Meet a lady who really doesn't love the thrill of the chase...

Fiona Belli wakes up in an odd situation. She's locked in a bloodstained kitchen with only a gibbering ogre for company. There's no obvious explanation for this - an uncomfortable feeling, to say the least...

Despite the fact that Haunting Ground is forged from the same third-person, fixed-camera mould as Resident Evil, this is a completely different experience. Unlike Capcom's zombie holocausts, Fiona doesn't use firearms (her armaments consist largely of exploding aromatherapy crystals) which leaves flight as the only option when threatened. You only face one enemy at a time, and the only effective way of defending yourself comes in the shape of Hewie, your faithful hound. What's left is a violent skew on hide 'n seek - hide or be killed, basically - and some reasonably engaging puzzles.

Fiona hasn't got a health meter. Instead, as she gets increasingly terrified (through constantly being chased or hurt) the joypad will throb, the visuals blur and the colour bleeds into monochrome. As things get worse, Fiona will trip and fall until, eventually, she's crawling. Get too scared and it's game over, with the point of fatal fear being so imprecise at first that it produces a brilliant level of tension. But even with Hewie around to gnaw at your pursuer's ankles, the relentless pursuit ultimately wears thin. There's nothing like the amount of backtracking in Silent Hill 4, but it's not as exhilarating either, and we longed to trade the pooch for a pump-action shotgun. After a while, Haunting Ground's weirdness (wood carvings of pregnant women, massive prehistoric fish, suggestions that Fiona's relatives lived in the mansion) begins to grate, along with the game's refusal to explain anything, short-changing your imagination, rather than igniting any excitement.

Instead of keeping you hooked, the bizarre events stop you caring about Fiona and Hewie - and when that happens, any remaining tension evaporates, meaning few will bother replaying to see the different endings. There's more appeal than the horror-by-numbers of Cold Fear (issue 57, 70%), but with the uniformly slow pacing there are few proper thrills on offer. Best hang on to your cash until Resident Evil 4 loads up its boomstick later this year.

Graphics 70%
Fantastic-looking environments.

Sound 70%
Disturbing and effective.

Gameplay 60%
Solid, but too slow to really excite.

Lifespan 60%
Several endings, but will anyone bother to play through it to see them?

Overall 60%
Initially intriguing, but too dreamlike and distant to engage for long. Plus there aren't any guns. What's that about then?