Rogue Trooper rocks. You barely need to read this review, just take a look at the screenshots in front of you and the score at the end. A little better than your 'average wargame', right? Kinda giving off that whole Metal Gear Solid/Mercenaries vibe, isn't it?

Okay, so the first couple of levels are a bit rubbish, but bear with it. You'll amble through the usual training nonsense, and be itching to get out there and start blasting, but you know what? These aren't usual training missions. They hint at bigger things to come, so pay attention.

Sure, there are the usual 'learing to calibrate your target' (looking around in other words), and 'learning to calibrate your weapons' (pointing, shooting, blah blah) bits. But what surprised us about Rogue Trooper is how it just keeps layering on the extras, gently unfolding to reveal Rogue's specialist killing skills until you're dispensing mines, mastering the art of holographic manipulation, placing sentry guns, or upgrading weapons like it was second nature. Within ten minutes you'll be armed, primed and in control of one of the most fiercely enjoyable Xbox characters we've encountered in a long, long while.

What makes Rogue Trooper such a joy to play is the constant, shifting nature of gameplay, and how you're persistently forced to use the skills and equipment you've mastered during training. And when all that challenge is presented in an environment so richly detailed as Rogue Trooper's Nu Earth, it adds up to some stellar gaming.

Having been betrayed at the beginning of the game, Rogue's three brothers in arms are slain, and their personalities captured and stored in complex microchips embedded in Rogue's equipment. With one in his gun, another in the backpack and the third in his helmet, each is voice-acted perfectly, offering snippets of information at appropriate times and suggesting the next course of action in Rogue's quest for revenge. But each is also an indispensable part of Rogue's arsenal. Helm (the helmet) can be used to unlock doors and crack codes, Bagman (the backpack) will inject you with medi-potions and even invent new weapons, while Gunnar can transform himself into various types of gun depending on what the situation calls for.

If, for example, three enemy choppers are swarming down and raining all manner of hot lead upon you, transforming Gunnar into the Sammy Launcher is just what the doctor ordered. Sending up a screaming trail of flame is hugely satisfying, and when the sky bleaches of all colour and a cascading mass of metal and twisted debris crashes down in front of you, it's clear that Rogue Trooper is just as much about firing guns as enjoying the results.

Bad guys die in wondrous, stupid ways as well. Shoot them in the head and they go down like a bag of bricks, but punch a hole in their gas tanks and they stumble about panicking before disappearing in a stream of smoke. And if you're lucky enough to be inside a flak cannon or mounted gun, look about the scenery as well. Gas canisters, statues or giant neon signs can all be used to squish the enemy.

And if interactive scenery is a bit too complex for you, Rogue can lay a sprinkle of itsy black mines - too small to see, too nasty to survive - to explode enemies good and proper. They can be deployed in scatter formation or dropped like breadcrumbs behind you as you flee from an enemy. Or, if Bagman has been fed enough salvage (collected from dead bodies to transform into weapons), he'll produce so many varieties of grenade you're often spoiled for choice about which one to use.

As well as the deeply entertaining third-person game, Rogue Trooper is also punctuated with stunning first-person moments. They're on rails for the most part, but swooping through canyons and great fissures in the Earth pursued by squadrons of fighter craft is great fun. Swatting them from the sky and watching them smash into cliff walls gives the game something of an epic quality, especially as these sections are so relentless.

Just because they're 'on rails' doesn't mean they're a walk in the Nu Earth park, though. They're ferocious, breathless set-pieces we were quite surprised to discover in a game we secretly used to think would be 'a bit poo'. We're over the moon to be proved wrong. Then, just as soon as you've survived the first-person sections, breathless and clinging to life, you're sent to snoop around enemy encampments, ducking behind crates or trying to perform silent kills to stay out of trouble.

