As you may know, Day 1 Studios' third-person perspective shooter Fracture will be hitting stores on October 7th. If you're not sure whether you'll enjoy a game that lets you shoot people and cause earthquakes, then you're in luck: a playable demo will hit Xbox Live and PSN in a week.

The demo is due on September 18th and should give you a chance to mess around with the game's main feature: terrain deformation. The game is set during a 22nd century world war where soldiers possess portable tectonic technology that allows them to raise or lower the ground at will. For example, you can raise up the ground in front of you to create cover from sniper fire or cause the ground beneath your enemies to erupt, sending them flying. The demo will feature a level from the single-player campaign but the retail version of the game will also support 12-player online battles.

The terrain deformation feature sounds like it could add some interesting tactical elements to normal shooter gameplay but we'll see how well it's executed. It's too bad the demo seems to be singleplayer-only, as the multiplayer sounds like it has the most potential. To give you a feel for the game, here's a trailer from this year's Leipzig convention.