Wreck the galaxy

Red Faction Armageddon**** 18 cert, THQ/Volition, PS3 (also Xbox)

You know what they say – to lose one space colony to hostile aliens is tragic, to lose many is careless. If sci-fi is to be believed, Martian colonies are the ghost estates of the future, doomed to fall prey to shoddy workmanship, bad planning and horrific alien attacks.

In Red Faction Armageddon– the latest in a long-running and consistently entertaining franchise – your job is to protect ordinary people from an alien horde, even if those people don't trust you. It's a third-person shooter with a hugely malleable environment: structures can be destroyed with your weapons and then rebuilt with a special beam. This can be very useful if, for example, you've just collapsed a staircase on to an enemy but need to use those stairs again. It's also pretty handy for rebuilding shelter while you're being attacked.

The variety of weapons is what makes RFAreally special. Easily this writer's favourite is the magnet gun; fire one magnet on to your enemy and another on to any other surface, and watch them fly together. You can use it to bring down buildings, fling enemies towards walls, or smack aliens together. That last part is especially fun. You can also get your hands on a "singularity cannon", which creates miniature black holes as well as more conventional guns like assault rifles.

Your enemies (for the most part) consist of icky aliens of various sizes, reminiscent of the bugs in Starship Troopersand HR Giger's creations for the Alienmovies.

Apart from its innovative guns, RFAis a rather familiar experience – with the sci-fi horror reminiscent of the mighty Dead Space 2. While it lacks the cinematic terror of that space opera, overall RFAsurpasses it in gameplay. As well as the compelling single-player campaign, it offers some delicious bite-sized treats; there are fun multiplayer games (in which you fight aliens as a group), and competitive demolition modes, in which you compete to level an area in the fastest time possible – think of it as a gift to your destructive inner child.