The lightgun isn't a beast essential to Xbox gaming, but, if you've got yourself The House Of The Dead II or Starsky & Hutch, there's every chance you'll need something with which to wallop those dratted corpses and crooks. Complete with fairly useless laser attachment (great for shining on the screen at your nearest cinema, kids!), the gun does feel a little too hollow and plastic to get those 'You feeling lucky, punk?' moments going.

Compensating for the lack of weight and boss-eyed infra-red pointer, the rate of fire is healthy, and most importantly the accuracy seems to be spot-on. Naturally, you have to be something of a sharpshooter on OXM and we found ourselves pegging zombies more often than missing them with the XB99L in our palms.

The range is pretty good, but not enough to cosy in on the other side of the room and still hit a crack shot. There are gizmos and gimmicks such as the recoil action that add another nice dimension to owning the XB99L, but ultimately the whole thing seems a little half-baked. The XB99L also presumes to think that all gamers are right-handed, placing a D-pad on the left-hand side, so it's a real pig to operate if you're left-handed.