Project: Snowblind (Xbox)

It's got enthusiasm and excitement smeared all over it, that's what. It wants to impress you. And boy, does it ever. Snowblind has the most action-packed opening I've ever seen, leading you through a pretty Hong Kong base as enemy forces attack and everyone's shouting, dying and shooting at you, each other and anything that looks vaguely unfriendly. "Go there!" your leader shouts, very excitedly, so you go. Things whizz down on zip lines, you shoot them, robot walkers stomp in, you take their heads off with grenades. All the while friendly troopers surround you, firing their weapons blindly as a whole world of panic erupts. That's just the first five minutes.

When it comes to setting stalls out, Project: Snowblind does a remarkable job. And it never lets up, either. You'd think it would, but it doesn't. You'd think it would have a few bland sections, but it doesn't. Right the way though it's fast, furious and incredibly well directed. We were expecting another by-numbers shooter, but we didn't get one. Not only is Snowblind more action-packed than most, it's also better looking. Bland realism has been ditched in favour of a vibrant sci-fi movie look (part Robocop, part Starship Troopers), with colour, light, fire and extremely fashionable effects oozing and flashing out of the screen. It looks like a $100m Hollywood blockbuster.

Once you've got the balls-in-a-vice terror of the opening section out of the way, a Spider-Man-style thoughtful voiceover pondering the whys and hows of the situation kicks in, as our hero - Lieutenant Nathan Frost - comes to terms with his bio-mechanical enhancements and emerges as a true hero and upholder of the law. Think Master Chief with a less gruff voice and more techno toys and you're on the right track.

THEY CAN MAKE YOU WHOLE AGAIN
Events in level one transpire to leave you dead, before military experimenters bring you back to life again - in a techno-warrior, ultra-enhanced fashion. The Y-button triggers your 'augmentations' - futuristic superpowers, if you will, an extremely wide and creative range of upgradeable, downloadable and clever-clever techniques that have been built into your enhanced body to assist you in the art of killing. Your super-soldier augmentations are the shields, heat vision options, reflex boosts, invisibility specials and so on that your engineered new self has wired into it - opening up a world of new methods to protect yourself and slaughter others in numerous creative ways.

You have access to a 'Reflex boost' that kicks in a kind of bullet time, while retinal enhancements let you see heat enemy signatures through walls. New features come online as you play, with Lieutenant Frost gradually upgrading his machinery as the adventure unfolds.

And these gadgets actually work. Your Energy gauge lets you use augmentations for a good 30 seconds or so, really helping you steer Nathan through the harder sections. Also, these special skills are interesting and new. How's that for a shock? The riot shields that fold out and form a transparent barrier for you to hide behind are completely fantastic toys, with each additional augmentation that comes online offering equally clever play options.

The weapons are even better than the augmentations. The shotgun - always an action banker - has a secondary shot that attaches sticky bombs to enemies that detonate a few seconds later. It's unbelievably cool. The H.E.R.F. leaves mines on the floor that electrocute passing enemies - that is also unbelievably cool. There isn't a duff weapon in the game, with Snowblind having the best and most versatile array of shooters a game has ever featured.

But all this technical, dual-use, augmentation stuff leads to a bit of a button-pressing logjam. Snowblind uses both triggers as primary and secondary fire, meaning you're stuck with using the black button to chuck grenades. It's never fun being forced to use the black and white buttons. Pressing left on the D-pad switches between augmentations and pressing right flips between grenade types. And, right, you press up and down to cycle through weapons. It's kind of awkward, especially if your brain is wired to the Halo 2 style of play and can lead to a fair bit of accidental switching during Snowblind's many hectic moments.

But make that effort to break your programming and reach for the black button, because Snowblind's grenades are smart - a second press of the chuck button detonates the thing as it flies through the air, letting you pull off some extremely precise and well-aimed grenade attacks. It's like a normal grenade, but cooler. Which is also how Snowblind relates to other shooters - it's just plain cooler.

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The game as a whole is very well put together, and in the main has some well put together levels and scenery, some of the characters look really well done others look slightly less convincing, and against Riddick and Halo 2 the environments are not as expansive but it looks nice enough, and certainly better then most of the generic FPS around at the moment, it almost feels like the original Dues Ex in plot (Certainly this game is better then the Dues Ex sequel), but with less searching and more fire fights.

At he start you are throw in at the deep end with no training, which is a blessing and a curse as the hints are not enough to get you through the first section without restarting once. After you find the save point you should be getting used to the game controls, after the first short level you are hurt badly and end up being sent to a research station where you end up having nano bot surgery and ending up as half man half machine, the section kinda remind's me of the film Robocop, but you look less robot and more human, just with augmantation inputs. These can be used as part of your mission finding, to hack control points, to locate enemy heat signatures, run faster, a temporary shield and for a number of other roles.

The controls are strangely laid out and I am still having to get used to them, but they are not too bad. The multiplayer is reasonably well balanced, apart from the fact that they seem to have a rail gun weapon in there *cring* (So quake alarm bells started to ring.) but in the main it is an enjoyable experience, but flawed by the fact that you cant get your buddies in for a blast and a quick split screen, there doesn't even seem to be any reason for it.