You know, it’s a real shame Fracture has been unable to rise above shooter-by-numbers territory. Not because we had to sit through many an hour receiving in entertainment what a bowl of rice and boiled chicken is to a meal – in short, just enough. No, more for the lack of opportunity to delve into base innuendos such as the one above. Oh, we are evil. Yes, sad as we are to report the fact, LucasArts’ latest is a master in the art of proclaiming true innovation before carrying on in old-school fashion regardless.

It’s a sorry tale that stretches even as far as our story; the reason why Jet Brody, played ably here by Markus Fenix, has to delve into adolescent space marine combat. Quite an intriguing concept becomes lost in 30-second updates between levels that sound almost exactly like how Newsround would report events, were they really happening, Only with a slightly more gruff voice, naturally. For what it’s worth, though, global warming has quite believably flooded the American midwest, cleaving the once-great nation in two, straight down the middle. While this is terrible news for Canada, we don’t hear a great deal about that. Instead we’re told both US coasts grow to get along less and less thanks not to rap music, but the Western seaboard’s fascination with genetically modifying human beings into awesome fighting machines. Somewhere or other both sides discover how to raise and lower the very earth itself and that’s it: war was declared.

We’ll begin in obvious territory – with natural cover so readily available, Jet’s array of tectonic weaponry becomes a device to liven up puzzles in a genre where finding the blue key is about as cerebral as things get. Whenever enemy firepower becomes heavy enough to cause major problems, the rigmarole of firing directly downwards to move turf one way or the other is often trumped by soldiers’ abilities to shoot it all back down again or flank to more advantageous positions. In fact, Fracture’s headline gimmick proves inferior to the rather old-fashioned pursuit of making yourself a difficult target, more often than not, and with meaty controls that remind us quite heavily of Lost Planet, you’ll be more than happy doing just that. To compensate for this error of balance, though, the developer seems all too keen to offer up its game at its most impressive – when your foe is entrenched and you’ve a grenade or two handy. Unlike in more conventional shooters, these assume the power to – you’ve guessed it – raise great swathes of earth underfoot, raising to crush or lowering to make vulnerable. A third alternative, the vortex grenade, acts as a self-contained gravitational field, consuming all around it from rocks to people, before exploding in the deadliest firework display since we returned to find out it wasn’t a dud. Unfortunately, such eagerness to show off the game in its best light means the transparency with which environments have been tweaked to accommodate one of the three above attacks is soon exposed. A lot of Jet’s adventure feels like a rather dull corridor shoot, or a foray into a large circular arena packed with cannon fodder enemies, and all of it is unerringly linear, though the comparisons with Gears Of War are beginning to grow tiresome.

As for the puzzles themselves, Day 1 Studios’ secondary use for its so-called tectonic technology, well, here the decision to base an entire outing around one gimmick seems a little less insane. There’s a fair bit of variety on show outside a familiar crop of mind-teasers asking the player to break the lid from an access hatch or indulge in a little bridge building. Physicsbased teasers are the order of the day, including a kind of futuristic, infinitely more enjoyable Subbuteo that comes about every time Jet needs to break a forcefield. The only minor gripe here is the way particularly stupid gamers’ heads are massaged by the now-standard help system. Our complaint isn’t the fact that it exist – far from it, more that the hints given work like a illogical game of Jeopardy! Rather than point the camera in the direction of the switch, you have to push, or even highlight whichever of Jet’s abilities will bring success, it sees fit to show you the door you’re trying to open, which you were of course aware of in the first place. When you have spent the best part of an hour memorising every scratch in the surface of a metallic hallway ten yards square, this doesn’t come as the best of news.

So Fracture remains stuck in that void in which we’d invite you to find time in your life for a go, but couldn’t bring ourselves to demand you make time. It’s perfectly adequate shooting mechanics that can’t overcome a mis-placed gimmick. It’s imaginative puzzles signposted badly. It’s one big futuristic videogame cliché that’s epic but never forces a ‘wow’ to leave your lips. It is, in short, satisfactory enough, and no more.

Dave Shaw