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It would be easy to look at Midway's upcoming open-world action game This Is Vegas and roll your eyes. Where Grand Theft Auto sends you on heists and hits, Vegas runs a little more puerile, allowing you to tend bar, rough up rowdy frat boys, and hose down eager young t-shirt-clad coeds. But this is not just Girls Gone Wild: The Game. This Is Vegas will offer a fictionalized Sin City strip where you can pick up missions that fall into four categories: driving, fighting, gambling, and ... partying? As silly as that might sound, we're hoping the tongue-in-cheek humor on display during a recent limited demo of the game is consistent with the overall tone of the final product. If indeed Vegas doesn't take itself too seriously, it might actually be able to get away with the occasional wet t-shirt contest.

The premise is a simple rags-to-riches story: Your character is fresh off the bus in Las Vegas with $50 in his pocket and a yen to hit the big time. Unlike Grand Theft Auto there's no seedy criminal underworld for you to delve into. Aside from the occasional cheating when you're playing one of the casinos' many table and card games, your rise to the top in Vegas will happen above board. The game won't allow you to customize your character at the outset, but since acquisition of wealth is a primary focus here, it's not surprising that plenty of snazzy duds will be available for you to enhance your appearance.

Midway wasn't ready to show off any of the driving or open-world roaming during the demo we saw. Instead, we were restricted to the partying and gambling mission types for now, both of which will fatten your wallet if you approach them the right way. Gambling will largely be an optional side-activity, though some missions will also require you to hit the tables and test your odds against the house. The blackjack mini-game we played was functional, and like all the gambling mini-games in This Is Vegas, cheating was as easy as hitting a button. In this case, holding the cheat button showed us marks on the backs of the cards in play indicating their value, making the decision to hit or stand a no-brainer. However, every time you cheat at a game, you'll add to a suspicion meter at the bottom of the screen, and the fuller that meter gets, the greater the chance that a surly pit boss will catch you and toss you out on your keister.

Partying was the biggest focus of our demo of This Is Vegas, though it doesn't sound like that sort of gameplay will dominate the final game. In this instance, our character sauntered into a nightclub where his friend was working the DJ booth, to find that the place was completely dead. As a man of style and class, it'll be your job to get the place jumping. You'll work the bar, hit the dance floor, and toss any ruffians who are ruining the experience for the legitimate patrons. The combat so far is quite simplistic -- you find someone causing a ruckus, then grapple and trade simple punches with your opponent. When you've sufficiently beaten them down, a silly over-the-top uppercut will send them flying several feet into the air. The more you clean up the club, the more partygoers you'll pack in