so i think he likes me more

Just tried it out, and I'm definitely going to have to buy this. The whole cctv/cheap handicam look and feel that is in all the trailers transfers accross into the actual game completely. And its not just some last minute film grain added over the top either, the picture washes out in bright areas, looks cheap and grainy in the darker areas (like mobile phone cameras do if you try and take a photo in a dark area), has occasional artifacts, lense flares, redeye, etc. But it never intrudes on the gameplay at all, its just an extremely awesome suite of effects, gives the whole thing a really classy, unique feel. Even the loading screens have a "Buffering..." style of thing going on, as if you're buffering up a home-made movie on the internet to watch and the icon which flashes up on your screen to indicate autosave is the timestamp on the handicam. They haven't just thrown this in at the last minute as a gimmick, its an integral part of the game and seeps into every part of it. Pretty damn cool.

As for the gameplay, well I've been playing the first one a little bit in the past few days after grabbing it off Steam, and the difference is like night and day. This one has proper "gears of war style" cover mechanics (which is pretty much par for course forthird person shooters these days), team-mate AI is actually pretty good, the controls have been streamlined and feel a lot better in general, and most importantly the action is satisfying. Destructible cover and environments make things feel pretty dynamic as you shoot your way through a restaurant and the streets of Tokyo, and the guns all feel pretty satisfying. Its definitely going for a more gritty, down-in-the-dirt feeling so the guns aren't big flashy affairs, but in a way the understatedness (is that even a word?) of them make them even more awesome; they might not make big flashy explosions and loud sounds, but they drop guys hard and fast in an extremely satisfying fashion.

Speaking of explosions though, theres a pretty sweet mechanic in there which I quickly became a big fan of. There was no grenades in the demo, and I don't think theres grenades in the full game even (at least there was no button mapped to throwing them), but theres an abudance of fuel tins and propane canisters lying around (people aren't very good at securing their loose fuel tins and gas canisters in Tokyo it would seem), and you can pick one up and carry it around with you. You're still free to shoot your normal guns while you're carrying it, and then when you want to, you can hurl it forwards and shoot it and cause a nice little kaboom. The cool part is the throwing and shooting is an actual mechanic, one single action with two button presses. Press the X button to throw your potential incendiary device of choice, then your character automatically targets it and tracks it with his gun, then you just have to press fire when it reaches the point at which you wish to cause some damage. So essentially a grenade, but you can choose exactly when and where you want it to explode once you've thrown it, without the hassle of trying to aim it up and take it out yourself. Its quick, easy, precise, and a hell of a lot of fun.

Haven't tried the multiplayer yet, so can't comment on that, but based on what I've see its a definite purchase. With all the problems of the first game apparently fixed, a heavy dose of gritty, bare knuckle, satisfying action and a really, really cool aesthetic, this has jumped up near the top of my list. Just have to wait till the end of August now to get my hands on the full thing :(