Rune Factory is a classic example of a game that has bitten off more than it can chew. It tries its best to offer freeform, open-ended gameplay but only manages to provide an increased number of choices to the limited 'kill all enemies' mantra.

Somewhere in Comic Jumper is a solid game, but it's buried underneath muddy controls, terrible jokes and some odd design choices.

Still, as far as us "grown-ups" are concerned, I expect a lot more from my puzzle games, especially when they come from the normally creative genius that is Sonic Team.

There's nothing colourful about Colour Cross; it's a simple puzzle game akin to Picross or a painting version of Sudoku that hasn't been implemented very well.

So the single player game is boring and the multiplayer is mundane and bland. What is left to enjoy about Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi then? Not much at all I'm afraid.

With a gaming pedigree as diverse, extensive and impressive as Gunpei Yokoi's, it's a shame to see his name tainted by Gunpey DS. The only aspect of the game that Gunpey DS exceeds in - lasting appeal - is the one the rest of the game completely rebels against.

The entire package is just out there riding the coat tales of the involving Yu-Gi-Oh games, or the incredibly diverse and playable Pokemon titles. As such, I urge every hard working parent to opt for one of those for their kids instead.

My impression is that Quake Arena Arcade is a half-hearted reboot of a dying game.

With a bit more experience, and a little more know how, Stoked could have been an enjoyable diversion, as it is, it's a broken, twisted shambles, best left out on a bare mountainside without a jumper.

Playable, but only just. The gameplay is stuttering, the controls awkward and the justification for location visitation is non-existent.

As a Mega Man fan, I was sorely disappointed to play a game that does the character so little justice; while as an RPG fan, I found every area of the game - the battles, the exploration, the puzzle solving and the story - shallow and uninspired.

Tales of Symphonia isn’t going to change the shape of the RPG genre, but instead sort of shifts itself somewhere in-between the rest of the mediocre games that have laced the Wii since launch.

If, however, the narrative is tacked on and redundant, and the game itself is a poor copy of greater originals, then the best advice I can give is simple and hopefully more effective than all the faux emotion pulsing through Jewel Quest Expeditions: avoid this game.

One of the biggest missed opportunities I've come across for quite some time and a huge disappointment.

What you're left with is a hastily put together, barely competent multiplayer shooter that looks as though it fell out of the PS2 ugly tree and scraped its poorly rendered face on every branch on the way down.

Predictable, bland and boring, just like Nick Kang, the star of this routine action game that has been routinely converted from the consoles.

Penumbra: Requiem is by far the worst game in the series.

The broken controls of shooting, fighting and strafing coupled with monotonous "Destroy 'X' amount of enemies" missions and ridiculous enemy respawns makes Transformers: Decepticons nothing more than a chore.

House of the Dead 2 is a frustrating game that's best forgotten and whilst House of the Dead 3 is definitely an improvement, it's still nowhere near as good as The Umbrella Chronicles.

Star Trek Online can be considered an impressive piece of fan service but, as a game, is a disappointingly unimaginative and shallow example of the MMO genre with severely flawed, poorly thought out mechanics that do little to draw players away from the powerful embrace of WoW.

I admire the level of customisation available but it seems that this may have detracted from creating an overall enjoyable experience.

The short answer to this question is: not very good. Even if you absolutely love Fallout 3, Operation Anchorage is barely worth a purchase, because all you're getting for your ten dollars is a two to three hour experience of minimal challenge that forsakes the best features of the game to provide a simple, dull, FPS-style quest. leaving a dull FPS-style mission behind.

If I may return to the slightly clumsy sandwich-based analogy that I began with, Fallout 3 DLC is like a BLT made with the driest bread possible; the best way to enjoy your sandwich is to throw the bread away and enjoy the flavoursome bacon, fresh lettuce and juicy tomato on their own. So forget about the stale crust that is Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta - take an Atkins diet approach and just head straight for the filling.

It isn't a terrible game, but neither is it a good one. For those wanting to play a game of poker without the hassle of dealing cards or finding friends to play against then this game is an adequate substitute.

