Hellboy - hands-on

Once we'd battered our way through the ruin, Hellboy charged into a cavernous chamber that held some kind of giant tentacled worm thing. During this boss fight, we ran around the room's perimeter and fought our way up to a few platforms to flip switches, which focused destructive rays of light on the worm. This was all while dodging the smaller minions that poured into the room periodically, although they were useful for distracting the worm, and more than once, he scooped them up and tossed them around instead of Hellboy. It felt like a standard-issue boss fight, but it was a little more strategic than anything we saw on the console version.

Wireless co-op is looking likely, and if it's anything like the console version, you'll be able to tackle the game as fish-man Abe Sapien, pyrokinetic Liz Sherman and one other character that appears only in the comics. (Publisher Konami wouldn't tell us who, but our money's on Roger the homunculus.) We only saw brief snippets of Abe and Liz in action on the Xbox 360, but it's pretty obvious that they'll play a lot differently than brutish old Hellboy - something that should make online co-op play more interesting.

Action aside, Hellboy promises to pack in plenty of other goodies for fans. The story is an original joint effort by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and weirdo movie director Guillermo del Toro, both of whom also guided the game's overall creative direction, and actor Ron Perlman will provide Hellboy's gravelly voice. It's way too early to judge how good of a job they're doing, but the game looks to have potential, so we've got our fingers crossed for fall.

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Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.