Stubbs The Zombie is a truly strange game, but we can't put our finger on precisely why that is. It's built on the Halo engine, it's about turning the world of man into a shuffling horde of brain munchers, it's original, funny, and spectacularly well intentioned, but there's a strangely hollow thud in everything under the bonnet. It's as though developer Wideload had all the ingredients ready for a perfect title, then dropped them on the floor on the way to the oven.

Rebel Without a Pulse (is the subtitle an indication of future Stubbs games in the works?) is a collection of many bright ideas, none of which are developed to their full potential. Our undead hero can drive about in tractors and 'Clodmobiles' - clearly just the Warthog and Banshee with different skins - but it never really feels as though he should. He can detach his noggin and roll it around like an explosive bowling ball, but does the game ever actually need you to do so? Nope. Stubbs lurches from one location to the next without any kind of story to explain why. He can be eating farmers one minute, then blowing up a dam the next, but it's never very clear why he's doing it. Sprinkled as it is with funny moments, Stubbs always feels like a series of slightly broken, unfinished bits and pieces of a modified Halo engine, squished together in the best way Wideload could manage.

While Stubbs is chomping brains or possessing people with his ghoulish hand and you're 'in the moment', the game can actually be great fun. Watching chewed corpses get up and start chewing for themselves made us feel a little paternal, we have to admit. Shoving zombies about and towards the action in search of fresh meat is fine and dandy, but that's all they really do. We can see that Wideload has tried to make the most of the zombies in the game's puzzle elements, by having them complete electric circuits or utilising them as shields. But as with so much in the game, the zombie mechanics never feel like they're actually working properly - rather like actual zombies, we suppose. Your new undead friends will shuffle about a bit and eat a few heads capably enough, but they never shift up a gear, always ambling about when the game should be racing along.

The strongest part of Stubbs lies on the surface in the form of what there is to see and hear, rather than touch and play. The soundtrack is superb, rich with classic 50s rock 'n' roll, love songs and Hawaiian melodies. Chewing heads down to the neck to the sound of The Chordette's 'Mr Sandman' is a highlight, while watching all-American teens run about screaming while 'My Boy Lollipop' plays over a diner's jukebox is classic stuff.

The kitsch 1950s Americana is everywhere you look in Stubbs, from mad scientists waving laser beams about, to the strange grainy filter Wideload has dolloped all over everything. Fresh off the back of Destroy All Humans!, Stubbs feels somewhat samey (although to be fair it was in development at around the same time, and the team has done well). But, for all the natty ideas and incidental goings-on that take place as you shamble your way through the game, there's a distinct impression that Wideload thought the words 'built on the Halo engine' would carry all the weight. But Halo should have been the foundation for something great, not a crutch to lean against. One bad guy is even called Chief Masters. We don't need reminding, and it does the game a disservice. Creating Stubbs from scratch might have been a wiser idea. At times it feels like little more than zombie's clothes on scraps of Halo code, less fun than it sounds. It's a brave attempt to do something different, and flashes with momentary munching goodness, but like the poor zombie himself it just doesn't have the guts to see it through.

1. Looks good, sounds good, you'll enjoy chewing people's heads off to the sound of all those 1950s classics.
2. The exploding head and crawling hand special powers are fantastic, although there could have been more opportunities to use them.

1. Too few truly cool bits are outweighed by lots of odd, badly glued-together sections that make very little sense.
2. Those zombies might have no brains, but that's no excuse for stupidity. Why can't you fully control your undead army?
3. The Halo engine is one of the downfalls, oddly. Driving modified Warthogs for the sake of it breaks up the feel of the game.

Let down by bizarre game mechanics and a fractured story, Stubbs is a collection of superb ideas badly glued together.