The Club was one of the earliest announced surprises in SEGA's whole pre-E3 hype machine that happened last year, and of the bunch, it was arguably the one with the most promise -- though that was more because of developer Bizarre Creations' track record than the few scant, nebulous details. Now, finally, we've had a chance to actually see the game running (albeit on the 360), and it's looking very promising indeed.

When you're shown a dude in a hood, a NYPD cop kinda undercover, a prototypical XTREEM sports adrenaline junkie and an escaped con from Russia and told this is only half of the eclectic lineup of characters forced to literally fight to the death for the amusement of some draconian secret society that needs actual human combat to get their jollies, you start to take notice. When you actually get the back story of one of those characters, Renwick, the cop and his apparent attempt to find out just what The Club is and who's running it -- not to mention find out he has a few heavy handed bookies to pay -- the story gets a little more interesting, even if it is just fluff for the heavily arcade-inspired third-person shootin'.

And oh, there is so very much to shoot. Upon jumping into the Alcatraz-esque Prison Cells level (which, like all levels, is parceled out into multiple sections with their own unique challenges like holding off enemies or even the dreaded escort mission), we got to see just how much shootin' was on the agenda rather quickly. Essentially the mantra goes a little something like this: you're either shooting at something or you're losing points. Period. Now how shoot at something -- or more to the point someone -- determines a handful of things like how many points you get and if you can keep your combo multiplier going. Blow up an exploding barrel and take out multiple enemies and you'll rack up more points. Tag 'em in the head and pocket a few more.

The idea here is that style and speed are at the fore, not slinking around in the shadows biding your time. When there are no enemies to cap, often there is a special target tucked away that can be shot before sprinting to the next group of enemies. The goal is to simply finish as fast as possible while keeping your combo chain going, and it sounds like it's going to be a friggin' blast. Renwick's character looks nicely detailed, with him in uniform, a small toothpick rolling around his cracked lips and plenty of personality in even the most basic of animations, and each character will apparently be as different in stats as they are in looks, offering players the chance to favor speed over defense or firepower over quick moves, for instance.

Though multiplayer was touched for the briefest of moments, we get the impression it's not quite ready to be talked about -- hell, The Club won't even be shipping until September, so there's plenty of time for SEGA and Bizarre to talk more about the game as everything gets hammered out. At least for now, though, there's enough promise here to keep us interested. The visuals, detail in the environments (which also feature a mansion, tanker and steel mill, among others) and overall gritty-but-stylized feel of everything shows that Bizarre Creations is indeed capable of more than just awesome racing games.