An action game sealed with a kiss: Faith and a .45 details emerge

A little over a week ago, we talked about Faith and a .45, a game notable for its awesome title, interesting backdrop and the fact that it was being made by Total Overdose developer Deadline Games. Now there are some new gameplay details, mostly regarding the focus on co-op and the rather close bond that you will be able to share with your partner.

After an intense shootout, main characters Ruby and Luke will apparently celebrate survival with a kiss. More importantly, Ruby can also apply a kiss of life to Luke if he's out for the count. Now, in a single player mode with an AI-controlled Ruby, that's interesting. If played over say, Xbox Live with an online friend, however, I can't help but feel this is going to lead to hilarity, not to mention a fair few of online gaming's famous homophobes finally getting together to explore those latent feelings they've been having.

The developers are working hard to create a partner that the player really cares about, inspired by the fact that in Gears of War, you don't really give much of a stuff about your squad. In Faith and a .45, you will really get to work together, and Deadline is promising some real co-operative gameplay, such as being able to toss a gas can in the air for Ruby to shoot and explode. Here's what Deadline had to say about the game's plans:

We have a design rule to make sure that Ruby is really interesting and easy to play with. What we call it is 'To play around with an unscripted A.I. you care for' — that's the line that we use internally. That means Ruby should be able to take the initiative on her own, not just react or be scripted to exactly what she has to do... That came mostly from playing some of the other co-op games — say a game like Gears of War, where you have a character with you most of the time, but you don't really depend on him and it's kind of like whenever he goes down, you fight on, and then he wakes up again after the battle is over. There's no real connection.

So, we're looking at Gears of War but with ranch-hands and kissing. Here's hoping that Faith and a .45 succeeds where Kane & Lynch failed and we finally have a decent buddy game on our hands. I am looking forward to good things here.