Damnation is shaping up to be a pretty interesting title, promising players the ability to climb buildings and jump off ledges, while evading enemy fire in an alternate reality of the early 20-th century United States. The game also promises to give players the ability to drive certain vehicles during these battles, taking them to the limit of conventional physics while riding on walls.

It could have been a serious a rival for all of the holiday shooters set for release this period, like Gears of War 2, Resistance 2 or Call of Duty: World at War. Based on the Epic Games' Unreal Engine, Damnation looked very good and was on the must buy holiday list of a lot of gamers. “Was” is the correct verbal form now because Codemasters, the publisher of the game, has just announced that it would release the game in February next year, citing the fact that the game still needs some finishing touches and that people need to get all of the usual shooters out of their system, hinting to the uniqueness of Damnation.

“Damnation is being rescheduled for an early 2009 release,” a Codemasters spokesperson reported to EuroGamer. “The game will be much stronger and better as a result, and will also give people time to get all the pre-holiday releases out the way - ready for the fresh and vertical gaming experience that Damnation offers.”

Although this might seem like bad news for a lot of fans, the fact that Codemasters gave the title more development time is actually a good thing. Because it is so innovative, the creative team needs to implement all of the new features without any problem and ensure that the gameplay experience offered to players will be the best.

Damnation will be released on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with a demo expected to appear about a month before the official launch. All that's left for us to do is enjoy the screenshots of the game and hope that time will go by more quickly until February.