Just fired up a bit of Fade to Black, just to make sure it's every bit as shite as I've been telling folk it is for the twenty-odd years since I last played it.

You know, there's qualities I kind of admire about it. How mechanical and deliberate your actions have to be, the sound design, the ability to make a temporary save anywhere. There's aspects that make this feel like a completely natural 3D successor to Flashback. The tone's clearly more inspired by Star Wars, and less its own thing, but I can take that. I like Star Wars.

I knew the moment I just would not be willing to play the game any longer was rapidly approaching, though.

Conrad can duck behind cover, and the camera shifts to view his face while he's doing it. Fair enough. You couldn't see what was on the other side of a box when you were ducking behind it, either. The angle shift looks kind of cool, too.

Temporary saves take fucking ages to write. When you die, there's about a two-second delay while it loads the death animation FMV, and the start of the level is loaded again. You bring up the load menu, and load once again. Flashback strictness. I can respect the consistency, I guess.

Then the jumping rears its head. There's electrified panels on the floor. The size of the panels isn't clear, as they're just a pulsing electrical texture on top of standard floor tiles. If you even graze one, it's Game Over, and the loading loop begins again. Conrad doesn't jump like Lara Croft - his movement doesn't align with the griddy design of the game - He just kind of overshoots the size of a panel, with no regard for the surrounding design. You have to kind of wobble him into position, taking care not to glance wherever the hazard may be. Leaping over a single electrified panel quickly leads into jumping from safe panel to safe panel, surrounded by buzzing squares. Then you have to do it at a 45-degree angle.

Fade to Black, lick my crack. Don't come back.