Fracture is Lucas Arts attempt to create a popular franchise other than the Star Wars games that they’ve continually churned out. It’s also not just another futuristic third-person shooter as its big pull is in its unique terrain deformation weapons, some of which you get to play with in the demo. The demo itself opens with some futuristic airplanes flying over the Golden Gate Bridge, which is now over hilly land instead of a stretch of water. This gives you some idea of the story, but the basic gist of it is that two factions (Atlantic Alliance and Republic of Pacifica) are fighting against each other due to conflicting ideologies in a world completely transformed by the effects of global warming and the damage done attempting to combat it. Both sides have access to terrain deformation weapons, so you have to wonder why they don’t just create their own land or sink the enemy into the sea like this Penny Arcade comic points out.

Anyway, forget the wider story for now as it’s not really that important in the context of this demo. After being dropped off on the ground (just outside the famous Alcatraz Island prison) the Colonel explains how your Entrencher tool works. With this weapon you can raise and lower terrain, as long as you’re aiming at dirt of course, and will most likely be your must used tool in the game. Firing it at the ground either pops up a great mound of dirt or sinks it into the ground, both of which can be used in puzzles and as a means of cover as I will explain later. I know this first part of the demo is intended to be a tutorial but it still has some pretty idiotic moments. For example, after Jet Brody (the awful name of the character you play in Fracture) has been taught how to use the Entrencher you come across a tunnel blocked by a pile of dirt. While it’s pretty obvious what you’re supposed to do Jet goes ahead and states the obvious anyway; ‘the path is blocked’ and then a short while later ‘Colonel, the wall is to high to jump over’. Well, duh, you have a tool in your hand that will remove the blockage or create a hill to hop over the wall, what the hell do you think you have to do?

After these basic ‘puzzles’ you’ll come across the freighter crash you’re supposed to investigate and you’re first weapon (apart from the machine gun you carry). In the weapons cache that the colonel helpfully pointed to you’ll find subsonic grenades, which the colonel cheerfully recommends you waste by throwing at two piles of crates (thankfully there’s an infinite amount of the things in the cache anyway). These subsonic grenades are actually pretty cool, as they’ll blast a big crater in the ground that flings rocks and objects (in this case, the crates) up in the air. Next you have to toss one of the grenades through a window, which blows out the wall and allows you to use the Entrencher to create a ramp of dirt up to the newly created hole in the wall. Up here is your next weapon.

The Bangalore is effectively a rocket launcher that packs a pretty hefty punch. To test it out you’re tasked with firing it at a small shed, which gleefully explodes in a shower of metal. Unsurprisingly Jet is unimpressed by this display so the colonel suggests he tries firing it at a nearby water tower. As the supports buckle and the water tower collapses to the ground there’s a nice little attention to detail as the ground deforms as it realistically would when a heavy object hits it.

The next weapon you’ll find it the Black Widow - which is a sticky bomb launcher.  You can fire up to six at a time and then detonate them by hitting the ‘x’ button (I was playing the 360 version, by the way). The colonel tells you to test them out by destroying the column supports holding up another freighter on a landing pod. With this done another cache drops down and you now have access to the spike grenades. Spike grenades create a column of molten rock that launches up from the ground, which can create an instant platform for you if you throw one underneath you. This time, however, you have to throw one under a piece of metal to create a ramp up to  a window. Up there is the sniper rifle, but that doesn’t really need to be explained to you as it’s your standard video game issue. If you want you can stay in this area before moving on to the next (such as messing around with an infinite ammo supply of each weapon you’ve found).

Annoyingly you’ll be reverted to the standard issue Entrencher and machine gun when you enter the next area. General Sheridan revolts and quickly kills off most of the troops surrounding you and the colonel. What follows is a chase through the prison, but all you’ll be able to pick up for the meantime is the subsonic grenades. Eventually you’ll come across a gun emplacement where you have to employ the use of your Entrencher to create cover for allied troops pinned down by the emplacement. Once you go through a nearby door your faced with nothing but an open stretch of dirt between you and the gun emplacement, so it’s pretty obvious what to do. This is your run-and-gun style play, running along creating cover for yourself while you advance towards the emplacement. Then you can either get behind the emplacement to take out the enemy soldier controlling it or simply do what I did and raise the terrain, stand on top of the new mound and toss a subsonic grenade at the emplacement. It’s worth nothing that the emplacements bullets are powerful enough to lower the terrain you raised to use as cover.

Upon climbing up to the roof you’ll come across some explosive barrels, a staple of pretty much any video game that involves a gun or two. Shooting them will create a huge hole in the roof, which you can then drop through on to the battle below. You’re troops are pinned down behind the columns of a nearby building and, unfortunately, the only thing between you, your allies and a new weapon are a number of enemy troops. Thankfully you can hit ‘Y’ to sprint across Gears of War style to the other side of the battlefield. Unfortunately General Sheridan manages to escape, no doubt setting up the rest of the games story but who cares when you now have access to the torpedo launcher?

“Torpedo? But we aren’t on water Tom!!!’

Ah, but we are playing a game that has everything to do with the terrain below your feet. At this point of the demo you have to hold out while waiting for extraction, and you’re holding out against a constant flood of enemy troops. Thankfully all you have to do is fire your infinite supply of torpedo launcher ammo at the oncoming enemy. The torpedo will go underground and zoom towards your enemy (you can see the ripple on moving across the ground, kind of like the film Tremors) and detonate when you hit ‘X’,. It’s incredibly satisfying to see enemy troops go flying into the air, their last thoughts being ‘Where the hell did that come from?’. It’s kind of both disappointing and gratifying to have an infinite supply of the ammo right next to you, hopefully the full game won’t be so easy. After your extraction arrives you hop into it and so ends the demo.

Fracture has some pretty nice elements, but it all depends on whether or not they extend the terrain deformation elements beyond what we can see in the demo. Of course, for a developer to put everything in a demo would be incredibly stupid but the simple terrain lowering and raising puzzles, plus the original but eventually tiresome cover system doesn’t exactly impress me past the first ten minutes of play. It’s a demo in the end, and it’s a fun 15 minutes regardless of whether or not the full game will turn out to be far more complicated. Right now the freedom that’s supposed to be granted by the terrain deformation feels terribly linear but I suppose there’s always the multiplayer (which does look incredibly fun) if the singleplayer game doesn’t live up to expectations.

You can check the demo out now on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. The full game will hit our shores on October 10th.