Sega (the same company that gave us a funny blue hedgehog) have hit the adult market with a bang, or more to the point, a skull crushing squelch.

The basic premise of Condemned is that you are Agent Ethan Thomas from the FBI's Serial Crimes Unit and one of their most celebrated agents, with a knack for solving the most difficult cases. The game starts with you arriving at the latest crime scene on a case you are investigating. This serial killer dubbed the MatchMaker leaves his victims (female only) strangled to death and in a romantic setting with a disfigured department store mannequin.

Gameplay is exclusively in a first-person perspective. This has been done extremely well. When you duck under the tape at the start of the game your hand reaches up to shift the tape out of the way, and your view drops to the floor, then tilts to the side before righting itself. The first-person view is part of what makes this game so unique. One of the first moments you realise that this is something special, you are thrown from a window, and can only see a car roof, your soon-to-be landing spot. Or scenes where you, er, vomit. You see everything as if it is happening to you.

Sure, we're used to FPS's and the like, but taking shots at an enemy from a distance with your sniper rifle, and giving the occasional beat down with your weapon is nothing like the constant up-close melee attacks of Condemned.

OK, so you can use guns, but they should never be relied upon. For a start, the ammo is finite. When your pistol runs out, that's it. No reloading, no more ammo to find. Your handgun now becomes a melee weapon. But unlike the rest of the melee weapons to be found, the guns have limited life when used as melee. They DO break.

So you have to find other objects with which to defend yourself. These can be found pretty much anywhere, but guns need to be hunted out. When it comes to melee, developers Monolith have really used their imagination. Most walls and shelving units have something that can be pulled off. Whether it is a section of electrical conduit, broken gas pipe, a short piece of rebar (with or without concrete), four-by-twos (with your choice of nails, bolts or flames), or the bigger weapons: fire axes, shovels, and sledgehammers.

Most areas in the game have multiple weapons available. Each has different attributes rated in four categories: damage, speed, blocking and reach. You are shown each weapon's attributes on screen; if you are lucky, two of these attributes will improve with experience, but there will be a tradeoff in the others. The only time you get all four attributes to improve is when you currently have no weapon (at the start of levels).