Despite the undeniable popularity of the series, this third game would do well to take time off to reinvent itself for the inevitable sequel next year. While it doesn’t shirk on the number of game modes available, the actual substance of these offerings doesn’t add up to much.

Awkwardness resulting from the terrible camera and hopelessly lazy last-gen elements will soon see your Spidey Sense telling you to bite through the control pad in abject frustration.

Jericho works really hard to build up a tense and involving game environment, but then can’t quite deliver the game to match. Confusing at the points where it needs to be clear and, only sporadically showing glimpses of what should have been, Jericho is a perfectly reasonable experience, but hardly essential.

Hard and furious paced play from this eighties arcade classic. We would have preferred to have seen a port of the superior NES version though.

The physics that enable you to make the earth move certainly work and will provide laughs in abundance for the first hour or so. However, when everything else about Fracture is a retread of shooters past, it’s hard to feel anything else but disappointment that the brilliant gimmick has been squandered on a brief, just above average shooter.

You'll need to go back one generation of Xbox to find video gaming's fines football title ["Pro Evo Soccer 6"]. [Issue #3]

It’s a perfectly sound release but with so many top-notch shooters to choose from already, this is barely going to factor on the radars of many people. The shame.

It's unquestionably last-gen in looks and often becomes massively tedious in terms of how it plays. [Issue #9]

There are plenty of flaws in the gameplay, meaning the game doesn’t run as smoothly as we’d like, but there’s possibly enough for fans of this type of game keep them interested enough to battle it out right to the end.

Despite some fun online co-op and versus play, Frogger just isn't as good as you remember it. [Issue #16, p.77]

Give it five minutes and Root Beer Tapper can lead to hours of enjoyment. [Issue #23, p.72]

Nowhere near as diabolical as last year’s two-fingered salute to its fanbase, and rendered so sweetly you’ll not see a prettier Sonic game on the 360, although you can sure play one on Xbox Live. Unleashed doesn’t upset or anger, and only really frustrates if you give a damn about high scores, but it doesn’t enchant either. It exists, and it does a fine job of doing so, but it rarely entices.

It’s good, harmless fun and the strategy side of things is still pretty tight, albeit without the wonderful management of the Empires games.

A barely passable movie cash-in that shoehorns the film’s plot into a simplified adventure game and offers little to nothing beyond this.

Feels like a game that was made out of obligation to the movie. [Issue 17, p.74]

Besides the poor camera angle, it's easy to play and is challenging enough to hold your attention for an enjoyable and borderline addictive experience. [Issue 18, p.87]

Overly complicated and almost no fun to play. [Issue 17, p.68]

It's too short, missing a multiplayer and plays too much to a market alienated by its 12+ rating. [Issue 25, p.60]

An average port of a dated and infuriatingly tough arcade game. [Issue 21, p.59]

Worth it if you’ve got a gaggle of screaming kiddies to keep quiet or you simply want a quick 1000 Gamerpoints (the game is very generous), Party Animals certainly won’t be cut the mustard with anyone who’s gaming habits extend beyond the casual.

It could have been an excellent action title, but as it is, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is unlikely to appeal to either Dynasty Warriors fans or Gundam nuts. The gameplay is stale, the AI is bad and the action is repetitive. The strongest part of the package is the mecha and getting into the cockpit is great. It’s just a shame that the rest of the game falls so short.

While it was never going to be a contender for Game of the Year, Monster Madness has failed to deliver in nearly every sense. It could have been worse, but by the same token it could have been a whole lot better.

Alicia is an enticing central character and the setting is delectably decayed, but playing her is just simply average and consistently lacks consideration for the player. She's a witch all right. [Issue #23, p.52]

Unoriginal, unexciting and uninspired: a cheap collection of poorly conceived mini-games and show references, held together by a script resembling bad fan fiction. If a good use of a license appeals to fans while spinning its successful elements into a game, then Lost: Via Domus is the opposite of this.

If only Blueside had maintained the game's strategy element, rather than trying to make this too action-heavy. It's definitely a missed opportunity, but at least the developer is trying to do something different for a change, we suppose.

If you enjoy customising your car, however, you'll quite possibly wet your pants with excitement. [Issue 17, p.67]

A surprising failure. There’s some longevity (for the really patient) in trying to get every accessory and every costume, and even winning over the other girls has its challenges. But the core games just aren’t very good, and there’s no discernable improvement over its Xbox predecessor.

