In desperation you’ll reach for your grenades, only to find that they’re as effective as throwing a pair of rolled up socks. Flares are also on offer, but the only the damage they do is to your retinas – not by looking into the light directly, but more a case of illuminating just how dismal the game looks in general. Explosion effects, like the guns, grenades and everything else, are typically weak – there may be no smoke without fire, but it would be nice to see at least one.

Seeking solace, you dart behind cover and say a prayer for your AI companions in the hope that they’ll rescue you from such tedium. Unfortunately, they’re about as much use in a fight as a bacon sandwich and soon fall. It’s also at that point when you make the depressing realisation that none of the cover in the game actually works, with your crouching stance not actually being low enough to avoid enemy gunfire. Is it your fault for being too darn tall, or Rebellion’s for making yet another painfully shonky design blunder? Again, we’ll leave it up to you to judge, but here’s another clue – as before, it’s not the first theory.

There comes a time when the frowns stop and the laughs have to start (if only to prevent some sort of tension headache) and Shellshock provides a fair few. It’s a shame that there’s no co-op play to speak of, robbing you of the chance to have a chuckle along the way with some friends through the painfully linear levels. Even Haze offered that dubious luxury. Instead, you’ll be enduring the wafer-thin plot of one man’s search for his zombie brother, doing his best attempt at a Martin Sheen-in-Apocalypse-Now-lite voiceover along the way. Sure, his gravelly tones and choice language makes him sound tough enough, but we know the truth – that he can’t shoot, can’t throw and can’t use cover.

Another day, another game about the horrors of conflict. For the six of you that still care about wanting to trudge through a true Vietnam War setting, the choice is simple – you either play Shellshock 2, or sit through the four hour cut of Apocalypse Now whilst daubed in body paint and playing The Doors on the stereo. Here’s your last clue – it’s not the first suggestion.

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