Please no! They're always rubbish!
There are no real actors in this one, don't you worry. No, it's nothing like those eight-CD 'multimedia adventures' that you used to get on the PC. Shenmue is fully interactive, like Tomb Raider, for instance, only more so and with a far more cinematic feel. Sega have decided to call the genre FREE, which stands for Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment. So now you know exactly what it is.

Very funny. Let's make this easy - talk me through a little bit of the game.
Great idea. Okay, here goes. The demo begins with a conversation between you, Ryo Hazuki, and an annoying, dreadlocked homeboy-type. He dances around while telling you something in Japanese. Did we mention that the demo is in Japanese?

No!
Oh well. After he's finished blabbering on, we switch to the adventure part of the game. Here you're free to wander around a small Chinese town, talking to people in order to discover what Shenmue actually is. Clever, eh? The first thing you'll notice is the standard of the graphics, followed swiftly by the detailed environment and all the people going about their daily business. Apparently, if you follow someone for a day, you'll see them leave the house, go to work and then go home again after. This applies to every single character in the game, so you feel like you're in a real 'living' world. Creepy or what? But don't spend too much time admiring the scenery as the game runs in real-time. If you fanny around in the arcade for too long you might miss an important event.