Breakdown is pretty shameless about lifting ideas from Half-Life. But that's not to say it's a complete rip-off of the classic PC game. The hackneyed plot requires little explanation other than you control Derrick Cole, a man with amnesia who's trapped in a research lab. As alien species rampage through the building, the military are also causing havoc. They're shooting indiscriminately, in an attempt to cover up a mysterious experiment.

Carbon-copied storytelling is where the similarities end though. While plot was so crucial to Half-Life's success, in Breakdown it's a mere engine to link together unusual gameplay features. Two such features are obvious from the opening scene: your feet sticking out at the end of a hospital bed. Amazingly, your entire body is visible at all times. It's fully functional too. When you pick up an item, you actually bend down and grab it. When you pull a lever or climb a ladder, your hands are back again.

Most obviously, they're there for dramatic effect. A riveting example is where you're hanging from a rooftop by one hand. Your buddy Alex Hendrickson tries to pull you up, but an attack chopper causes you both to plummet, all in the first-person perspective.

Being held up by the throat is also gruesomely exhilarating. As the alien leader Solus chokes the life away, you can look down and see your legs dangling above the ground.

The in-body experience is much more immersive than your average FPS. Just like in Shenmue II, when you answer a telephone, you actually pick up the receiver. Biting into a burger or drinking a can of coke are also moments of surprising realism. Unfortunately, the novelty soon wears off and mundane tasks like this become, well... mundane.

Picking up every piece of ammo is tedious enough, but to make things worse you can be killed while doing it. There's no option to skip through the lengthy animations, so you can often be shot to pieces while stopping to examine an object. Don't discount the virtual hands as a gimmick, though. Their real usefulness only becomes obvious when the aliens appear. Because they're invulnerable to weapons, the T'Lan can only be defeated in hand-to-hand combat, and that means more than just punching.

While this doesn't compare to Namco's traditional beat 'em ups like Soul Calibur II, the fighting engine is still balanced and fairly deep. There's a solid range of standard attacks, combinations and special moves, as well as defensive techniques.

Pressing the Left trigger delivers a left hook while the Right executes a straight right jab. Used with different directions on the thumbstick, these strikes are modified into uppercuts, flying kicks and 1-2-3 combinations.

With around ten special moves to learn, there's an attack for every situation. A torrent of punches works well against the standard aliens, but others require more skill. Stealth T'Lan only appear during attacks, so you have to wait and defend, then counter once they're visible.

Juggernaut T'Lan are a completely different story. Their blows are so powerful that blocking won't work. Instead, you have to use the Black button to backflip and roll away from them before they can land a hit.

Fighting groups of aliens is the only thing that suffers from the first-person viewpoint. It's very easy to become blindsided by one monster while taking on another. There is a special shockwave move to divide groups of enemies, but it doesn't appear until late in the game.

Shooting suffers from a similar lack of visibility. The automatic lock-on is mandatory, and always aims at the enemy directly in front.

Once again, enemies can shoot you at close range from the side, and toggling the lock-on is too slow. Another problem is that weapons, particularly the machine-gun, are disturbingly inaccurate. Ammo and health often sap away while you're missing shot after shot.

At least the arsenal looks and sounds deadly. It's great fun blasting holes in a soldier at close range, watching his body spasm. This could have been enhanced further with ragdoll physics, but that's sadly missing.

Graphically, there's much that could have been improved. Most characters look startlingly lifelike, but the environments are poor in comparison. For the first few hours of play, it's grey corridor after grey corridor with only a few glimpses of the outside world. They're desperately lacking the kind of punchy lighting effects that we saw in Rainbow Six 3.

Trudging between office complexes and storerooms is dull, and when there are as many load points as monsters, the grinding pace becomes a problem. A few secret rooms could have spiced things up, but there isn't a single one, making exploration worthless.

When you eventually break outside, the difference is breathtaking. The aliens have created a massive ecosystem at the Earth's core, a wide-open area with grass, trees and even an ocean. Because this area is so expansive, there's more freedom to probe around. This is enhanced by the unexpected opportunity to drive a jeep across the plains. Halo might have done the jeep-driving trick first, but not in the first person! From the moment your virtual hands turn the ignition and grasp the wheel, you know this is going to be one of the game's highlights.

Vehicle handling is surprisingly responsive for an FPS, and blisters along at hair-raising velocity. Going over bumps is especially fun, sending the jeep flying through the air. Even better, it's possible to plough through enemies like a bowling ball.

Outdoor areas are not only the playing highlight but also the best graphically. However, that's not to say they're anywhere near as good as Halo's, and often not even as good as Half-Life's. A bit of bump-mapping could have done wonders - it's a sad oversight considering this is an Xbox-exclusive game.

Ultimately, Breakdown is a game with too many contradictions. The ingenious use of body and movement is drowned in dreary level design and drab graphics. Likewise, moments of extreme originality are repeated so many times that even they become part of the tedium. At least the fighting maintains a fresh feel throughout, and has just enough depth to keep you playing through to the end.

1. First-person fighting
2. First-person driving
3. Interactive flashbacks

1. Tepid storyline
2. Dull grey corridors
3. Automatic lock-on

Power
Fails to use Xbox's full power. Bump-mapping, dynamic lighting and ragdoll physics are all missed.

Style
Too many grey areas with too few enemies to kill. The outdoor levels look beautiful in comparison.

Immersion
Rates highly as an immersive FPS. The sensation of having an in-game body helps tremendously.

Lifespan
A long game, taking 20+ hours to finish on Medium. Lots of bonuses to unlock but no replay value. Proves the first-person genre can move beyond shoot-'em-ups but it's not technically adept and has too much repetition.