The above comment descends on the room like a lead blanket, the music which was so loud a moment ago cuts off just as you speak, and you are the sole object of bemused attention. There are a few uncomfortable coughs, some snide murmurings, and the person next to you struggles to digest this information before trying to clarify. "So... you own an XBox, but it's not chipped?".

It's a strange sensation. Admitting that you haven't yet made the obvious step and modded your system into a gaming jukebox, as though you're sitting on a platform waiting for a train which was cancelled thirty minutes ago in an announcement you never heard. You'll find others there, but some are uncomfortable to sit next to, they watch the schedule with a frenzied and desperate attention, you don't really want to look at them for fear they'll use this as an excuse to open a conversation.

You suspect more than a few of them work for the official XBox magazines.

Halo, Splinter Cell, and now Brute Force, a handful of games which have been jumped on by the single-format press and smothered with unconditional love, like a deranged Grandmother who lurches forward with lips pursed whenever she runs into one of her seldom seen grandchildren. You like these games, certainly, you might even defend them against casual slights, but at the end of the day you know that they're not that good.

Enter Brute Force.

You've probably heard similarities drawn between it and Halo, but unfortunately this is purely on a level of certain borrowed source code, due to both Bungie and Digital Anvil now being owned by Microsoft. There's a dash of the Covenant's ability to recognize grenades and dive away from them, the physics of the bouncing grenade itself, some control scheme similarities, but apart from that the comparison isn't an especially useful one.

It's a squad based strategy game in the loosest sense, you control a team of four elite mercenaries known as Brute Force, each of whom excel in different areas of combat and infiltration:
Tex, a testosterone fuelled meat-head, will be leading the majority of the combat due to his strength and ability to fire two heavy weapons simultaneously.
Hawk, a stealth agent, can be used to scope out enemy positions and make silent kills via means of the game's only melee weapon, her ability is to engage invisibility for a short time.
Flint, a synthetic sniper, possesses an enhanced vision mode to take out distant targets, and when her ability is engaged she can lock onto several enemies in quick succession for speedier elimination.
Brutus, a feral lizard, and a moment of lingering concern that some Western developers have totally lost the plot when it comes to characters, is basically a slightly faster but weaker version of Tex, his ability triggering an infra-red style vision mode and increasing his speed and healing rate.

The nicest thing you can say about these constructs is that they are functional, despite one or two half-hearted exchanges between the characters in game, and some nods to their past, you won't blink an eye when one of them gets blown to bits or falls into a lava pit - you probably won't even dread completing the rest of the level without their particular skill, and therein lies a significant problem.

All successful team dynamic games rely on you not only acknowledging that each member has a certain strength, that's easy enough, but designing levels which force you to make use of those strengths. The superb Commandos2 introduced new members of your squad in a similar fashion to Brute Force, yet immediately afterwards it dropped you in a situation where, if you didn't adapt to using their new skills quickly, the rest of your squad would be put in grave danger trying to make up for your mistakes.

Brute Force merely makes casual suggestions of using a certain character in any one place, positioning Flint on that ridge would give you covering sniper fire for the next valley up ahead, but you almost feel as if you're doing the game an undue favor by playing along - as in the end it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

You can freely switch between controlling a certain member of your squad, and orders are issued to the others from that character via the d-pad, this brings up a menu which consists of a few rudimentary options. The trouble is, as in that old ultra-violence classic Syndicate, the commands don't feel so much like actual orders as they do varying levels of aggression.

"Hold your ground" results in team members defending themselves yet not chasing the enemy when they flee, whereas "fire at will" results in them charging full on into the gunfire and attempting to kill anyone they lay eyes on. "Move to" is a command you'll be making frequent use of, usually to bring the squad up to meet you when you've scouted out ahead alone, and "cover me" is merely fire at will but means that the squad won't venture too far away from you.

There's no way to issue a complex string of orders then watch them play out, you couldn't order Hawk to cloak, take out a string of enemies with her melee weapon, then retreat before drawing her sniper rifle and covering the others.

Just try to have some friends on hand.

Anyone can join in a game in session of Brute Force by simply plugging in an extra controller and pressing start, allowing them to then choose a character to jump in and take control of. Such options are always welcome, and by default they remove the limitations of team members when another player directly controls them, but there are some disadvantages.

Due to the third-person view of any controlled character, and the splitting of the screen two to four ways, visibility can rapidly become a problem. This also brings to light the option of linking a number of XBox's so each player has their own screen. Apart from moments of slowdown this would seem to be an ideal solution, but asking your chums to haul in their T.Vs and XBoxes for a casual session would probably see them indignantly heading off to the pub instead.

