The Saboteur Preview

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In other words, expect quieter, stealth-based sections along with the big set pieces. Having carefully sneaked into the heart of a Nazi base, you might set off an alarm and have to run and gun your way out. "The player's never really forced to use stealth, though," French is keen to emphasise. "You can go guns blazing through every situation. But it's not advised."

Devlin is an acrobatic chap, able to climb ladders, hang off window sills and shimmy up drainpipes with ease. He can also perform huge jumps - "The kind of jumps you couldn't do in real life, but you could picture Bruce Willis doing in a movie and surviving." It's all designed to be simple, fluid and intuitive, as is taking cover.

"We have an automatic cover system - you just move into walls and Sean will adhere to them," says Devlin."We've been very careful because we're all gameplayers, and we want to make sure you can glance off walls without getting stuck and it becoming a nuisance. But it definitely helps Sean look cool."

Also helping with the cool factor is the huge range of weapons at Devlin's disposal. There are plenty of classics here, such as MP-40s, pistols, Lugers, rifles, flamethrowers and rocket-powered grenades. You can take control of artillery cannons, anti-aircraft guns and other stationary weapons. And of course, as Devlin is a saboteur, he's a dab hand with explosives; expect lots of opportunities to blow things up. There are also what Pandemic is calling the "extreme weapons", which are fictional by design but grounded in real-world physics. They're not being shown off yet; French will only describe them as "hoses of death".

Stand in front of Brighton's Royal Pavilion on a clear day and you can see the Crystal Palace transmission tower.

As if having flamethrowers, dynamite and lethal gardening implements at your disposal wasn't cool enough, Devlin also gets a selection of stylish 1940s racing cars to play with. Sounds like they'll be fun to drive too. "We wanted pick-up-and-play controls, but because Sean's a driver it was really important the player felt like a driver when they got in the car," French says. "So the controls are really easy to learn, and there is some learning to be done to master them. What helped us is the streets of Paris are crazy, all twisty and turny, so you can drift around a corner nice and easy and look like a champ doing it."

There are also zeppelins in the game - yes, in real life they were decommissioned before the war began, but Pandemic's decided to take a bit of artistic licence. Most of the time they're floating around in the background, providing a platform for yet more Nazis to shoot at you from. "They're kind of like our helicopters," says French. "At one point we talked about making them pilotable, but ultimately it's not very interesting to pilot a big, slow-moving flying vehicle."

Still, there's plenty of other interesting stuff in The Saboteur: stylised visuals, an openworld environment, a rich storyline, stealth missions, shootouts, rooftop chases, classic car races, old guns, new guns, bombs, dynamite, Resistance fighters, racing drivers and Nazis. Also, Sean Devlin wears an excellent hat. Here's hoping a chance to go hands-on arrives soon so we can find out how it all fits together.