I think it's safe to say that one of the best moments of playing Half Life 2 the first time around comes when you finally get your hands on that gravity gun. Up until that point, your entire first-person-shooter playing experience had only consisted of running around putting bullets into dudes. Sure, it was awesome, but it was a fairly straightforward mechanism of play. Then, suddenly, Valve came along and dropped the ability to manipulate physics into your hands. Science, people. You could suck objects up and throw them at people. You had to solve puzzles on a state of the art physics engine using a brand new gravity manipulator. You felt like a zombie-slaying, motorboat-cruising god. 

Of course, many a game has introduced environmental manipulation into its play since Half Life 2, but it was Valve that got the ball rolling on the gravity front. Now, it looks as though Namco Bandai will be entering the physics-muckery ring with their new title, Inversion.

Like Half Life 2 and many games since, Inversion will feature the Havok engine, meaning that environments will be easily messed with and ragdoll physics will be awfully fun. While Havok is nothing new, the level to which it's applied here might break new ground. Inversion's protagonist can use a weapon called the Grappler which doesn't just attract items to itself, but redirects gravity to whichever plane the player likes. You can use it to hop between surfaces for quick escapes or to ensnare your enemies in death traps. It looks like it could be a huge force of destruction.

The trailer that's been released doesn't give much away in terms of plot, but it does feature plenty of real-time gameplay. It looks like this is going to be a gritty one, with plenty of enemies to liquify and plenty of urban environments to lay waste to. Fans of pure, depraved ruin in their games will now get to enjoy the ultra-violence with a healthy side helping of mind-bending physics manipulation.

On something of a corollary, the trailer reminds me a little bit of that other gravity-defying action trailer--the one for Inception that blew everyone's minds a couple of years ago. The titles are awfully similar and so are the trailer soundtracks. Is Namco Bandai trying to hop on Nolan's branding here or is it just a funny coincidence? You can watch the new trailer below and decide for yourself.