The Skinny: Slated for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC next month, Codemasters' Damnation -- much like Capcom's Dark Void without the vertigo -- is looking to change people's perspectives on shooters. Here's what you need to know about this upcoming steampunk-infused third-person shooter.

1. Damnation is "a shooter gone vertical." So says Blue Omega's Richard Gilbert, who would know, being the game's senior producer. "It is a shooter, first and foremost," he explains. "It's about frenetic, fast-paced combat. But you also have platforming abilities that change how you can navigate an environment. You're not running through a hallway or going room-to-room; you're climbing across rooftops and scaling the sides of buildings."

2. The game started as a mod. Sort of. "Damnation started as a mod [for Unreal Tournament 2004] because we wanted to test out the concept," Gilbert says. "And a lot of the core mechanics -- the platforming aspects, the shooting aspects -- that were in the mod are in the game; they've just been further developed and expanded on. When we went from the mod to the real game, we started the level design from the ground up."

3. Damnation screws with history. The game is set after the Civil War, just not the one we all studied in high school. "It's set in the early 1800s," Gilbert says, "but one in which the Civil War lasted 40 years because a warlord prolonged it by playing both sides against each other. And now he's come in with his own army to do what all maniacal dictators do: destroy everyone in his path."

4. Jules Verne and Mel Gibson might dig this game. Like the movie "Steamboy" and the novel "The Difference Engine," Damnation falls squarely into the steampunk tradition. "When we were developing the game," Gilbert explains, "we wanted to pick a really unique environment. So we brought the steampunk elements you see in the works of Jules Verne and the Mad Max movies into both the weapons and the vehicles, as well as the character designs."

5. Despite its ties to the past, the game is modern enough to include multiplayer. "You can play the entire campaign in co-op," Gilbert says, "as well as such competitive modes as Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and King of the Hill, which really take advantage of the game's verticality."

The Crispy Forecast: Our jury's still out on this one; we need more hands-on time to really see if it lives up to the promises being made by its interesting concepts.

This preview is based on a developer interview and demo of the game at a media event.