A visit to Mars (Red Faction: Guerilla). It’s a society in flux – a guerilla movement pitted against an oppressive corporate force. My doomed brother welcomes me to the planet - soon he perishes at the hands of the authorities and I’m thrust by default into a battle between workers and the oppressive bosses.

I’m just a visitor, hired muscle with a hammer, but what a hammer. My first experience on the planet is a mission to collect some salvage. I do this by bashing buildings apart with massive swipes – what a feeling of power. Even faced with assault rifles, explosives and zappers, there’s always the hammer. Everything is smashable, breakable, destroyable – what a playground!

Mars as an experimental, industrial workshop of a place is initially fascinating, and lovingly created. Vehicles are stockily built as if prepared to bash through the rock on their own. Buildings are metal, pylon and sheet, built to purpose by mechanics not artisans. It’s the world of the hammer – built by it and about to be destroyed by it. Urban chic is measured by the size of your workshop/garage. Status is the size of your hammer – you are the alpha male wielding your superior tool with prowess.

But this Mars holds no surprises. I’m not expecting an ice zone - I’m expecting bigger pylons. Exploration holds little appeal – I’m a veteran of exploration, I’ve explored Liberty City, the continents of Azeroth, and a multitude of Mario worlds. The unappealing dustbowls of Mars don’t cut it for me, where beauty comes in lego brick designs among the craters. I’m free to explore, but there’s no freedom – the roads and buildings all look the same.

And what is my cause? I’m a guerilla by name, but I don’t know what for – some vague notion of workers rights? I have no insight into the politics – I was hired muscle, and I love the hammer first and the cause last. Okay my brother was killed, but I’d only met him about 90 seconds before, before I was thrust into some rebellion that I don’t understand. That my brother only had a vague connection to in the first place. And where was my choice?

The other guerillas seem more committed than I. They throw slogans and stories around. “I saw some drones get their hands on a marauder woman – it wasn’t pretty”. Even the harshest brutalities come across like platitudes. My enthusiasm starts to turn into guilt – how do I tell these people that when all is said and done, I don’t believe? I don’t even know what it is I’m supposed to believe.

So here I am, a fraud in the middle of a battle I don’t understand. A few hours ago I was a stranger in this world. Worse, while I idly play about busting metal with my mighty hammer, workers take up arms dying to defend me. I don’t want to be part of their petty war – I don’t know who the good guys even are. I’m pretty sure I’m not one of them. It takes all my self-discipline not to start casually smashing up the rebel safehouses. For fun. Just to ‘do’.

I decide I’m the cancer not the cure. So I turn off Mars. It’s the only way I can see to get the moral upper hand here. It’s the only way to win.