Unfortunately, State of War is only in a state of war with itself and fails to battle convincingly with my time.

Rubik's Puzzle World is a game that simply shouldn't exist, for so many reasons.

It's just a shame that the single player is so darn repetitive - run, STOP, and gun, the AI is also pretty shabby and the game isn't particularly long either, if you can endure more than two levels without getting bored of the same old mechanics.

You can easily play it online or with a real deck of cards for free, and Spades offers little incentive to spend money on a digital version of it with a deserted online community and a lacklustre single player mode.

Unfortunately, for everything that Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires does right, it does several things to remind you that this is the exact same game as DW2, way back in 2000; from the combat to the graphical design and quality, the series has been treading water for years.

You must play until you lose, there are no save places and once you lose you must start all over again from the beginning. This seriously impacts the longevity of the game and playing any mode other than Challenge becomes pointless, with no rewards to soothe your sore thumbs and gameplay that lacks the addictive 'one more go' quality of Tetris and the like.

Like a weak and very old dinosaur that's been resurrected only to find that after years of evolution, it's still the weakest leak in the chain, forever destined to be outdone by stronger and sturdier counterparts.

All in all, there are better sports games and better fantasy games out there, and the fact that there aren’t many “fantasy-sports” games is probably all that will save Blood Bowl from being completely overlooked.

How can the same team that produced the outstanding Fight Night Round 3 - which is arguably the best boxing simulation in videogame history - also associate its name with one of the poorest boxing titles every made? I honestly have no idea - and call me stuck in my ways, but I'm off to download Punch-Out!! from the Virtual Console and have myself some actual fun.

Unfortunately Honeycomb Beat is devoid of quality and originality, and while I'd love to do a Jeremy Clarkson and go on drooling about its redeeming features for another few paragraphs after slagging it off so badly, it just doesn't have any - apart from its massive size, but sadly you'll be bored before you've even scratched the surface.

As a one player game it's filled to the brim with awkward controls and badly conceived gameplay, as a multiplayer title you may be able to convince a friend to take part in a few rounds, but don't expect them to thank you for it afterwards.

The addictive hook that was there at the beginning no longer holds your concentration in the year 2009; even gods aren't immortal and while Populous will always have its place in gaming history, most of its worshippers have long since moved on to the more sophisticated simulations that resulted from Populous's bold and, at the time, groundbreaking design.

A game with plenty of potential that's just devastatingly disappointing in every sense of the word.

Blade Kitten is, overall, a disappointing experience. While functional, it does little to impress and even though it may last a while, there is little impetus to play beyond the first level.

This is a puzzle game wrapped up in a failing license, garnished with shoddy movie tie-in controls and a brazen lack of bravery.

As if repeating enemy models aren't bad enough, the levels sometimes take you back to places you've already visited and force you to fight the same enemies again, just with different spawn points and a little higher difficulty.

Fortix is driven by a sound gaming mechanic that’s almost difficult to criticise. “What you see is what you get”, “Does exactly as it says on the tin” etc, what is easy to criticise though, is the difficulty that gets much too intense for a game designed for 5 – minute bursts, as well as a visual presentation that’s just downright ugly. Combine this with a total lack of clever features and we have a game that’s just a borderline stinker.

Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge fails to achieve what it set out to do. It wanted to be a hugely tactical but still engaging squad-based affair, but the long-winded combat is boring and anything but tactical, while the audio is sure to drive you to turn the volume down and put some music on instead.

It's a disappointing purchase despite the low price and free online gaming, and the desire to create a simple, team-to-team beat 'em up has been Silent Grove's undoing.

There's some limited fun to be had with The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and there are even times when the great game it could have been almost shine through, but plagued with such gaping flaws and wasted potential, the small amount of enjoyment that you might be able to gain never seems to justify the time you spend trying to discover it.

Quite simply, WarPath is a mess. With terrible gameplay, bland graphics, forgettable sound, a whole host of technical issues, and a lifespan shorter than the manhood of a poorly equipped midget, there is little to savour from this game.

