VIRTUAL and augmented reality is expected to be the next big step in making video games more and more immersive.

But Get Even shows that a conventional gaming experience can draw you in just as much.

You play ‘Black’, a hired gun who awakes with no memory of his past. Think Jason Bourne with a Yorkshire accent – but if he was trapped in an old asylum.

But then things can get more and more strange when Black discovers he is wearing a headset that allows him to relive memories and experience them again in the present.

Polish studio The Farm 51’s first-person game then basically takes you down the rabbit hole as you are lead through a psychological maze by your captor ‘Red’ who will only speak to you over a monitor.

The sequence of events becomes like a jigsaw as you piece the jumbled, unchronological story – about a kidnapping and a new weapon called a corner gun – together.

It is reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s most disorientating films, Inception and Memento.

You will find yourself constantly questioning what is real and award-winning composer Olivier Derivière’s score only adds to the intense, twisted experience.

Get Even’s real strength is in its sound effects which react in real time to your actions from jarring electronic sound effects in the creepy moments to Black’s strained breath during combat.

At times it genuinely makes you feel like you are going mad.

The gameplay itself is a bit like Condemned – part investigative thriller, part shooter with horror elements.

Your phone is as much a tool as your gun with everything from an evidence scanner to a DNA tracker and heat vision camera.

But unfortunately the combat itself is a bit basic.

It is serviceable but lacks finesse and the corner gun – which the story hinges on and allows you to unsurprisingly shoot around corners – is actually not that much use.

But as an immersive, haunting story that leaves a mark, Get Even is a triumph. Play with lights out and earphones turned up.

RATING: 7/10