Though very much an acquired taste, Samurai Warriors 2 Empires is more or less a godsend for anyone wanting a strategy fix out of their 360. [Issue #23, p.62]

A dull, repetitive slog against unresponsive A.I. across hideously detailed environments. [Issue #16, p.62]

Packing all the charm and charisma of a shareware PC game (only considerably more expensive), Tetris Evolution is as dull as it is tedious. Don’t be seduced by its empty promises of Tetris goodness at a bargain price, get something else instead.

The multiplayer seems to work well enough and we hope for some tasty downloadable content to coax us back in later in 2008. However, it’s a tough market out there right now for average fantasy fayre and as a single player game, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements just doesn’t quite have the spark to stand out.

The whole thing feels like a massive missed opportunity. [Issue #10]

Putting aside the sub last-gen graphics, the stunning lack of variety in the gameplay when you have seventy years of material to drawn upon is unforgiveable. There is no other way to view Superman Returns: The Videogame as a cynical cash-in that makes a mockery of a character that deserves so much more.

It might run smoothly and offer a half-dozen modes, but Novadrome is the type of sterile, seen-it-all-before mid pack performer that there was no reason to produce. [Issue 21, p.57]

Not even one to recommend to diehard flight sim fans. In a relatively short space of time, Ubi has become one of the leading software publishers and really doesn’t need tat like this sullying its reputation – particularly when it’s perfectly capable of creating fantastic games all of its own. Bizarre.

The main issues we found with WCP2 stem from the career mode, with wildly fluctuating difficulty levels...and no real way of gauging opponent strength until you're at the table. [Issue 25, p.58]

Sadly, Fuzion Frenzy 2 gets so carried away with enhancements and tricks, that it loses sight of what made the original work in the first place. A real waste. [Issue #23, p.71]

The game seems to depend on a couple of nice ideas that you’ll repeat over and over again, thinking merely of the satisfaction of finishing the adventure rather than the fun you’ve had playing it.

The difficulty of events varies wildly and it’s hard to accept that inconsistency, but if you absolutely must know if you can ‘virtually’ run faster than your mates it can prove a reasonable diversion, and a fair way of spending a few summer evenings slumped on the couch.

A game that simply doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Constantly spawning enemies. A lead character with no hands. Unskippable cut-scenes you must continually sit through. Solid walls that light can leak through. NPCs that can be shot at, but not harmed. Action sections that feel like a movie you just happen to be walking through, and not interacting with.

The Live Arcade shoud be the home of great new franchises not tired old games like this. [Issue #16, p.73]

It’s not particularly next-gen visually, the loading times are so slow, and it has the most infuriating try-and-die mechanic of any 360 game we’ve played. If you’re a Sonic fan then you might glean some brief pleasure from this, but it is likely to disappoint and infuriate rather than entertain.

Iron Man only just scrapes itself above being a typical movie tie-in title by virtue of some nifty flight controls and the excellent suit. The missions are fun but repetitive and with a lack of a proper checkpoint system and muddy backgrounds, this fails to take off into the stratosphere of a top-quality 360 experience.

There's a good game in there somewhere but it's hidden behind the arm waving loopiness that takes up the majority of the game.

Science Of Evil sits comfortably among the worst games we’ve played this generation. It’s so mind-numbing and monotonous that if you’re not careful, you can almost zone out entirely white playing it and not take in how amazingly poor it is in every single respect– you’ll come to several minutes later to find you’re still tapping the X button (Square on PS3, unless you love jumping), still winning and the top and bottom corners of your telly will have melted to make it look a bit like a sad face. Okay, so the last one didn’t actually happen to us, but at least it would have made things vaguely interesting.

It's relatively cheap at 400 MS points, but even that's too much to pay for something you'll grow tired of quicker than the game takes to download. [Issue 21, p.58]

And while it’s a solid enough shooter that’ll largely cure the itch for frag-heads, it just fails to do anything to particularly excite.

Winter Sports 2009 simply does the job. It is easy to play and offers a fair amount of entertainment – and at a welcome bargain price that will appeal to many sports fans. However, with poor presentation values and only a handful of really fun or challenging events, it’s a game you’ll be unlikely to dig out on a regular basis unless you’ve an unquenchable thirst for competition or a few mates up for some multiplayer action.

There’s just no way to justify spending seven-odd quid on something that wouldn’t be out of place on a mobile phone and that’s exactly what this is – a decrepit and distinctly dull few seconds of gameplay repeated ad infinitum, failing entirely to cash in on what is a potentially brilliant concept. Keep your points in your pocket for now.

Decent stealth elements and a fun Live play can't quite redeem what is a deeeply shoddy game. This is the next-gen era of gaming, so why does this feel like it's from 1997 and not 2007? [JPN Import, Issue 24, p.75]