Any sense of ambience that the presentation brings to the screen is immediately destroyed by the game's indifferent turn towards the source material it is supposed to be proudly displaying; when the most enticing facet of your game is a foil promo card then you know you have a problem.

My Sims Party is easily the weakest of the My Sims games released so far.

Dodgy controls aside, there's little inherently wrong with Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, yet it's painfully average and just lacks the amount of fun that would warrant a purchase.

It’s a sluggish, unintuitive, stumbling mess of a fighter, with only a handful of redeeming features, none of which raise it much further from the gutter of ineptitude it resides in.

While fans of the show may be more forgiving of its glacial sized flaws and see past the shoddy exterior to the gold that's probably hidden somewhere deep within, this as an adventure game that's too old, too boring and too broken to be of much enjoyment to all but the most hardcore of Law & Order fans.

Disappointingly dull.

The graphics are poor and feel dated, the gameplay isn't really all that fun, the controls are awful, and the number of mechs and the size of the maps have been scaled down, resulting in a game that has lost the epic feel that everyone loves about RTS games.

Monster Madness: Grave Danger would have been one of the weaker PSN games, even at a price of £10 or less, but as a retail game that costs more than three times that amount, it simply can't be recommended.

As downright horrible as this pitiful attempt at a wrestling game was, it did hold a lot of promise for things to come and what could happen if the developers were given the opportunity to do it right.

The DS version should be avoided by anyone wanting to experience a similar thing on the go; the changes made here are just too drastic, and poorly conceived to create anything of much merit. Stick with the PSP version if you must have the Busters with you at all times.

The gameplay is incredibly dull.

A flawed and outdated game that is hard to recommend.

For forty notes there are far better, far prettier, far more-captivating and far better-crafted RPGs than Way of the Samurai 3, and bearing that in mind it’s hard to think of anyone other than the most avid games collector to recommend it to.

Stagnation ends up being the best way I can monosyllabically describe Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Uninspired gameplay mixed with frustratingly dumb A.I. is a recipe for disaster, no matter how pretty your game looks or sounds.

It's almost as if the developers of Dead to Rights II decided to rip out the fun factor that flowed freely through the original, leaving an empty shell of a frustrating and quite dreadful product.

Cars is simply a small collection of novelty mini-games with few redeeming features, other than making good use of all the characters from the film.

FaceBreaker is probably one of the worst games I've ever had the misfortune to play; childlike not only in style but also in design, it definitely isn't worth full price.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is a bad offering, even for big fans of the trilogy.

To say that Transformers: The Game is anything short of broken would be a lie.

The biggest problem with Destroy All Humans!: Big Willy Unleashed isn't the terrible camera, the lacklustre graphics or the uninspiring mission structure; it is purely the way that this isn't a proper Destroy All Humans! game. Yes, you do destroy some humans, but the most fun aspect of the first two games has not been used enough here.

Given that "Samurai Warriors 3" is inevitable, it would be nice to think that the series could develop into something better but, since Koei have refused to even have their hair ruffled by the winds of change, this is about as likely as, well, discovering time travel. There are worse things than Samurai Warriors 2: Empires out there to spend your cold-and-hard on, like chemical weapons or a ticket to watch David Blunkett: the Musical, but truth be told, it would be hard to find as big a waste of money as this on the Xbox 360.

There's potential in this idea, but Zoo Hospital largely fails to realize it, so hopefully if a sequel is forthcoming there will be a lot more to it than what's on offer here.

Not a good game by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not especially terrible.

Not even the presentation of Blood Bowl, which is fairly good in the other versions of the game, can save the DS version from certain doom.

Lastly, for some reason, the rumble feature with the controller is done way too much. The controller shakes during this game more than any other PS2 game I've ever played and all I did was jump.

It's almost as if the developers of Dead to Rights II decided to rip out the fun factor that flowed freely through the original, leaving an empty shell of a frustrating and quite dreadful product.

