I finally had the chance to play the demo for LucasArts' newest game Fracture, and after The Force Unleashed, I was in the mood to be pleasantly surprised. Luckily, the demo delivers. It lets you play with many guns very quickly, the controls are tight, and the gameplay gimmicks are fun. You get a sand box, and then you get to fight some dudes, and then the demo is over. I wish more demos were like this: show me what you got, and don't overstay your welcome!

The problem is that the gameplay gimmick—deforming the land up and down with your main weapon and your grenades—doesn't seem like it can support an entire game. Its also obvious, at least in the demo, exactly when you need to use it; hopefully the main game doesn't beat you over the head with things quite so much. Still, it's great to sink the land under your enemies and then attack from an elevated position.

The weapon and land-distortion effects are all great, especially the gun that sends a round under ground, and explodes when you tell it to, sending things above flying in every direction. Your weapons turn the world into putty, and it's fun to see just how far you can send something into the air with a few well-placed explosions.

If anything, I can see this game being an absolute blast in multiplayer, but the single-player game could very easily become tiresome if they don't have strong level design; much of Fracture seems like a better concept than mechanics solid enough to build an entire $60 release around.

File this one under cautious optimism.