Bloodline

You wake up on an operating table with a blinding headache and no knowledge of who you are or how you got here. You're in some kind of hospital, but the place is dark, grimy and half-wrecked. Then, as if things weren't bad enough, you discover the dead have come back to life and are roaming the halls, intent on making you join their ranks!

Bloodline is a survival horror game, in the vein of Silent Hill, but from a first person perspective. Fight your way through a variety of creepy locales, scrounging for weapons, ammo and health packs. There is also inventory-based puzzle-solving and a storyline that you must piece together through documents and other clues found along the way. You'll need to work out who you are, what's been going on in this place and how you fit into it all.

The default control method uses the familiar WASD+mouse setup for moving, looking around and combat. But the reticule in the center of the screen is also an adventure game style 'smart cursor,' changing its appearance when something can be examined, picked up or used. The inventory screen is very similar to the one used in Silent Hill. Selecting items will equip them, combine them or, in the case of documents, allow you to read them.

The game is divided into small areas, most consisting of only seven or eight rooms. For the most part, you have the freedom to move back and forth between areas as you like. However, the game helps to ensure you won't leave vital objects behind, by displaying a red exclamation mark in the top-left of the screen when there is something important nearby. Also, your character will often refuse to leave a map before you've achieved a certain task.