The first thing anyone will notice about Shank is the beautiful animation.  The nameless main character moves fluidly and transitions between moves without a hitch.  The game appears to take place in Mexico and strictly follows the side-scrolling beat 'em-up conventions of the classics.  Each enemy has a name and a life bar though none will live long enough for you to remember any of them.  The main character comes equipped with twin knives, a chainsaw, grenades, and pistols.  These can be mixed up on the fly and switching between them is extremely simple.  An impressive and gory combo can be performed easily with the last blow being emphasized by the camera zooming in and time slowing down.  Enemies can be grabbed and tossed aside with a knife slash, a chainsaw to the gut, or a blast from a shotgun.  The combat is fast and fun, though I worry it might become repetitive. 

In the course of the demo I crawled up buildings, swung from telephone poles, crashed through an office building window, and fought on a bridge at sundown where only the silhouettes of characters could be seen.  Those set pieces kept me intrigued in just what I'd see next.  There's a lot of creativity and polish in each section, and that holds true for the final challenge against a hulk of a man three times your size.  Frontal assaults do some damage, but he can do much more to you.  Grenades and avoiding his charge attack seemed to be the most effective and once he's defeated, you are treated to a cutscene of the main character shoving a grenade in his mouth and shooting it, blowing his head clean off. 

Shank has a lot of potential and the animation is going to draw a lot of gamers, but my hope is that the developers at Klei Entertainment find ways to keep the game fresh beyond the visuals when it finally comes out on PSN, XBLA, and PC. We heard mention while at PAX that EA had nabbed this game for publishing and we're hardly surprised. Shank just might slice it's way into our hearts soon enough.