Schneider offered some distinguishing stats. The game currently takes up 22 Gigabytes of memory on a Blu-Ray disc, the new disc format supported by the PS3 that is one-half of a VHS-vs.-Betamax format war erupting between tech companies throughout the year. While the music and vocals in "Resistance" take up only about 1 Gigabyte of disc space, graphics, level data and programming code occupy most of the remaining 21.

The "augur" blasts energy that slows through a cover of sandbags but eventually punches through. A sniper rifle comes equipped with a slow-motion viewpoint that allows players to juke between incoming energy bullets before firing from long range. The rocket launcher can leave its fired rocket suspended in mid-air until it finds a target and lets the journey end.

The "sapper" shoots goo. Fired on walls, it drips down onto enemies, sapping their life energy, naturally. This armament, Schneider said, couldn't be done last-gen. He pointed to the sapper's goo, including the "level of interaction between the globules from a physics standpoint."

He and Phillips did a developer cheat, nearly freezing the game world as they had Hale launch a bomb called the "hedgehog" — which is like a sea urchin — radiating 50 spikes. With the game slowed and the hedgehog gliding through the battlefield, Schneider talked about each of the 50 connected spikes probing the game world with their own artificial intelligence, assessing where they're about to make contact with the game's environment, when to ricochet and where to go. He pointed to enemies reacting with smooth, retreating animations. He noted the metal-on-metal ping as the hedgehog hit steel and said a different sound would have triggered if it tapped wood. He showed how the hedgehog figured out when to suddenly extend its spikes into a waist-high obstacle and erupt toward nearby enemies.