Rebels are far more agile than the mercenaries, making for faster, hit-and-run combat. Without an armoured suit wrapped around you, it's possible to roll to evade gunfire, dive and leap between rooftops. Making yourself harder to hit is an obviously vital skill, but a rebel's swiftness also encourages a more up close and personal approach to battling your enemies - get to melee distance and it's possible to disarm a Mantel soldier, then blast him with the business end of his own rifle.

The images on the right illustrate the many cunning combat moves available to The Promise Hand insurgents. Neat tricks include being able to set mines to trap approaching Mantel soldiers, or employing a guerrilla fighter's ingenuity to scavenge ammo so that it will fit any weapon, from rifle to pistol, meaning you'll never find your offensive assaults reduced to hurling insulting words if you can find a fallen enemy.

But more gripping is abusing the Mantel soldiers and their Nectar dependency. Ambush a mercenary, blast his back-mounted Nectar pouch and he'll overdose instantly - becoming a crazed, trigger-happy psychopath in the process and creating yourself a temporary and unwilling ally.

You can achieve this better by using the rebel's play dead skill, fooling the enemy into thinking you're no longer a threat. Then once his back is turned you can leap up (by nailing the X button during a simple and effective mini-game) and there'll be one less name on the Mantel payroll.

Brilliantly, you can also turn the drug into an offensive weapon itself. Smear a downed soldier's Nectar on your knife and you've another overdose-inducer, either thrown or in hand-to-hand. Finally, it's possible to turn the Nectar pouch into a grenade with an overdose effect that spews the drug over a wide area. Yescombe likes to think of it as "an offensive smoke grenade." But the rebel difference isn't simply limited to a selection of new moves.

Haze takes place over three days without interruption, Half-Life style, so there's no mission screens or the like. Scripted events like vehicle chases will "bookend" the flow of action, but the story will unfold in a pleasingly continuous fashion. The lack of interruptions gives even greater impact to the game's gripping atmosphere and clever visual trickery.