Back at this year’s E3, I got to take a look at an upcoming PS3, PS4, and Vita game called CounterSpy . It was a conspicuously hands-off demo, one driven by a person familiar with the game while I looked on. I actually thought there was a great deal of promise in CounterSpy’s formula – and there is – but after going hands-on with it for the first time here at Gamescom, it made me wish I had known sooner that its promise and the quality of its gameplay aren't lining up.

The bad guys.

“ In short, CounterSpy looks fun but plays rough.

Boom goes the dynamite.

“ This unique cover system is an idea that was probably left on paper.

Watch out!

“ If you’ve alerted the guards, your melee attacks literally never work.

In short, CounterSpy looks fun but plays rough. There’s a great nugget of an idea here – it’s a time-based Cold War-era spy game with shooting and stealth elements – but in the section I played, I was left frustrated by its inexact controls, bizarre shooting mechanics, and sloppy cover system. CounterSpy most certainly has a Metroidvania thing going on, with shades of Shadow Complex and Rocketbirds all over the place, but the demo didn’t remotely play up to the standard of the best games in that beloved genre.CounterSpy is all about racing against the Doomsday Clock, a legacy of the Cold War indicative of the ever-present threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Not wanting to take sides in the historic standoff, you’re cast not as an American agent or a communist sympathizer, but rather as a neutral character from a shadowy organization determined to keep the peace between the world’s two arch-enemy superpowers. Your task is to disrupt both sides’ plans in the escalation to actual war in an attempt to avoid conflict completely.CounterSpy is a side-scroller, but there are some caveats, with doors in the background that can be opened, and little areas in the background where you can take cover. Both of these features begin to expose CounterSpy’s poor controls, especially the latter. When taking cover, aiming at your enemies is sloppy and outright frustrating. Firing in the line-of-sight of your enemies is far easier, but of course, it’s counterintuitive to a game that’s largely predicated on stealth. This unique cover system is an idea that was probably left on paper.I met perhaps my biggest frustration when faced with the option to use melee attacks against enemies. If you’ve alerted the guards, your melee attacks literally never work. You can get stuck in an endless cycle of attacking, being rebuffed, and trying again. Enemies seem to be able to track you behind cover, too, with one guard shooting at the ceiling over and over again to try and hit me. When you sneak up behind an enemy in an attempt to take them out silently, doing the same moves in the same situations result in completely different outcomes. Time-sensitive games have to have a level of mechanical predictability to them, and I just didn’t get that vibe during my short time with CounterSpy.

Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.