In the tradition of classic cop buddy movies, Nights features two gritty loose-cannon partners named Jack and Samuel. They don't bother with uniforms: think flowered shirts, wrap-around sunglasses, dreadlocks, pork-chop sideburns, and guns akimbo. Together this pair of 70s rejects are tracking down a gang of occultists armed not just with an arsenal of guns but also with Voodoo powers.

It's here that the gameplay begins to take on a life of its own, since you control both cops simultaneously. You directly control one cop while watching your partner in a little picture-in-picture window, and you can switch between them at any time. You can also give simple orders to your partner, to run to a position or to rip off some covering fire.

Using both partners strategically is a big part of the game, since the action is pretty relentless. During the short demo we saw of gameplay, Jack and Samuel were continually under a hail of gunfire, crouching behind taxi cabs or sliding against walls for safety. At one point, we crouched helplessly behind the wheel of our squad car while a gang member in skull makeup peppered it with bullets from his twin submachine guns. We popped over the hood to lay down covering fire while our partner dashed across the street to another firing position. Then we switched control to our partner and finished the thug off with flanking fire. The combat plays like the opening ten minutes of any given John Woo flick.