As you'll recall, the first game concluded in horror-cliffhanger style, with the faceless hero scrambling out of the way of a game-ending explosion that ripped the entire world to shreds, and making off in a chopper - only for little Alma to rear her Sadako-inspired head in time for the screen to rock to black in frightening fashion. We pick up seconds later, as you emerge from the wreckage of the downed chopper and find yourself imperilled by a similar range of enemies, environments and slow-motion all-the-above-clichés. What follows is distinctly F.E.A.R. - dark but detailed environments, the odd turn-the-valve puzzle, enemies fighting you in enclosed spaces, and the odd radio-fuzzing manifestation to mess with your head. Think doors stretching away into depths of blurry gore and other jumpy behaviour.

Setting that aside, the 360 demo gave us an idea of what Vivendi was talking about when it mentioned new single-player content in its original announcement. Apart from a myriad of tweaks (word is that regeneration of the slow-motion meter is quicker, and analogue control felt almost-right with functions sensibly dotted around the 360's excellent pad), there's a new "Instant Action" mode, absent from the PC game, where the idea is to go through a level taking on huge numbers of enemies with as much speed, efficiency and lethality as possible. The level we played was split into identikit sections, with a yard full of grunts followed by a corridor of mechanised