I found this quite interesting, even though I completely misunderstood the press release first time round. Codemasters has officially announced that it'll be publishing a new third-person shooter named Damnation, from US developer Blue Omega. They're describing it as a 'shooter gone vertical' - and at first I just thought they meant a 2D scrolling shooter in the style of, say, 1942 or Commando. They didn't.
What they mean is a shooter with incredibly tall levels, designed so that players can climb walls and leap from building to building while blasting at each other - sort of like parkour with semi-automatic weapons. The game also includes vehicles able to zoom along vertical surfaces, recalling the scene in Day Watch where the car drives along the side of a concave office block.
I quite like the idea of an overtly acrobatic shooter - it's something that Max Payne and Stranglehold both toyed with, of course, although this was more through character movement than interaction with the environment. Having to clamber up walls while spinning round and shooting at baddies is going to take one hell of a control system, but its an intriguing concept.
Damnation is out later this year on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
