Having an arsenal of cool weapons at your disposal doesn't ensure a game is fun to play, but it helps. Fracture certainly isn't holding back in the weapons department. I counted at least three different types of grenades in the first half hour of playing. But weapons aside, there isn't much else going on in the divided world of Fracture.

You play Mason Biggs, a soldier in the war between a divided America in the year 2100. It's a west-versus-east civil war, as opposed to north versus south, but you get the picture. In concept the game sounds quite intriguing, but it's really all about familiarising yourself with an arsenal of weapons and shooting down the bad guys. Some of the weapons are great fun to use, such as the Entrencher, which alters the molecular structure of the earth. You can use the Entrencher to increase the height of the earth around you, effectively creating barriers to shield yourself and others or to climb to difficult areas. You can also use the Entrencher to lower the ground, so you can get underneath troublesome terrain or barriers.

Fracture's HUD (Head-Up Display) is a critical tool that tells you where items you require to achieve objectives are located. The missions are set up in a linear order, so you must complete one to get to the next portion of the story in Campaign mode. Your first mission is to break into a prison and chase a bad guy who is hiding in there. But due to the fact that you're carrying enough firepower to destroy a small planet, most of the missions are annoyingly easy.

If you enjoy straight-up shooters set in the future without too much character development or storyline, Fracture will do nicely. If you're looking for deeper character development and more immersive gameplay, look elsewhere.