Deathmatch is here, and one excuse for completing the largely forgettable single-player campaign is to collect 'D.N.A canisters' hidden in each level which unlock a variety of playable characters to use in this mode. Up to eight players can engage in Deathmatch, and the inclusion of some interesting playable characters (hell hounds, psyker priests) potentially make for some enticing games.

Yet, when compared to an eight-player game of Halo, or dedicated multiplayer games such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein on Live, it can't hope to compete on their level.

All of which sounds terminally negative, of course, but it would be remiss to say that Brute Force can't be very enjoyable indeed.

Combat, on which the crux of the game comes to rest due to promises of it being a "tactical shooter" falling through, is often frenetic and exciting. As mentioned before, your enemies have inherited enough A.I. from Halo's code to make them decent opponents, they will actively seek cover, attack in groups, and if you dig in they will try to flank your position.

Weapons range from the slightly more advanced modern side-arms (vulcan cannons, pistols, machine-guns and sniper rifles), to Sci-fi inspired laser weapons which fire pulsing laser, electric, or biological blasts. If you want to experience each and every gun you'll need to actively seek out new weapons dropped by enemies mid-mission, although Tex and Brutus are limited to handling heavier weapons while Hawk and Flint are placed firmly in the field of lighter instruments of death.

Solid though the combat is it shows holes which, although Brute Force was delayed several times for tweaking and improvements, should have been attended to before the game was released. The issues aren't huge but nonetheless can be frustrating; one of your characters switching abruptly from holding their ground to providing cover for you means that, especially if they are Flint or Hawk, you have to leave yourself open to damage while telling them to get back to their original position.

Graphically, it is an appealing game. The jungle and desert environments are easy on the eyes in a technical sense. If anything they are similar to those in Mechassault: nicely defined but lacking a surface layer of polish. Enemies can become generic repetitions (impressive though it may be, the armoured mercenary character is repeated over five times in the guise of different 'factions'), but remain interesting due to their A.I. and rag-doll physics in the heat of battle. If you hit them with a powerful weapon they will be sent tumbling, whereas a pistol will lead to their death being a quiet, terminal slump.

Objectives are highlighted as waypoints on a radar HUD in the upper left corner, whereas your current weapon and ammunition is displayed in the upper right. Your "ability" bar is no doubt going to receive most of the attention, located just beneath the health it is a white level of "stamina" which decreases steadily when you engage the special abilities of one or more characters, yet is easily replenished by two minutes or more of standing about in a quiet area.

Levels themselves could and should have been so much more. The brief glimpses of potential in certain missions only highlight the painful banality of yet another urban environment, and bunch of identical mutants, to eliminate in order to retrieve/destroy an item and/or person. Interactivity is sadly limited to pressing a switch in order to open a door, deactivating landmines or "hacking" controls, and shooting an exploding barrel or fuel tank so the enemies close by receive splash damage.

Any desire of the player to see truly "alien" worlds is heartlessly shot down by generic lava locales and missions on meteors. It can only lead you to speculate that the future is a very depressing place indeed when our only allies are giant lizards, and many of the explored planets consist either of deadly magma or uninhabitable swampland.

As for sound, Dolby Digital is admirably implemented. Whereas the music only makes bids for attention when the bullets start to fly, the sound effects are involving enough for you to largely ignore it anyway. Crackling reports sting at your ears as enemy projectiles zip past your character's head, the turbine whirring of dual fired mini-guns is captured perfectly, and grenade explosions satisfyingly ripple through the speakers.

Downloadable content via XBox Live is supported, in this case the promise of extra levels in the future. Ironically, if the XBox took the next step into PC/console symbiosis, then the modding scene for Brute Force could result in some very pleasing results - everything you need for a solid base is there, and the environments could finally get the attention they deserve.

What does this leave? Imagine being affiliated with Microsoft Games Studios as being part of a chain of identical restaurants, ones which, despite housing Chefs who recognize that perfection takes time, are obligated to deliver you your meal within twenty minutes or your money back.

It arrives, looks delicious, the first few forkfuls are promising, but when you reach the cold, undeveloped center all the employees can do is look on helplessly as you walk out in mild disgust. Comparisons between Brute Force and Halo have been made, but made in the wrong context, both were released before they were ready. Microsoft Game Studios must come to realise that while one's core element was strong enough to carry it despite this cesarian birth, that example is the exception rather than the norm.

Until they do, neither diner nor Chef will be satisfied with the premature end result, and Microsoft will unwittingly demonstrate that although they may have produced a console, they have little idea what makes certain console games great, and others merely impressive failures.