The world of Project Eden is a typical futuristic megalopolis - it boasts huge, towering buildings, linked by vast tracts of walkways, the skies dotted with hover vehicles. Think Blade Runner, think Megacity One... it's not the most original concept, granted. However, the actual game is relatively refreshing in its blend of ideas.

It's essentially a third person, 3D action adventure which places you in control of not just one character but a squad of four UPA troops. The UPA is a hard-headed futuristic police organisation, and at the start of the game you've been called to the "Real Meat" factory, makers of synthetic meat products (hmmm) down in the depths of the city. Apparently, there's an unspecified problem at the factory and a previous investigative team hasn't returned. The safe money is on this not being a routine incident.

Project Eden's interface is well designed, which, given that you have to constantly switch between four different characters, is important. All you have to do to change persona is to point and click on another character. The main action menu, which allows you to switch weapons and give orders to those who you aren't directly controlling, is also accessed via a single click. It's all very smartly crafted.

Hats must be taken off to the coding team for the level and puzzle design, too. The various environments you travel through are all quite different and distinctive - visually the game is breathtaking in places, possessing a true sense of the scale of the massive city.

The puzzles vary considerably too, and many need specific characters to tackle them, each character having a subset of skills - of the four characters you play there's a hacker, an engineer, a combat freak and a jack-of-all-trades leader type. Some of the problems in Project Eden require multiple actions to formulate a solution, and it's all very satisfying to finally overcome them.

In fact, the adventure element is much stronger than the action, which is Project Eden's Achilles' heel. For starters, the enemy AI is fairly poor, and the weapons you use feel quite weak and limited. It takes a lot of hits to kill someone, and the combat simply isn't as adrenaline-pumping as it should be.

However, this doesn't detract too much from the Project Eden experience. Another big plus point is the excellent multiplayer mode, which features Gamespy support and allows you to partake of a variety of deathmatch modes as well as tackling the single player adventure co-operatively.

While this action-adventure may be a little weak on the action side, it's highly atmospheric, visually polished and boasts some truly challenging puzzles. A smart multiplayer mode rounds off the Project Eden package nicely and playing through the adventure co-operatively with three mates controlling the other characters is a real blast.