By now things like taking cover and co-op play are becoming standard fare. So how do developers mix it up? Big sloppy kisses! Multi-plat Faith and a .45 from Danish dev Deadline Games is Bonnie and Clyde and Gears of War. Set in the Great Depression, the game follows Luke and Ruby on the lam. Here’s how Deadline is turning conventions on their ear: After Luke and Ruby make it through a shoot out, she gives him a kiss. If Luke dies, Ruby gives him a “kiss of life” to bring him back. The character do more than just smooch. In single player, the game’s AI lets players do more than just lay down fire. It’s possible to pull off complex moves like tossing a can of petrol to your computer partner, who blows it to bits over a crowd of enemies. Game director Søren Lundgaard points out how the game differs from Gears of War:

We have a design rule to make sure that Ruby is really interesting and easy to play with. What we call it is ‘To play around with an unscripted A.I. you care for’ — that’s the line that we use internally. That means Ruby should be able to take the initiative on her own, not just react or be scripted to exactly what she has to do… That came mostly from playing some of the other co-op games — say a game like Gears of War, where you have a character with you most of the time, but you don’t really depend on him and it’s kind of like whenever he goes down, you fight on, and then he wakes up again after the battle is over. There’s no real connection.

That, and you don’t have Gears‘ Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago making out. The devs are hoping to get the game out in the next two years or so. Currently, however, Faith and a .45 doesn’t yet have a publisher. Faith and a 45 [1Up]