If you ever wondered what it might be like if a Japanese game company decided to make Gears of War, look no further than Vanquish by Platinum Games.

The game, helmed by famed Resident Evil creator, Shinji Mikami, takes the over the shoulder, stop and pop action of Gears of War, and infuses it with a super powered armor suit that lets players slow down time and dash all over the place while absurd amounts of missiles, bullets, and all kinds of other kinds of craziness fly over their heads.

At the core of the gameplay in Vanquish is the ARS, or the Augmented Reaction System, which is responsible for all of the incredibly badass stuff that main character, Sam Gideon, is able to do. With a simple press and hold of a button, jets will rocket Sam forward as he slides on his knees at high speed with his gun out ready to shoot anything in his path. Sliding is not only useful for escaping gunfire and moving from cover to cover, but it’s also great for quickly closing the distance between you and an enemy to allow for an extremely badass jet propelled melee attack that will send the enemy flying.

All of this action, as exhilarating as it is, can get pretty intense, so thankfully the player has the ability to slow down time and highlight all of the nearby targets. Of course, this has its limits, as indicated by an overheating meter at the bottom right of the screen. When your suit overheats, you’ll be left vulnerable and unable to boost or any other actions that require special use of the suit.

The E3 demo first had players fighting off enemy forces in an arena like setting, with enemies laid out all around the battlefield with more enemies warping in from time to time. Some enemies rode aboard giant mechs that used heavy artillery that could easily blast Sam away and put him in critical danger with a single shot. By boosting around to one of their flanks though, you could shoot down the pilot, take control of the mech yourself, and wreak some absolute havoc on the enemy forces.

After clearing the area of enemies, we were faced with a giant quadrupedal mech that required players to first shoot out its legs before it would expose its vulnerable core. Once you bring the core’s life bar down to nothing and think the demo’s over, you’re met with a barrage of about, and I say this with little exaggeration, a bajillion missiles that fly aimlessly overhead as the mech stands up on two legs and transforms into a towering behemoth complete with lasers, bombs, and somehow even more missiles (where do they even store all of those missiles?).

Once again, you must take out the arms and legs to expose the vulnerable core of the robot, but doing so presents more of a challenge due to the sheer firepower of the boss. Eventually though, the giant mech fell and my demo time sadly came to a close.

I cannot even begin to describe how excited I am for this game. If the full retail release can keep up the action and exhilaration throughout what hopefully will be a 10+ hour experience, Vanquish could be the start of the next big thing in third person shooters.