Curiosity killed the cat? Nope, just the camera!

Look, just get Monster's Ball. Or Swordfish. Or Die Another Day, or X-Men, or whatever. It doesn't matter, because all you need to know here is that the single best thing about Catwoman - discovered on returning to the PS2 after a bout of gentle weeping - is that if you leave virtual Halle alone for long enough, she does a sexy little dance. As idle animations go, it's clearly the best ever. But it isn't going to win any Oscars.

If Catwoman the game was a film (but not Catwoman, the actual film), it'd be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and scripted by a chimp. It's full of those standout, wham-bang set-piece moments that EA is so good at - bits where helicopters attack, things explode and glass shatters into a million pieces all around as you desperately sprint for cover before slowly... realising... that... nothing's... hurting you. Halle looks undeniably great, though, her pole-swinging and wall-clambering motion-captured with trouser-rupturing grace.

Trouble is, insane context-sensitivity means it's never clear what will work where, or why. Catwoman can climb walls and fences, but not canvas-covered trucks or certain bits of wood. She's fine on vertical surfaces, but the smallest of protruding ledges stops her progress dead. She can barely make jumps that even our George could handle, but (sometimes) leaps between 40-foot pole swings with ease. Combine this with the game's insistence on millimetre-perfect precision - land a build-up swing anything less than flawlessly and you'll never make the next leap - and it's often unclear if you're even trying to go the right way. Chuck in some sections where a single missed leap means redoing a dozen tricky jumps again, and sitting through BAP*S for a glimpse of Halle suddenly seems an attractive alternative.

A better camera system might help but again EA's flash-bang pyrotechnics get in the way of practicality. Vaguely isometric viewpoints might look nice, but when it comes to catching a pole from ten yards away, they're as helpful as leather trousers in a sauna. Worse yet, the way the camera lurches around to follow Halle as she approaches a corner means she'll sporadically change direction, even though you haven't wavered on the stick. Insanity. And then - uh-oh - there are the puzzles. To be fair, these might be an accurate reflection of how the film works, but only if every time Halle needs to close a bin she kicks a twitching goon into it. Typical example: at one point she needs to smash a nightclub door, not to get through it - that'd be too easy - but because breaking the glass causes an electrical short circuit which forces some nearby barrels to explode. Later on, whipping the nightclub owner's control system activates a set of lasers across the door. The natural reaction's to look for another exit - so it's a bit of a surprise when ten minutes later you give up, resign yourself to certain death, walk into the lasers and alert a guard, who you take down with a single cat-kick.

Guards, in fact, aren't much more than malleable human switches, there to be booted around and used to trigger events. It's impossible to kill them - beat them enough and they just cower, waiting to be used to activate a conveyor belt via some incomprehensible sequence of events. Combat's never much of a challenge because it essentially just boils down to flicking the right analogue toward whichever mook looks shiftiest, like a dumbed-down version of Rise To Honour. Full marks for trying with the 'Pose' move where Halle pretends to be a stripper to lull cops into a false sense of security, but several hundred viewings of The Flintstones have made us immune to that sort of cheap point-grabbing.

Compared to this month's Spider-Man - which has its flaws but captures the essential feel of being an effortlessly athletic hero - Catwoman's a butterfingered mess. In fact, it's more tempting to compare it to Driv3r - both share the same insane pedantry, punishing attitude to failure and nagging sense that it's really all your fault. More forgivingly, though, Catwoman's simply Prince Of Persia without the time-rewind that alleviates the worst of the latter game's frustrations. To be fair, Halle looks better than the Prince in tight pants... but then, if you get Monster's Ball, she doesn't wear any at all. Me-owww.

Graphics 50%
Gorgeous, until the camera wrecks it.

Sound 40%
Not enough purring from Halle.

Gameplay 50%
More demanding than a tough teacher.

Lifespan 60%
A piffling weekender at very best.

Overall 50%
One for the masochists - and not just because of that outfit. Tougher than leather and frustrating like the ten-minute freeview.