In fact, all the graphics are dire. Every board consists of the same layout and there's not much effort injected in the classic mode board at all.

Releasing this game in its current state is nothing short of reprehensible and Codemasters current stance of 'too bad' only makes matters worse.

Quite simply a short and boring third person shooter that tries too hard to be edgy and just comes off as more sick and disgusting than anything else I've played.

The battling becomes tiring quickly and Jake's jumping ability is pathetic (which is not good, considering the game sometimes throws you platform styled jump challenges.)

The poor controls, tricky camera and an irritation-filled gaming experience is unfortunately what Shadow the Hedgehog is presented as, and this doesn't deserve to be found under too many Christmas tree's this year.

With its monotonous combat, unimaginative level design and difficulty spikes that'd make even Cliff Richard curse with unbridled fury, it's hard to recommend The Incredible Hulk to the younger audience it's supposedly aimed at.

An uninspired, unimaginative mess of a game full of gameplay that we've seen done before and done better.

A lazy port of a rather under-whelming PC release. The Wii has been criticized, and rightly so, for porting over far too many sub-standard games with poorly implemented use of the Wiimote tacked on to justify their release - And Then There Were None will do nothing but strengthen that argument tenfold.

It plays like it was put together by confused adolescents with broken fingers and no concept of reality. It's buggy, broken, stupid and about as far from funny as a game that's based on a comedic film could possibly be.

Quite simply a short and boring third person shooter that tries too hard to be edgy and just comes off as more sick and disgusting than anything else I've played.

At the heart of this pretty below average game lies potential that could have made a largely enjoyable business management title.

If only the graphics were prettier, some better character customisation was included and the punishment for death had been significantly reduced, then Baroque could have been sitting smugly near the top of the Wii game chart, instead of floundering about in the lower regions.

My Horse & Me is an unfinished product, an experiment in making a horse game on the Wii and somebody somewhere should be ashamed to have slapped a $30 price tag on it.

The poor controls, tricky camera and an irritation-filled gaming experience is unfortunately what Shadow the Hedgehog is presented as, and this doesn't deserve to be found under too many Christmas tree's this year.

While the games in this compilation might have been arcade classics in their day, they don't really stand the test of time and certainly don't benefit from the Wii's motion sensing mechanics.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 is boring. And repetitive. And repetitive. AND REPETITIVE.

Only buy this for the little ones, especially if they're fans of the television program, otherwise there isn't much reason to bother with this - although I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you that!

The gameplay is fun and easy to pick up, just as you would expect from an arcade style sports sim, but the overall package doesn't seem to take itself seriously, due to the parody commentator and muted atmosphere.

Star Trek: Conquest has the look and feel of a free online-based RTS offering, but without the whole online part. The game's Achilles' heel, of course, is its complete lack of depth.

I guess my main issue with Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is that it's simply a bad game and also that it's just so disappointing.

Back at the Barnyard: Barnyard Games feels somewhat patronising to youthful gamers; corners seem to have been cut to get it onto the shelves in time for Christmas and the main downside is the lack of variety.

I'm sure that there are excellent and enjoyable visual novels out there, ones that handle character with subtlety, story with passion, and don't treat the reader like an uninitiated idiot - but Lux-Pain isn't one of them.

The three areas, while containing approximately ten levels each, aren't particularly taxing and while a child may find them quite tricky no adults will be left scratching their heads for long.

What we've ended up with is a shambles, a game that looks boring and plays badly - a game that feels as ancient as the mythical beasts that you must vanquish.

MLB Front Office Manager is a game with a lot of potential, as demonstrated by the thoughtful inclusions of thirty-player online leagues and a fantasy league. However, its admittedly slick interface is maddening in terms of design, resulting in a game that's extremely hard to play because it takes far too much effort just to accomplish one simple thing, quickly sapping you of the will to continue.

This game simply wasn't ready for release and I think it is an affront to gamers that you have put LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy for the Nintendo DS on the shelves in such a clearly unfinished state.

Even at its budget price, it's hard to recommend Fish Tycoon to any party, hardcore or casual.