This is Vegas (Xbox 360)

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The gambling lets you cheat a little, but is good fun.

Once you've turned Aqua from dead house to hard house there's still plenty of entertainment on offer. Various gambling mini-games, including poker, 21, blackjack and slots, will feature, with the promise of more. But, like much of Surreal's Vegas, things work a little differently than in real life. You can cheat by looking at marks on the back of dealers' cards, which tell you whether it's low, high or 10/ace. You have to keep an eye on the house suspicion meter though. Cheat too much and you'll be booted out.

You can get steaming drunk too, which plays havoc with the camera but increases your Buzz. Try dancing while inebriated and you'll fall about the place and crash into annoyed night club goers. Drunkenness wears off pretty quickly though, a process sped up by going to the toilet (if only that worked in real life). But usually you won't sober up before you've thrown up, something that turns off even the horniest of Vegas ladies (that actually does work in real life).

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The Gamers' Day demo made it hard to predict how This Is Vegas is going to turn out. While dragging dead beat clubs into the big time will form a part of what players will find themselves doing in the game world, how often you'll be doing it and how it fits in with the overall gameplay remains a mystery. The answer to this question, and others, run around our heads as Gamers' Day comes to an end. There's plenty to be positive about, but there's also elements, like the wet t-shirt mini-game, which are at this stage just, naff.

This Is Vegas has lots of promise. E3 promises to reveal more.

But then the environments and textures are extremely impressive and just about make up for the fact that every character's face is so shiny you can shave in it. The dancing and gambling are strangely compelling and could end up having decent depth and replay value, especially if Surreal chucks in online leader boards. And there are some nice, intriguing gameplay elements that weren't playable but were talked about, like helping bring The Chairmen, This Is Vegas' version of the Rat Pack, back to prominence. Earning reputation with the game's four factions, named after the four suits of a deck of cards, and unlocking new locations and items as a result, piques our interest too. It's clear that Surreal has some cool tech and some interesting gameplay possibilities on its hands. Now it's all about figuring out how it's going to come together to create a fun game that doesn't end up being, like we said, naff.

This Is Vegas may well prove to be a hit with sexually frustrated teenagers, but we'll have to wait to find out whether it can free itself from the shackles of its immaturity and prove popular with men rather than boys - something only some proper extended time with the game will reveal.

This Is Vegas is due out for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in Fall 2008.

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