Previews// Haze

Nectar will also up your strength, although, in the opening level, at least, that's only noticeable when you attempt a melee attack. But what a melee attack! It's truly satisfying to send an enemy hurtling with a solid thwak from your gun – and that's without the promised rumble functionality being available to us Europeans yet.

Nectar gives you the mysterious ability to pre-empt explosions. Just before something goes boom you'll see a ripple emanate out of it. I'm not sure how the science of drugs making you precognitive works, but ours is not to question why. Can't say it came into play too heavily in the first level, but that was the only one available to play as a Mantel Trooper in the preview build we were given – it may come in handy further into the game, however, and certainly seems like a handy feature for multi-player.

On top of all that, Nectar will increase the speed with which you heal. Handy stuff, really.

Now, as I mentioned, the enemy AI isn't slow to put a bullet in you. In fact, it's pretty good. The 'baddies' weave in and out of cover, constantly surprising you with where they pop out from. They ain't gonna sit still and wait for you to pick them off.

Combine that with the aforementioned plentiful cover and frequently large areas of combat and Nectar is a must for doing combat with The Promised Hand for your average gamer. I tried playing without using Nectar. I died. I'm sure, given enough practice, I'd fare a bit better. But the fact is, with Nectar I did OK. Without it, I got shot in the face.

Nectar comes with a catch, however. Pump too much into your body and you'll overdose. The result is a distinct loss of control.

That said, ham-fisted as I sometimes am, not once did I OD by mistake. The Promised Hand can make you OD through a number of methods (which I'll get to shortly) but none of them did so. And I'm not a totally amazing FPS player. Again, I'll point out that this is the first level of the game and that later levels may see the enemy AI take fuller advantage of this weakness, but there it is.

In the end I decided to give overdosing a go just to see what it was like. It goes like this: you'll start by staring at the ground and firing your weapon uncontrollably. You regain a bit of composure after a few moments, but the world around you becomes distorted and you become unable to tell friend from foe. Not pleasant.

Anyway, onto the rebel levels, after Carpenter has started to see the error of his ways and fight for the natives. Going into Dientes De Vaca, a mountain ascent to get to an observatory, the level takes the form of a road most the way up and, as you might expect, vehicles come into play.

Unfortunately, this was also the first level I played in online co-op. And I played co-op before I played single-player. Such is the non-linear nature of previewing games. It proved to be a trial by fire, to the point where a Ubisoft rep politely came over and asked if we would like to play another level because we were embarrassing to watch.

Anyway, as rebels you can take both your own vehicles and the Mantel buggies. On both there's room for a driver, a gunner and two sitters. The Rebel vehicles are possibly a bit nippier, but more difficult to control. My personal preference was for the Mantel buggy, but you might want to blame that on my lack of deft vehicle handling abilities.