For those of us that are into things like cyberpunk, steampunk, and anime, Damnation seems like it should be the answer to our prayers, right? I mean, how many times can you play GTA IV or Tomb Raider? Damnation, when it was first shown, looked like it would be a truly unique title. After all, there aren't many games that attempt to mix alternate US history with the steampunk genre. It was an ambitious and risky venture—one that should have payed off.

Imagine a world where the American Civil War between the North and South ended with both sides destroyed, and in their place a new faction, powered not by electricity, but by steam. And now imagine that this world is NOT futuristic, but is instead Western in style—think cowboys around the 1800's. Add to that an open world where instead of simply running from place to place you have to venture skywards for sometimes hundreds of feet, and you've got what should be a slam dunk winner.

Great premise, right? Absolutely! I can't tell you how absolutely excited I was when I first heard about this game. Imagine looking at a huge tower and trying to figure out the best way to climb it, or even using those same acrobatics to surprise enemies. The possibilities seemed endless.

Unfortunately, something went wrong. Let's start with the presentation: this is supposed to be a next-generation game, but it looks more like one that you'd expect to find in the early days of the PS1 or PS2 era—and I'm talking about everything from the layout, to the architecture, to the characters.

The character animations are very stiff and unnatural, and models appear to have a very low polygon count. What that means is that they look more like mannequins than real characters. There were several times, both in game and during cut scenes, where movements were very jerky. In one case, the character seemed to get stuck on a ledge after a jump.

Okay, so what about the world itself? The architecture was both interesting and unique—there were many different types of buildings you could climb and they were true to what you would find in that time period. The problem is, the textures didn't do justice to this at all. Instead of being crisp (like in Assassin's Creed for instance) they looked almost muddy and not very detailed to my eyes.

As far as sound goes, it was a mixed bag. Whereas at times the voiceovers were so loud as to be almost distorted, other sounds that SHOULD have been tremendous (like weapons fire or explosions) simply weren't.

Weapons felt as though they were severely underpowered, as enemies required many shots to go down.

In terms of controls, it is again not bad, but not great either. The ability to zoom in with a weapon is good, however the controls felt very loose. Even when controlling Rourke, I often times found myself spastically running around, almost as if he wanted to go one way and I wanted to go the other. There were several times when doing a running jump that the controls, for whatever reason, wouldn't respond and I'd end up falling to my death.

One other thing that really bugged me was the help system. I can understand the developer wanting to have a way for the player to do a tutorial without it taking you out of the game. But when an NPC repeatedly tells me "over here" when I'm 5 FEET AWAY, it gets really old, really quickly. This, of course, is part of a bigger problem: what started out as an open world has, for some reason, become linear. Although it looks like there should be multiple ways to get to where you need to be, there is usually only one.

One other point regarding the graphics was that there were clipping issues. I mean, in one level I could turn the camera and see through the wall to another section. Not only that, but there were seams where the textures just didn't match up. To make matters worse, the frame rate would sometimes drop and there were loading screens within the level!

I know that this review has sounded like one huge bitch fest, and I certainly don't mean it to be. I so wanted to like this game. In terms of storyline and plot, and just the sheer courage it takes to come up with a universe like this, I applaud Codemasters. But the execution is shoddy and certainly not worth paying full price (or even half price) for.

Ultimately, this was an excellent idea marred by time or budget constraints. What should have been an amazing next generation showcase of the PS3's capabilities instead falls flat. Not recommended.

3.5 Graphics Stiff animations, lifeless cut scenes, muddy textures. 3.0 Sound Weapons that should sound like they pack a punch instead sound like pea shooters. Voice volume was amped to almost distorted levels, and sound would intermittently cut out. 3.0 Gameplay Brain dead enemies and partners that would go down very quickly in a fire fight. Loose aiming controls as well as loose exploration controls made dying far to easy. 1.0 Replay Value Once you've passed the main story (if you even get that far), there's really no incentive to play again. Sure, there's multiplayer, but no one is online with this yet. And I doubt they will be. 2.6 Overall Again, I really did want to like this game, and I do look forward to reviewing other games by Codemasters. But some of the things I've mentioned are basic and should be easy to get right. This whole game smells like it was rushed and that is a shame. Not