KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child is a pretty loud experience. This throwback first-person shooter is jammed with a variety of high-powered weapons, a number of interesting devices and power-ups, and some of the most bizarre and hideous monsters that have ever been committed to polygons. All of this combines to produce a creepy setting that would make the average gamer's skin crawl.

You're probably expecting all that from a game inspired by a band that wears full greasepaint, sees no problems rhyming "get" with "sweat" in more than one song, and was founded by a bassist who drools blood during guitar solos. What you're probably not expecting is a game that has almost nothing to do with the arena rockers who gave us such FM radio staples as "Detroit Rock City," "I Was Made For Lovin' You," and "Lick It Up." KISS classics will rarely be heard while you're blasting through this one, and original members Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley are nowhere to be found. And that's only the first disappointment here. While a pretty good first effort by the Daikatana runaways who formed Third Law Interactive, the title is marred by limited, derivative gameplay that does little aside from conjure up good memories of shooters past.

Instead of stepping into the high-heeled boots of the Space Ace and his pals, we're stuck with Pablo Ramirez, Patrick Scott, Andy "Spades" Chang, and Gabriel Gordo, members of a bar band called Wicked Jester. They're roughly equivalent to the "Elder" fantasy characters assumed by the real deal-Chang's alter ego is Frehley's Celestial and Gordo's is Simmons' fearsome Demon-but still aren't the authentic performers we've all come to know and laugh at. Only Third Law and Todd McFarlane, creator of the KISS Psycho Circus comic that this game was based on, know why.