Previews// The Club

The different environments include a steel mill (which is what SEGA showed me in this demo) a prison, an English manor house, a disused ocean liner, a bunker and a war-torn city. Each of these in turn will contain a number of different layouts for your player to run like hell through, while rapidly shooting and bombing the AI mercenaries/homeless that pop up at various points in the level.

SEGA demonstrated a couple of the games eight main characters for me, which is where the references to fighting games suddenly began to make more sense.

It was made clear that each character had to inspire extreme reactions in players so, just as with any decent beat-em-up, you will grow to love one or two of the characters and stick with them. Each of the eight characters have also been scripted in detail by an ex-2000AD writer, with the idea being that their back stories emerge gradually as you progress through the game.

So, as you familiarise yourself with each one’s various skills, attributes, stamina, speed, favourite weapons and personalities you’ll know who you want to play. And, by extension, which ones you would rather murder in cold blood.

I liked the look of both of the two characters I saw in action, the hardened ex-NYPD cop Renwick (who seems to want to infiltrate 'The Club' in some way) and the big, fat Siberian hunter, Dragonov (who seemed to be particularly good at running through doors and barriers head first!).

So, once you have decided on the character you’re playing, it’s straight into the action. Which is where the racing game analogy falls into place. This is not a stealth-em-up, take-your-time and aim carefully type game. Almost the exact opposite, you are charged with sprinting through the level as fast as you can while taking out all the enemies you encounter along the way.

Aiming does of course have to be accurate, but the more time you take zooming in and targeting your victims, the more it impacts on the all important time it takes you to complete the level. So yes, it looks, feels and is paced exactly like a driving game, with your character’s blurring in a rather satisfying way as they peg it through the mayhem, firing and lobbing grenades on the way.

Oh, and there are a lot of explosions, spectacular head-shot deaths and shaky-cam panic moments to push you to move faster, kill better and generally beat your last score and unlock the next level.