Pre-E3 blowout day four: PS3

Resistance: Fall of Man
Formerly known as I-8, this futuristic first-person shooter frankly didn't look like much when it was unveiled at the Game Developer's Conference earlier this year. But given that Resistance is being shaped by the creators of the stellar Ratchet %26amp; Clank games, our first impressions are likely deceptive.

The early snippets of gameplay we've seen so far looked a lot like another recent shooter, Black, only with more futuristic weaponry and lots more creepy-crawly alien enemies to shoot. The guns rattle realistically, the enemies climb walls and attack en masse and lots of humanoids in glowing stormtrooper armor get cut down by bullets and heat-seeking plasma bursts. Grenades - conventional and otherwise - seem to play a big role, and at one point we even watched some aliens get shredded by a floating, shrapnel-filled mine.

Resistancelooks like an uncharacteristically dark game for the usually cheery developers at Insomniac, and we're not just talking about the tone. The game appears to be about fending off an alien invasion that's subjugated mankind, sure, but what surprised us was the shadowy look of everything. The demo video showed the lone hero running down dank-looking alleyways at night, stopping only to duck for cover behind (weirdly flat-looking) sandbags as monsters emerged from the shadows. But dark theme or no, we're looking forward to a more polished showing next week.