Hydrophobia (XBLA/PSN/PC)

Hydrophobia's story has been split into three episodes of around five hours each to be released within a twelve month window.

Although digital deliveries are normally associated with lesser games nothing has been scaled back to squeeze Hydrophobia's file size down. It's a game comparable to most full-priced titles you'd care to mention (and indeed, offering more than some of them), and is best described as a kind of damp amalgamation of Tomb Raider and Dead Space.

The world possesses the same fidelity as EA's sci-fi shooter, only it's obviously not as far-flung into the future. Dead Space deals in holograms, Hydrophobia in flexi-screens - real technology being developed today. Flexible, extendable screens with light-blue writing doubles for signage all over the ship, immediately invoking echoes of Dead Space's artistry.

In the atmospheric stakes the levels are also Dead Space through and through, but to navigate them Kate will need to leap, roll and grab like a chimpanzee pumped full of Lucozade. Luckily she's put the time in at the gym and is as nimble an explorer as a certain Lady Croft.

The game, which has you assaulting naughty nanobot-using terrorists on a gigantic, futuristic boat, is now set for release on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and PC next year, instead of the full disc deployment originally planned.

The game's story has been split into three episodes of around five hours each to be released within a twelve month window, says developer Dark Energy Digital, and by the look of these new shots below it should at the very least be one of the best looking PSN and XBLA games around.