objectives while also taking care of all the enemies this variant allowed us to test four player for the first time. Although the both modes allow for an additional three recruits, it wasn’t until now that we finally got to experience it.

This objective mode certainly required more teamwork but it never got overly frustrating or difficult, even on the harder waves. Much like the survival mode, you are given access to both unlocked weapons and the Nano Forge abilities. This allows you to repair broken objectives that have been attacked by enemies which may sound like you have an unfair advantage making it too easy but, with the later levels get so very frantic, it certainly wasn’t. It called for a certain amount of concentration and co-operation in order to stay alive and defend your objectives. As is always the case when more friends join in to help, it was all about having fun and, on the higher waves, doing so with more of a challenge.

Like many online shooters, there is a degree of customisation available to you and, while that is true in Armageddon’s case, it is very limited. All players will be able to change is their skin and their player image, but ultimately it was lacking a little and, while it’s not overly important to the game, compared to other titles, the amount of characters was a disappointing.

When it comes down to it though, Infestation mode is a great addition to what is looking set to be a great title with a trio of solid modes. There is a perfect balance between team work, frantic action and tactics and was a huge amount fun to play. Set to release in the Summer lull, Red Faction: Armageddon should be on fans radar already and will increasingly draw gaze from those unmoved by it so far. Why? Because it deserves to.