It looks fantastic. It looks like God Hand with a gun. As the modern vogue insists, this is a game where you take cover behind low walls and more often than occasionally pop up to shoot a guy. As in Gears of War, you can also hit enemies with close-range attacks. Also, as in Gears of War, you can run forward at a high speed by holding down one button on the controller. Also as in Gears of War, you can heal your fallen squad-mates by approaching them and pressing a button....
...In motion, however, the game looks to be some kind of genuine revolution. After Mikami showed off the basics, he handed the controller over to another team member, who was apparently much better at playing the game. He stepped through a big sci-fi door and into a battlefield so utterly caked with hyperactively flying, buzzing and whizzing enemy robots that we almost muttered something not-kosher. It looks, and probably feels, like everything on the battlefield is moving, like maybe even the battlefield itself is moving. Even something as seemingly mundane as approaching and healing a fallen squad-mate looks like a task of world-ending importance when everything is so speedy. The enemies are vicious, and they don't quit. ...
...One thing that kept popping up during the play demonstration was Sam's smoking habit. Mikami kept pressing a button to make Sam light a cigarette, puff it once, and then throw it away. "War is tough; I need another cigarette." It got some laughs. I asked him if it's an actual game mechanic, and he replied with an immediate "Yes". Why does Sam smoke? "Because I like smoking," Mikami replied instantly. Here Atsushi Inaba, who the PR staff had informed us would likely remain silent, smiling, silently judging the proceedings, spoke up: "And so do I. Actually, my liking smoking is only one of the reasons the main character smokes," Mikami continued. "The other one is--"
Inaba interrupted: "A secret." "Yeah," Mikami went on, "a secret."