This is Vegas (PS3)

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This Is Vegas is an open world game with elements of GTA and plenty of adult mini-games.

This is Vegas. No, really. This actually is Vegas. The Red Rock Casino Hotel to be exact, about 20 minutes drive from The Strip, or, as much of the assembled video game press found out last week, a $50 cab journey. Still, $50 promises to be a fart in the wind in publisher Midway's virtual VIP sim. Gambling's part of the game, and there's a $5000 limit.

It was telling that publisher Midway left This Is Vegas till the end of its big annual Gamers' Day presentation, following Wheelman, TNA Impact! and even Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It granted it the most on-screen time too - a short walk through the demo level that press were soon to be allowed hands on time with. This Is Vegas is Midway's big hope for 2008. And now, finally, we find out if the ample development spend is going to good use.

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Developer Surreal Software, of The Suffering fame, is using a three-level pyramid (perhaps inspired by the Luxor) to conceptualise the game. At the bottom is Grand Theft Auto, or the adult, gangster-oriented open world gameplay mechanic Rockstar has near enough perfected in recent years. Above this is Vegas itself. Well, not quite. You won't find virtual versions of Bellagio, Caesar's Palace or Treasure Island to burn your in-game dollars in. Nor will you be able to watch digital trapeze artists defy gravity in virtual Cirque du Soleil shows. This is Surreal's own version of the city, a hyper Vegas full of saturated colours and with its own clubs, casinos and strip.

And finally, right at the top of the This Is Vegas pyramid, is "fun". Fun being a recreation of the kind of alcohol-fuelled, money-draining, sexually charged, once in a lifetime night out that helped coin the phrase "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". In Surreal's eyes, as we experienced from the demo available for play at Midway's Gamers' Day, this means helping a hot female DJ turn a dead club into a banging one by busting shapes on the dance floor via a rhythm combo system, beating up "cheesy bachelors" with devastating slow motion uppercuts, tending bar with the simplest of mini-games and spraying wet t-shirt wannabes with soda water. Really.

This is you, a Johhny Knoxville look alike who's hell bent on keeping Vegas from turning into a family friendly tourist trap.

Let's extrapolate. You - a Johnny Knoxville look alike, drive up to Aqua, one of the game's night clubs, in a smart sports car. Inside you find a female DJ friend of yours in dire straights. The club is as dead as a Barnsley pub on a Tuesday night. What's worse, the DJ gets a cut of the bar takings, which, by all accounts, will end up barely covering her cab journey home. You offer to help, with half an eye on the game's overall objective, which is to prevent a millionaire businessman from turning Vegas into the latest family-friendly tourist trap, and the other on her ample bosom and tiny waist.

Getting the party started involves accumulating points within a pre-determined time limit. There are number of ways to do this. First is dancing, which sees you combine button presses with the thumb sticks to rack up points. The better you perform, the more people you'll attract to the dance floor. They'll cheer your flawless fancy footsteps and boo when you screw up. Build up enough Buzz, This Is Vegas' cool factor currency, and you'll get everyone dancing in sync and multiply your score.

Second is dealing with what the game calls "cheesy bachelors" - not quite the term we'd use to describe them. You need to beat the crap out of them, to put it bluntly. There's a button for punching - hold for a more powerful swing - a grapple button and the ability to stomp. Build up enough Buzz and you'll trigger the Buzz Bomb, a slow motion smack that sends the unfortunate lout flying off into the distance like a baby tossing its doll out the cot.

Third is a bar tending mini-game, where you need to serve drinks and light cigarettes as quickly as possible by pressing the button that corresponds with the order. And, to top it all off, there's a wet t-shirt competition mini-game where you spray three giggling, squirming, scantily clad girls with soda water as quickly as possible. It's not smart, or sexy, and in the demo the girls' breast area even went a dull brown colour after we'd done soaking it, something we're sure doesn't happen in real life (actually we're not sure - we've never sprayed a woman's breasts with soda water. If anyone would like to volunteer their services to prove This Is Vegas right...).

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