The game changes gear, direction and pace so expertly it's like playing your way through a fantastic action movie. Occasionally though, no matter how hard Rogue tries and how much ammo he fires into Nord faces, there will be times when no amount of snooping will keep you safe, and that's where the training kicks in again. Rogue can have Helm project a hologram decoy to draw fire away, or if he puts the 'Holo-Rogue' into 'high-power mode', it can be used to scout out a level in safety to find a way through. Gunnar can be detached and placed as a sentry gun as well, clearing dangerous corridors or guarding entrances to rooms while Rogue goes about his business.

But all the ingenious trickery at Rogue's disposal has been matched blow for blow by the game's fearsome enemies, the Nords. Dropships thump deadly automated pill-boxes into the ground from high above, and once powered up, they're formidable. Rattling out bullets upon your detection, even if Rogue manages to take one out (we're not telling you how), they explode and unleash a swarm of automated robots who'll come at you and explode in close contact.

Giant mechs clunk about, eager to rip your shiny blue ass apart, while some of the Xbox's nastiest snipers will pick at you without giving away their location - it's no surprise this was made by the team behind the super-hard Sniper Elite.

As unforgiving as it can be, Rogue Trooper never once fails to be entertaining. It's solid and chunky, a big generous slice of effortless fun. The learning curve is perfect, missions are constantly shifting and throwing in new challenges, and there are enough twists in the plot to keep you pressing on, wanting to discover more.

Of course, there are a few quibbles that deserve the wagging finger, and here they come... First up is the lumbering speed at which Gunnar transforms into other weapons. With a screeching warship bearing down on you, it's not nice to have your gun excusing itself as it transforms into something big enough to deal with the problem. Rogue also seems to need permission to vault over small walls (a job which will require the pressing of the X button almost as much as you need to pull the trigger), something we'd expect him to do automatically, what with being an elite super-soldier and all. Also - and we're being super-picky here - scrolling through complicated grenades and weapons options before you can use anything spoils the pace a bit, the game sometimes being too fiddly for its own good.

Learn how to quickly access what you need and when, though, and you'll feel like the Terminator. Moaning aside, Rogue Trooper is a beautifully accessible game, an impressive achievement given the legions of hardcore 2000AD fans it will have to please. It somehow manages to walk the fine line between uncompromising geekdom and all-out fun to strike a perfect chord, nailing the feel and gameplay perfectly. The talking equipment is more than just looped voice recordings, giving Rogue Trooper characters you'll actually care about (the last time that happened we were playing Half-Life 2). And even though he's a grumpy killing machine, we even started liking the big blue fella himself too.

Combining a little stealth, a little tactical stuff and a whole shipload of chunky, satisfying combat, Rogue Trooper is truly a game for the masses.

Crucially, though, it's one that doesn't suffer the cut corners and dumb gameplay that hobbles the likes of, say, EA's recent 007 games. This is solidly put together, quality gaming, made by a team which obviously cares about the licence it's bringing to life, and that's put a lot of thought into doing so.

It's a title that offers so much to see, do and interact with you'll never look at obscure game licenses in the same way again. As we said at the start, Rogue Trooper rocks - and if there's any justice on Nu Earth, the developers should be given the vast amounts of money required to buy all the cool film and comic licences EA owns and make them into equally cool games. Because as Rogue Trooper so brilliantly proves, not all of them need be cynical, shoddy cash-ins.

1. Looks great, from beginning to end. Endless scorched desert, or built-up hellish future cities are all ripe for a little Rogue action.
2. Rogue can deploy decoys, use sentry guns and even make his own weapons. It's so much more than just another shooter.
3. The levels are brilliantly inventive. Ride shotgun in an attack chopper, or snoop about encampments in silence - there's something for all!

1. The controls can be hellishly slow. We want to be able to quickly snap between weapons, not faff around when our ass is on fire.
2. Pressing X to climb a wall. Other games are clever enough to handle it, so why isn't our super trooper in blue?

A sturdy, fun-packed title packed with neat features, great gameplay and more variety than most other 'action' games.