Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Yes, we know Atari’s tried to pull a fast one on everyone by sticking Bullet Witch on the shelves before giving anyone a chance to review it, but at every stage of our Bullet Witch coverage, we’ve tried to forewarn you that AQ Interactive’s Wiccan-based shooter was never going to be anything more than mediocre.

And, as it stands, our prophetic musings have turned out to be right on the money, because despite a reasonably solid concept (postapocalyptic world + sexy witch + big gun + magic = nice idea) Bullet Witch is about as dull as a game could get.

For starters, there are the visuals. To call Bullet Witch a last-gen effort would be something of an understatement. Thanks to a combination of drab, uninteresting textures, lack of onscreen detail, low enemy count and rather wooden animation, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say there are better looking Xbox games than this.

If the gameplay was up to scratch we might have been more forgiving, but sadly, Bullet Witch is just as bland to play. The meagre amount of enemies on screen do little to impress visually and they also ensure that fighting is restricted to small skirmishes rather than giant running battles.

More often than not, however, this is something of a blessing in disguise. While the core controls are straightforward enough, the magic spells are a different matter; rather than freezing the gameplay while you select your spell from the corresponding submenu, the action continues, leaving Alicia exposed.

The dodgy camera angle can also be immensely frustrating. For example, you can be focusing attention on a cluster of enemies ahead of you but then all of a sudden find yourself shot from behind or flattened with a flying car before you even know what’s hit you.

At best sterile and at worst infuriatingly flawed, Bullet Witch may not be the worst 360 game we’ve ever played, but it is one of the most disappointing. In other words, don’t even think about it.

Mark Podd