Meet the Class of 2008

Rubi | Wet | 2008

What's her story?

Is that a gun in your pocket...? Chances are, yes, it will be, because after a seemingly simple pay day for problem-solver Rubi goes pear-shaped in a big way, she finds herself attracting all the wrong kind of attention. That is, lots of people want to shoot her beautiful face off. The plot details released so far are purposefully evasive (slippery, even?), but we're sure Rubi's mostly going to be killing and contorting into the kind of shapes that even putty would struggle with.

What can Rubi bring to gaming?

At last - another leading lady! Surely this can only be a good thing. Right? And - at least to our man vision - Rubi isn't gratuitously-sexualised. She's undoubtedly curvaceous and desirable in a nerdy sort of fancying make-believe women kind of way, but so far there's not been a whiff of hot pants (not that we're smelling) and her breasts seem firmly fixed in place. So we shouldn't be distracted from all the nimble shooty-stabby grindhouse-flavoured blood spilling.

Rubi is the new face of 2008 most likely to...

...cause an outbreak of vaguely sexual, liquid-related words amongst gamers. Moist. Bucket. Hose. Jugs. Spunk. That kind of thing.

Baldur | Too Human | 2008

What's his story?

Ever get the feeling that machines are conspiring against you? Well, that's Baldur's life. But we're not talking red rings of doom or vending machines that swallow your coinage yet stubbornly refuse to relinquish any sugary goods. No. Baldur's plight makes another dead Xbox 360 seem positively trivial in comparison.

As a powerful cybernetic god, Baldur dashes to defend every mortal of humanity from a rampaging race of body-harvesting machines with designs on wiping the human race out of existence. This is one problem that can't be fixed by calling tech-support.

What can Baldur bring to gaming?

Microsoft clearly has high hopes for Too Human's deity, proclaiming that the arrival of Baldur will mark the birth of 'one of gaming's renowned iconic heroes'. Take away the luminous blue lines on his face, though, and visually we think he's a little too generic to be particularly memorable.

However, as we discovered when we visited developer Silicon Knights last year, the real beauty of this shaven-headed saviour is how players will be able to develop Baldur. Five different class types, multi-branching skill trees, more special abilities than a disabled toilet, weapons that look beefy enough to take out the Death Star in one shot... In short, you'll be able to mould him into your own perfect machine-mashing man-machine god-man hero thing.

Baldur is the new face of 2008 most likely to...

...give your toaster nightmares.