Envision your favorite video game retailer. All its shiny, well-organized cases just waiting to be snatched up. It’s almost like a big buffet table made exclusively of games. In this sense, a game like Halo or Assassin’s Creed might be the pizza, a Shadow of the Colossus is the prime rib… and Mindjack is dog food.

Let’s get started. As the game opens, Agent Jim Corbijn, our protagonist, murders the contact of a subject he’s been covertly following through a shiny, Star Wars-wet dream of an airport. That’s just about the only thing that’s coherent throughout the rest of the game, whose story changes direction more times than a blind driver in Manhattan. The narrative is progressed through short, unintelligibly translated dialogues between Corbijn and his target, who inexplicably joins forces with him, leaves, then joins forces again later in the missions.

The closest comparison to Mindjack‘s style of third-person shooting is last year’s mediocrity-filled (but tolerable) Dead to Rights: Retribution. Charged with navigating your Buick-like character through the seamlessly connected, overly shiny buildings in 2031 Tokyo, you’ll do nothing but shoot guys. And shoot more guys. And shoot some big guys. Then there’s some robot guys. Then robot cars. Then robot helicopters.

The mightier enemies tote large explosive rounds that will often knock your character off their feet. The time it takes for them to return to combat capability is longer than the baddies require to reload and shoot again, leading to utterly frustrating deaths that should have been easily avoidable.

When you’re not desperately flailing about with firearms like a meth-addled chimpanzee locked in a gun cabinet, you can fling air punches at enemies in a close proximity. Despite a large “B” to indicate the melee button, the character is usually content to throw a shallow elbow at the target’s pool of breathable air before taking several fatal bullets to the face.

Mindjack‘s attempt at creating variety within the gameplay is simply to throw as many enemies at you as the game can handle without crashing (which, to its credit, it never did). After swamping you with enemies to the point of either crushing defeat or lack of ammo, it reverts you to nonsensical, bush-league checkpoints that not only break spirits, but also shatter controllers.

The majority of the campaign is survivable only through use of the “Mind Hack” ability, which switches to an overhead camera that allows you to take control of neutral or allied characters. When your player goes down, you can usually switch over to another one in time to advance safely. The single player campaign has drop-in, drop-out multiplayer, with the guests playing the role of opposing Mindhackers out to keep Corbijn from completing his mission–whatever that is. It was an interesting idea, but the game is so disgustingly bad that adding any more variables to the equation results in a devilish mountain of frustration, providing comfort only to the hackers–they know the host is having a worse time than they are.

The game is technically functional, though I did install it on my 360 (fair warning). I didn’t experience any distracting glitches, frame rate drops, or crashes during my time with it. Still, Mindjack doesn’t even get the benefit of the doubt. It has no charm, no flair, no apparent positive qualities–except that it actually runs. It’s an insult to the rest of the games on your shelf.

The pause button doesn’t even work.

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Things We Liked: Mindjack loaded. It installed correctly. It didn’t crash.

Things We Disliked: Relentlessly bad narrative. Feeble combat mechanics (that’s being generous). Cheap enemies. Face-smashing checkpoints. I’ll stop here; I could write a book.

Target Audience: People who enjoy diabolically awful games. Masochists? God help you if you feel compelled to play this game.

(Mindjack – Developer: feelplus. Publisher: Square Enix. Available for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – Xbox version reviewed. A copy of the game was provided by the publishers for review purposes. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)