American McGee's Bad Day L.A. hands-on

With the Apocalypse happening all around poor Anthony, we gave up his ramshackle grocery cart and attempted to steer our way through the fray of zombie-making gas clouds and flaming cars. Controlling Anthony is all over-the-shoulder third-person, handy because we were constantly jumping around tangled, burning wreckage trying to get the hell out of dodge.

We made some unlikely friends along the way. The first one was the Sick Kid - a little zombie freak who shares his lunch with everyone he meets (the not-so-nice way), spreading sickness. This actually helped us stay alive; confusing the incensed businessmen cranking cell phones at our head and distracting terrorist gunmen from setting up shop on every street corner.

Making the most of items we found along the way helped us survive, too. Fire extinguishers and bandages were our most crucial tools for when we played "nice Anthony"; dousing flaming victims and wrapping up their wounds. This gave us "smilies", and decreased our threat level. This is important to keeping a lid on the constant chaos around us - running through the levels aggressively with a shotgun is a sure-fire way to incite a riot. We were tasked with taking out terrorists but that's nearly impossible when we had an angry mob of brick-lobbing citizens, rabid attack dogs and vomiting zombies chasing after us.

While it's clear that McGee wants to encourage discussion about the social problems in America today, the ludicrous premise of Bad Day L.A. is a high hurdle. The single demo level is full of fun and free-wheeling gameplay, but weighed down by the asinine set up. We have a feeling we'll gladly choke that down when we gather the other nine episodes that will come with the whole enchilada, because of the promising and uniquely drawn game underneath.

American McGee's Bad Day L.A. hits retail on August 29, 2006.