Soldiers, though, are the least of your worries. When Biomechs start turning up, you need to have mastered the swing. The first time I saw one, I assumed it was a boss; it had a weakpoint, killing it took a bit of invention, and it had a hefty health bar. Silly me. That first time they cropped up essentially acted as a tutorial on how to kill them, and even that involved two of them. Later battles generally pit you against three of the buggers simultaneously, normally with a few soldiers around to make things tricky, and occasionally with a sniper taking aim too. Winning these later battles feels like a bit of an achievement, and stands as testament to your skill. Losing them, on the other hand, often sends you further back in the level than you'd like, thanks to occasionally lacklustre checkpointing.

In contrast to the Biomech fights, the bosses themselves are a little disappointing. You never really have a swinging, aerial boss battle with these, in which you take full advantage of your agility; you normally just work out their attack patterns and then exploit the holes in them. In that sense it's very much like the 80's games that BC acts as a throwback to, but these battles don't come close to the joy of dodging Polycraft fire, grabbing hold of a lamp post, swinging towards it, latching on, and delivering a hefty kick. When the bosses feel less spectacular than the enemies, there's something wrong - but at least there are spectacular moments.

The 80's vibe doesn't just come across in the bosses, with the cheesy plot, growly voice acting, and macho dialogue conveying the feel of an over-the-top action movie. While there are things I'd nitpick – the lack of villain motivations, the under-use of a particularly fantastic character, the failure to tie up various loose ends – but they don't matter. Just enjoy it and go along for the ride. In terms of the former and latter in fact, I'm fairly sure there are already plans, particularly with the rumblings that a sequel is already in the works.

The only other problem – and, as with every other mentioned problem, it's a minor one that serves more as a disappointment – is the extent to which you're constrained within the game. It's a linear game, which we knew, but it's surprising just how linear it is at times. If you start to step out of bounds, radiation will slowly start doing damage to you. Move further out of bounds and the damage will ramp up significantly. It certainly gives the illusion of an open world as there really are no invisible walls, but it can at times be very hard to tell what's irradiated and what isn't, and more than once I got onto a low rooftop, planning to drop onto nearby enemies, only to die instantly because it turned out to be a high-radiation area.

And yet this isn't a bad game. The areas are diverse and the game looks absolutely stunning, with very few framerate drops throughout, and the sound design is equally impeccable. When you get the hang of swinging, you'll have a huge amount of fun accelerating across lampposts and branches, dropping into the midst of enemies with the Death From Above move and then hurling a car at a nearby Biomech. It's just that for everything the game does right, it gets something wrong. Once you stop unlocking abilities it gets rather repetitive, and there's very little inclination to replay the game once you finish it. The weapons are lacklustre and unimpressive, there are plenty of small areas where your swinging is constrained, and radiation will kill you when you least expect it. Bosses are a tad wimpy, and I suspect it's genuinely impossible to die to one of them on anything but the highest difficulty. Some set pieces act as insane difficulty spikes. And the combat, in the end, just wears you down and leaves you cold.

But, for the middle section when the game is fun, it's really fun.

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