This is Vegas Preview

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In fact, one of the tasks during your nightclub fun is to sort out any drunken rabble going on, and when one lurching young chap hollers at his exasperated girlfriend "I say when the relationship is over!!", it's time to step in. But rather than try and cool him down, you're able to try out a range of melee moves on him, such as grabs, kicks, stomps and punches. Amusingly, the more you pummel the hapless goon in the face, the quicker you build up your Buzz Bomb meter, allowing you to unleash a massive uppercut that sends him, in slow motion, flying and bouncing off the nearest wall. A similar section outside involving two yobs and a wrecked car ended the same way. You're not exactly a peace-loving hedonist.

Sadly, despite being a bit of a hardnut dance champion with silky bartending skills, your capacity for alcohol would shame the average shandy-drinking 12-year-old. After just one beer, your vision blurs, you lurch around, and embarrassingly quickly you let rip a massive technicolour yawn in front of the very people you were impressing mere minutes before. In a curious twist of logic, going to the gents sobers you up, and you can carry on with your night of excess unimpaired. If only it were that simple. Fortunately, there's no annoying toilet attendant guilting you out of your loose change.

That? No, that actually is a gun in my pocket.

In one of the more curious additions to the nightclub fun, another completely daft bartender mini-game allows you to turn the drinks on a bevy of crop-top beauties in the name of a wet T-shirt 'competition'. All giggles and wiggles, these Benny Hill rejects writhe obligingly in front of the bar while you aim a soda gun at their norks until a little rising meter determines they're wet enough. Sadly, we didn't find out what the prize was for the winner.

Elsewhere in the game (although not shown off), you're given the freedom of the city, with the ability to engage in side-mission "gigs" within the four distinct communities. As with every openworld game ever, you'll be able to get in any vehicle at any time and presumably engage in the usual antics. Personalisation was also touched upon briefly, with the chance to tailor the look of your character to your requirements, including hairstyles and wardrobe.

As you'd expect from a game set in Vegas, gambling is very high on the agenda. In any of the game's many casino locations, you'll be able to try your luck at the slot machines, or stroll up to the tables and play all your favourites. Using blackjack to demonstrate, your odds of winning are somewhat enhanced by the game's Advantage Play feature, which basically amounts to being able to cheat slightly - at the risk of being rumbled.

See?

Essentially, the game forewarns you what number range the next card will be by marking each one with a symbol; so an X lets you know it's an ace or higher, a circle tells you it's between seven and nine, and so on. But every time you use Advantage Play, you raise the suspicion of the dealer, and risk him sussing your cheating ways out - so it's something to only use when it really counts.

So that was Vegas: freaky dancing, thug-punching, tit-squirting madness. There's no doubting Surreal's intention of trying to create a feel-good game unlike anything ever attempted, but few people came away from the game with any real clue as to whether it'll all come together in the end. Any thoughts? We'll try and stitch more together as its 2008 release approaches.