If Half-Life 2 is a seven-course five-star blow-out at Claridges while Cheryl Tweedy and Sarah Michelle Gellar mud wrestle in front of you for the right to give you a foot rub, Classified: The Sentinel Crisis is a Tesco Value can of beans in comparison. This is budget first-person shooting with a capital B and a first-class honours degree from the University of No Frills Gaming. To be blunt, we were blown away with all the force of a sickly gnat's fart.

Fortunately, one thing Classified isn't is offensively bad. This is by no means another cut-price travesty along the same lines as Conspiracy: Weapons Of Mass Destruction. If you're prepared to chuck all your preconceptions of what actually makes a decent, professionally polished piece of software out the window, then it's clear at least some effort has been put into making Classified a playable game. The characters, for instance, are surprisingly sharp and well-detailed and once you've battled your way past the depressingly dull concrete streets of the opening few levels, the environments become a vaguely jolly, if rigorously linear, jaunt.

It's not even all that bad technically. The controls work fine, it's all fairly smooth - even if strafing does feel like you've had lead bars sewn into your trousers on occasion - and the futuristic assault rifle you come armed with features a number of satisfyingly chunky add-ons. Okay, so the enemy intelligence won't have Stephen Hawking sweating in a sudoku contest, but at least the poor cannon fodder chumps know to run when you chuck a pineapple their way.

No, the real issue here is one of ambition - or lack of it in this case. That Classified wants to be taken seriously as a Half-Life-style, story-driven shooter is obvious - the futuristic combat suit you're shoved in is basically Gordon Freeman's hazard suit in all but name, with that strangely erotic voice that tells you when you've shattered your leg for the third time that day. But whereas Half Life 2 is an incredible, Orwellian tale of alien invasion full of imagination, suspense and incredible set-pieces, Classified is a tiresome rummage through Eastern Europe in search of a missing scientist. Dull, grey cityscapes? Check. Predictable, revolutionary sub-plot? Check. A level spent sniping in the snow? Double check. It's enough to make you believe that Tom Clancy is genuinely the most imaginative writer of our time.

And if Classified's mind-numbingly insipid plot and predictable level design isn't enough to put you off, then consider what else you can pick up and play for 20 quid these days. Do we really need to say Halo 2, Ninja Gaiden and Fable? You can probably pick up Half-Life 2 itself for a score these days, so why settle for Classified's frozen chicken nuggets when you could be dining on Valve's gourmet caviar instead? Pass the salt, Cheryl.

1. Character models are surprisingly detailed for a budget game and some of the environments are quite nice. Not the urban ones though.
2. It works perfectly adequately too - a vast improvement over the majority of 'straight-to-budget' shooters.

1. The whole thing feels just so, so basic. Classified is a first-person shooter desperately in need of some love and attention.
2. The story is predictable and shambolic, on a par with Delta Force 3 - a movie so shocking even Chuck Norris turned his nose up at it.
3. There's no multiplayer. At all. Then again, what are the chances of you finding anyone else in the world playing this on Live...?

A by-the-numbers budget shooter with very little in the way of spark. Not a total stinker, but hardly worth your cash either.