Burning Rangers

His name is Yuji Naka, and he's the game designer responsible for some of Sega's finest hours on the consoles--namely, the Sonic games and NiGHTS. Naka's next game, Burning Rangers, looks to be another bright spot on his track record, as well as a departure from his characteristically cutesy projects.

Burning Rangers has you controlling either a male or female member of a futuristic rescue squad charged with scouring the maze-like interior of a burning space station for survivors. You use an assortment of firefighting weapons to battle the blaze, which acts as intelligently as regular enemies in other games (plus, the fire makes a cool backdraft sound just before it blasts through a wall to get you).

The station is made up of four main levels, each with two stages and a Boss stage. And with between 50 and 80 rooms in each stage, this game isn't tiny. Fortunately, you'll have access to a Maps Screen.

Running off a highly modified NiGHTS engine, the graphics in Burning Rangers are extraordinary. You'll see plenty of software transparency and dynamic lighting effects, making the game the best-looking on the system yet.