Gears of War 3

The basic unit, always available in the games I played, is the Ticker, the little skittering bug that scurries across the map and then self-destructs. Intended by Epic just as a means to ensure players always had a way to earn more Tokens, no matter how broke, the Ticker is actually the most popular choice by far in playtests, says the Epic rep.

Because it's cheap, or because it's fun? It's definitely a lot of fun. The short charge time on your blast means that using the critter is a matter of precise timing. Next in the same Beast class you get the Wretch, who lopes around, can vault over cover and has an agile dodge, but most rely on fairly weak melee blows. Later on, there's the Serapede, a low-profile creepy-crawly who lacks offensive power but is very hard for the humans to spot.

The chunky, golem-like Boomers are heavy and slow but have pounding runs available on the A button. The basic Butcher has a devastating melee attack using his sword thing, the Savage Boomer throws the new burrowing underground grenade that's in Gears 3, the enormous Grinder touts a mini-gun while the rather ponderous and difficult-to-handle Mauler possesses a shield and whirls a mace around his head. They're all simply too big to use cover.

The only Drone we get to try is the base unit, the Grenadier Elite. He handles much like one of the game's human protagonists and carries one grenade round and the devastating shotgun (long-range weapons are in the minority in Beast, at least with the creatures available in the demo).

The Grenadier Elite was available alongside the base humanoid in the game, the Kantus, with its long tails and vaguely papal head. As well as possessing a fully-automatic machine pistol (a new weapon), the Kantus is actually a healer with the ability to revive downed comrades, although he needs to stand stock-still while he does it. The various monster combinations bring out some interesting class-style gameplay, says Mr Epic, and we believe it.

We also get to play two further fantastic Humanoid characters. One is the Armored Kantus, a wicked bipedal porcupine of a thing that is almost impervious to bullet fire, rolls up into a Sonic-style dash attack (albeit much spikier and more painful) and, brilliantly, dual-wields giant six-shooters.

The final character in the demo is the famous Berserker, an almost unkillable but frighteningly expensive tower of rock with devastating melee attacks. Epic's come up with a brilliant solution for balancing this over-powered nightmare; they've made it almost impossible to see while controlling her. Her vision's clouded (by berserker rage, presumably) so you can only see a little around the edges of the screen, very little in the middle-distance, and the rest is obscured by her gigantic bulk. Berserker players consequently stumble around like they're mad and stupid and need to be guided home by their team-mates.

They amazing thing about Beast is how well, and uniquely, all these creatures handle. Even with 20 individual characters to create (by our reckoning) for this one mode, Epic has taken lavish care over each. Their controls schemes are often quite simple, but they each have their own spin on that rock-solid cartoon heft that Gears does so well, and they each need to be played in a very particular and wholly individual rhythm. They're bursting with personality and stark but interesting design, and more to the point, they're all terrific fun to play.