Set in an alternative universe where things have worked out rather different to our own, the game takes elements from the Wild West and the American Civil War, jumbling them about with the Steampunk Sci-Fi genre. Instead of simple six shooters, horses, cannons and muskets, technology has evolved much quicker, bringing with it exploding arrowhead guns, huge tanks, motorcycles, and robots. It's little wonder that it's all descended into chaos, and not just because the game can't decide if it wants to sit in the same league as Wild Wild West or North and South. As part of a group of freedom fighters, the player (and a partner in the local or online co-op mode) must free the land from an evil dictator. Although, any intricacies of the plot past this point will be lost in a haze of abject apathy the moment the first cutscene ends.

This is because playing Damnation is as close to digital torture as you could possibly want to get.

The game was originally picked up after winning an Unreal Tournament 2004 modding competition and even with its release in 2009, the age of its origins shine through. Despite apparently running on the latest version of the Unreal Engine (which goes some way to explaining the horrendous texture pop-in that plagues the game's visuals) it still looks like a half-finished game from five years ago. When playing, it's virtually guaranteed that, at least once, you'll look at where your games console is situated just to make sure you haven't accidentally plugged in your old PS2 or Xbox by mistake. With its outdated character-models, textures which look more like something from the original Doom, and endless, identikit levels, there's an overwhelming feeling that this is a game that's been languishing on the shelf since winning the competition, only to be brought down and dusted off for want of anything else to do.

From the moment it starts and you're presented with robotic, bowler hat-wearing enemies and a villainess who looks like a trans-gender Kid Rock, you know you're on a rapid slide into truly terrible game territory. But don't worry if you miss those particular signposts, because the game will uproot them as you blissfully sail past and then use them to beat you over the head and into submission. You'll certainly have gotten the point by the time it hands the controls over to you and you start running around the levels, struggling to even aim at the well-dressed enemies. This, despite them being able to hit you with pin-point accuracy using a shot gun from an impossible distance. Just don't try and bother doing the same thing to them or the only thing you'll hit is a solid wall of frustration.

The game seems to have been built upon the idea of traversing levels vertically as well as horizontally, so the player has to climb and shimmy up the sides of buildings and other structures. This all works fine until, about 30 seconds in, when the controls start to make the possibility of any fluid motion little more than a rapidly vanishing pipe-dream. It's almost as if everything from Gears of War to the latest Prince of Persia never actually happened. Then again, they hadn't way back in 2004...

Getting around the levels is made even worse by the fact that not one of them seems to display anything even slightly resembling coherent level design. You're given the impression that they tried to implement an open form of exploration and multiple routes through the sections of each level, but it's so badly thought out that the player will often be left totally lost. They couldn't even be bothered to use the game's Spirit Vision (used to highlight enemies in a level) to show you which way to go. Or where your fallen comrade is should they be knocked down and need reviving, making that feature all but redundant.

Even when the game tries its best to occasionally show you the way, panning the camera around the level with all the grace of a drunken tramp in charge of a gyrocopter, you'll still suffer from extended bouts of getting lost. This is in no small part due to the levels being so sparse and devoid of any real detail (other than the over-use of generic pots or shrubs), coupled with the majority of it looking identical. Even trial and error won't be enough to make it through because of the way in which one attempt at a jump will result in a fall to your death, but another attempt will work out fine, despite you doing nothing different.

Which brings us neatly to the glitches and what is perhaps the most painful part of Damnation's sordid, little mark on gaming history. Despite the credits giving a pretty lengthy list of names in the QA department, the game is so crawling with bugs it's a wonder it doesn't get up and scuttle out the door on its own.

Flickering textures, characters getting jammed on scenery, players being able to die whilst climbing ropes or hanging off buildings (which for some reason then means they can't be revived and end up being stuck there forever), switches left hanging in mid-air and becoming unreachable (making progress impossible), weapons not actually working when you press the fire button or vice-versa – just firing on their own – and enemies that actually disappear and reappear as they please. All these delights, and a whole load more besides, can be yours to experience if you ever have the sad misfortune to play this game.

The only plus point is that the game's net-code holds up pretty well, so if you ever feel vindictive enough to drag a friend through purgatory with you, you can. Just don't expect them to be your friend for very long afterwards or that playing it in co-op will enhance the game in any way. If anything, it tends to make things worse by confusing the enemy AI, as they stand over a fallen player and still try to blast them into oblivion.

There is also a multiplayer mode, but at this stage in the review it will hardly surprise you to find out that there's more life on the surface of Mars.

In case you hadn't got the message by this point (or are just one of those people who skip to the end of reviews for the summary and score) Damnation isn't just terrible, it actually plumbs new depths for what defines a bad game. It's almost like the time-space continuum ripped open and farted out a title from years ago which, by rights, should never exist and only does so because of some unholy pact with Satan.

In an age where game designers constantly tell us how difficult it is to produce games, Damnation has single-handily dispelled that as a myth and makes all their comments look like little more than hot air. If it were so difficult, Damnation would have been canned a long time ago. After all, lesser titles that were shaping up to be great certainly have been.