Marcus Fenix. Soap MacTavish. Master Chief. As far as rough-’n’-tumble, testosterone-fueled shooter-game hero archetypes go, these guys are the three spikes on the deified trifecta of steely, gravelly-voiced ass-kickers. The last thing you would ever picture them doing in a fight to save the freedom of mankind is…acrobatic face-pounding flourishes. We’ll leave that for Vanquish’s badass newcomer, Sam. That’s right: he’s so tough, he doesn’t need a last name — for now.

Well, actually, we lied. Sam isn’t really a badass; he’s just a super-smart, chain-smoking scientist with a crazy futuristic suit that makes him fast, strong, and, well, badass. In an outer-space tussle between the U.S. and Russia in the wake of a terrorist attack on American soil, Vanquish’s hero is called on to bring his high-tech expertise to the battlefield in the form of his self-created, proprietary battlesuit. And after our time tooling around in it, we can say — hand on heart — this is one serious piece of galactic armor.

Vanquish is part shooter, part super-stylish action game, and we started our hands-on time in a quick lead-up to battle. One of Sega’s reps leaned in and whispered some advice: “If you play this game like a straight-ahead shooter…you probably won’t get very far.” We’ve heard that line before during demos of other games, but in this case, it's true: running and gunning will get you half of the way, but making sure to employ your suit’s special powers is crucial.

“AR,” or Augmented Reality, is what Vanquish calls the superhuman abilities your battlesuit gives you. What it means to you in the context of gameplay is the chance to boost-slide on your knees at crazy speeds from cover to cover and turn it into some enemy face-kicking. You’ll have all manner of guns and grenades at your disposal (and even mounted turrets!), but using AR lets you quickly duck in and out of combat.

But super speed is only one part of what your powers afford you. Hitting the Left Button allows you to scoot around, but pressing Left Trigger while in this jetpack–style mode lets you slow-motion your way into a one-sided gunfight or a face-to-face with an enemy-piloted mech. This temporary reprieve from the fast-paced bullet ballet around you works in context with how you want to play it.

Zoom into a crowd of Russian robots (you and your accompanying troops may be human, but in the section of the game we played, you’re fighting a fleet of mechanical Russkies), and, if you hit LT, they’ll scatter up into the air from your high-kick, letting you pick them off with your rifle one by one as they fall. If you stop short of plowing into a crowd and then hit LT, you’ll take a stance and slow down the action for easier targeting. Using your Augmented Reality quickly and when it counts helps to stave off depleting your entire AR reserve. Use it too long in one go, and you’ll have to wait for it to recharge. The results so far are dizzyingly acrobatic, fast as hell, and hey — it’s also got the makings of being a damn fine shooter to boot.

There was no better evidence than in the demo-finishing fight against a giant mechanical spider-like beast. Shooting at its vulnerable leg joints while jet-sliding from cover point to cover point, we briefly immobilized it long enough to trigger AR for some extra time to target and blast its weakest point (its glossy red, deathbeam-shooting eye). Avoiding its attacks and keeping up the fight meant eventually taking it down, closing out our time with Vanquish. We still want more.