The outspoken rock-metal museo has lent his music, voice, and, so Black Label games hope, uncompromising persona to the console FPS Mace Griffin. Unfortunately the use of a single song in the intro, and Rollins' uninterested delivery of the main character's speech do little to add to the title as a whole; if anything they make it feel even more like a painfully average game, but one which hinges on a hook of celebrity to draw in the player.

Such a desire for identity isn?t reflected in the rest of Mace Griffin. It comes together like a Frankenstein's monster of concepts and design, every new level or idea shamelessly lifted from other, often superior FPS games. The mining levels from Red Faction, the personal energy shield from Halo, the multi-missile launcher from Unreal Tournament, all grafted onto a bare framework to mask the failure of such basic components as enemy A.I or level design.

Perhaps failure is too strong a word, as there are no doubt some who will enjoy Mace Griffin despite these flaws, but from a critical point of view, it just offers nothing new. To stumble against seminal titles such as Half-Life and Halo would not be so much of an issue if the FPS genre didn?t show every sign of exploding within a matter of months.

Doom3, Half-Life2, and Halo2 cast Mace Griffin cruelly in their shadows, despite none of them having even appeared in playable form yet. It is difficult to believe that Black Label are the same Developers who brought us a refreshingly different and atmospheric game in The Thing, as Mace Griffin forfeits any original leanings in favor of bland, mass-market acceptance.

Let's dissect.

The story is likely to make you wince, although no more than Henry's "Make cheques payable to H.Rollins" performance, being as it is little more than a tale of revenge with weak overtones of conspiracy. You play part of an intergalactic peace keeping force known as The Rangers, during what should be a straightforward mission your entire squad is eliminated and, although ordered to hold your post, you flee and escape as the ship explodes.

Griffin then spends ten years in prison for disobeying orders, on his release he finds that The Rangers no longer exist, their place is now filled by a gang of Bounty Hunters who follow the contracts and the money. Joining them, you start to earn a crust by quelling various rebellions and terrorist groups, hoping to come across some clue as to who betrayed you and why.

Realistically, very few missions seek to advance the plot, and it won't be until you're halfway through the game that you gain a feeling of the story moving sluggishly forward.

Arguably, First Person Shooters never rest on their plots, but to create one which gives a sensation of rising tension and intrigue, rather than a half-baked mind-fart which treads water until five minutes before the end of the game is always a good start.

Much was made of Mace Griffin's hybrid structure, and while it's true that there are a lot of possibilities between mixing genres such as FPS and Flight Sim, such possibilities are almost entirely ignored here. You can't take control of your ship and decide to go exploring, despite what the Devs may have hinted early in the game's creation. So instead the ship becomes a vehicle for several scripted space battles and docking/leaving space-stations or planets before hitting 'Y' to hyperspace to the next destination.

There's little worse than treating a new and interesting concept with lazy design, yet that is precisely what Black Label have done here. They could have created something which led to a gradual evolution in the FPS genre; smooth transition between in ship and on foot is present, but conversations with NPCs, non-linear exploration, and a developed gaming world are conspicuous by their absence.

Graphically, Mace Griffin is polished in places while lacking in others; the constant metallic shine on your weapons, and the superb disorientation when you're hit by a concussion grenade are directly at odds with poor enemy models who only come in four to five different flavors. Adding to that the mostly dull 'asteroid' setting of many levels, which ensures you are surrounded by featureless rock a good deal of the time, and you have the visual equivalent of Nytol.

Combat, at least, is satisfying, although the utilization of 'auto-aim' becomes somewhat of a necessity due to the fast pace of gameplay, number of enemies, and precision aiming limitations of a joypad. Each mission boils down to a set number of requirements; move from point A to point B, killing everyone you come across, sometimes the route from A to B has to be traversed via a short trip on your ship, or against a time limit, but these are cynical ploys trying to pass themselves off as variety.

Sonically, an insidious bond is struck between the lifeless environments and the sfx of the creatures that populate them. You'll hear the same enemy samples over and over again, and as they issue from a foot trooper who looked identical to the last one you shot it can feel like you're facing an army of clones, all repeatedly coming at you in those lackluster settings.

In the end this all amounts to little more than those black and white films shown on BBC2 with such frequency. Sitting through it will kill a few hours, which may be just what you're after, but any highbrow ideas or messages are just damped down through how incredibly dated the movie feels, it doesn't have an energy which lingers after all these years.

The truth is, if entertainment wants to be remembered, to endure, then it will. Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Vertigo, are not casual affairs, they were constructed on ideas that would not age or sour, rather than simply attempting to gather as much income as possible while they were "new".

Mace Griffin is disposable amusement; if you want to experience an immediate, reassuringly predictable FPS then you may find elements to enjoy here. It would be best to do so quickly however, as by the time the big guns have rumbled onto the scene there is little chance you will even remember it's name.