It should, by rights, have been an absolute classic, but lengthy, incredibly, astoundingly dull, unskippable cut scenes and a save system that meant that there was no point playing the game unless you had a couple of hours to spare conspired against all the good things it did.

I played through the first two levels again on Sunday (with my iPhone in hand for the cut scenes) and nearly wept at the missed opportunity. It’s so, so close to being one of the very best FPS games that’s ever been made, but what I can only assume is some sort of bloody-minded “we’re going to make you appreciate our art whether you like it or not” attitude brings the whole thing crashing down.

The fact that I still put it on now and again, half a decade or so since it’s release, shows the quality. The fact that I’ve only ever seen the first few levels illustrates the problems.

How Black felt this morning: An average FPS spoiled by unskippable cut scenes and the fact that it’s not The Club.

Unfair, that. I just kept wanting to play it like The Club. I wanted short bursts and a sprint button and most of all I wanted points. It just felt empty killing people without numbers appearing over their heads. Anyway, I’ll go back when I’m in a different mood.

I blew up while the “minefield cleared” text was still on the screen!

The trouble is, everything’s brown. Completely brown. So although the mines are on the surface, most of the time they’re not actualy visible.

I know, I know, I should be more careful, but these new mines come at the end of a big, safe bit and as it’s telling me the minefield is cleared.

Mind you, second time was definitely more my fault than the game’s, it has to be said. I’ll try again some other day and this time I’ll remember.

On a level where you navigate through an area packed with enemies and reach a minefield. Avoid the mines while killing enemies, that sort of thing.

Anyway, first time I tried the level the mines killed me. Next two times I didn’t even reach it, thanks to things exploding next me. Time after that I made it to the minefield again and slowly, carefully made my way through it, using grenades to blow up the mines in my path, picking off enemies along the way. Lovely game.

Then I got to a point where it said the minefield objective was complete. Hooray! So I – I’m not making this up – took one step forward and the ground beneath me erupted. Oh. A mine. I thought I was meant to be through the minefield. Didn’t you just tell me that?

No checkpoint, so it asked me if I wanted to restart from the beginning of the level again. I didn’t. I turned the Xbox off.

It’s just… how can something with such great gameplay – and I really must make clear that it really is superb given how much I’m complaining – be surrounded by such oddness?

So much of this is great. I love the gameplay, but some of the interface decisions are incredibly stupid. Like the not being able to save checkpoint progress. That’s just absolutely insane. I’m baffled.

I was playing a level just now and for some reason all the guns except my own stopped making sounds. My ally’s gun wasn’t making any noise. My enemies’ guns weren’t making any noise. Which made things a bit tricky and a bit, well, shit. But I was two checkpoints through a mission and I couldn’t turn the console off without losing that progress. So I just had to do the final section several times in weird half-silence.

And why warn that you’ll lose all your progress when you restart a mission after not having made any progress? How difficult would it be to see if any checkpoints have been reached and miss out that screen if they haven’t?

So, we have what appears to be a brilliant game, based on the first three or four levels. (I forget.) I mean, truly exceptional. But there are bugs and an interface that might as well have been designed by Satan himself. No mid-level saving. No skipping cut-scenes until you’ve completed a mission. Odd uneccesary warnings. Stupid unskippable credits sequence when you first boot up and want to get playing.

It’s the exact same problem as Burnout 3. A great game wrapped in a hideous interface.

I am most perplexed. I just don’t see why things are as they are. It doesn’t make any sense.

Criterion have done exactly what they set out to do, but probably not in the way they meant to. They said they were going to do for the FPS genre what Burnout did for racing games. And they’ve done it, in that they’ve managed to combine a fantastic game with one of the worst interfaces I’ve ever had the misfortune to use.

How on earth do they do it?

The core game is excellent, I reckon. Really nice feel to it, great fun. Bit tricky to pinpoint headshots, but then I’ve never been the most accurate of marksmen. Lots of flying bullets, weighty guns. Very nice.

However, however, however…

We’ve never needed the Blue Sky In Games campaign more. Apart from the green health bar I might as well be running this on a black and white TV. I had no idea they were going to take the game’s name quite so literally.

No checkpoints. Well, there probably are, given there’s an option for them on the menu you get when you die, but I’ve not seen one yet. The first mission didn’t have any. (I know because the last bloody enemy killed me the first time I tried it.) The second one might do, but they must be a long way in. Too far in. You have to trek through a forest to a border crossing and then fight your way through it. So I get to the border crossing and die. Trek through the forest again. Die in exactly the same place. Trek through the forest again…

You get the idea. Surely a checkpoint when you reach the border crossing wouldn’t be too much to ask? I’m only playing on Normal, too.

Also: Unskippable cut scenes. And not just unskippable the first time you watch them. Every time. That’s really idiotic and annoying. That and the checkpoint thing led me to switch the game off just now and play OutRun 2 instead.