Unimaginable scenes of human degradation!’ exclaims Overkill’s promotional material, doled out to the press in the form of a battered B-movie VHS cassette box. And then, brilliantly: ‘This is like something out of a videogame!’

Sega has tasked Headstrong Games with bringing the House Of The Dead franchise to a western audience – you might be forgiven for thinking it was already fairly well established over here, but the UK developer has clearly jumped into zombsploitation pastiche with macabre enthusiasm. As Headstrong’s Bradley Crooks takes us through the game’s funfair level, we spot severed hands spinning in candy-floss tumblers, a hot-dog vendor sizzling facedown on his own grill, and body parts pinned to the wall at the knife-throwing stall: all of it both gruesome and ludicrous in fine grindhouse tradition. The screen even flickers with the streaks and burns of an ageing film reel.

As far as the fairly static genre of the on-rails shooter goes, Overkill looks to have a few ideas of its own. While movement is still strictly predefined, dragging the reticule to the side of the screen will allow you to actually turn your view 40 degrees in any direction, allowing you to spot hidden items and enemies. Meanwhile, a combo bar builds as you make successful shots, increasing further when you save civilians from peril – ultimately increasing your final score and unlocking new items and equipment.

There’s also an adrenaline meter which you can expend by moving into what the development team calls ‘mofo slo-mo’, giving you a chance to appreciate the detail that has been worked into the explosion of a zombie’s brain-pan. With drop-in/drop-out co-op, Overkill looks likely to match up to existing Wii shooters such as Ghost Squad and Umbrella Chronicles for same-couch silliness. Throw in mad scientists, strippers and breathless claims of being ‘so frightening you’ll cry blood from your own eyes’, and Headstrong may well have us baying for its brains.