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.

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

With such a poor fighting engine, you're going to get bored very quickly; tapping on one button isn't going to please most fighting fans.

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.

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.

The release of Peggle, and of course, Plants vs. Zombies, demonstrates that they can cater to gamers of all types, but releases like the Mystery P.I. series leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth and will offer little enjoyment beyond the non-gamers who might find a pleasant but short-lived distraction here.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Kids aren't going to want to rescue the bad guys of the movie, kids want to explore the factory, swim in the chocolate lakes and hijack cars.

Even die-hard Fight Club fans who give it a little try, just to play as their favourite characters from the film will be woefully disappointed at the wasted use of the license.

This is mocking everything that has made the PC version so famous. Unless you enjoy waiting on an almost silent, graphics diffuse gaming experience, or are the largest Zoo Tycoon fan in existence, stay far away from this title.

Undercover: Dual Motives is a featureless landscape of a game that whilst visually respectable is horribly cliched with poor writing, shallow stereotypes instead of well formed characters and a largely uninteresting story.

All aspects of the gameplay have been done so much better in other film tie-ins, there aren't any hidden levels to explore or extra options to encourage you to play outside of the main game mode and you really can't be bothered to write down the passwords they give you in place of any decent save game function.

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.

It has the feel of a game that was brought out simply to make money off the back of a popular TV show, not something that has had loving care poured into it so the gamer can have a great experience.

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.

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.

PDC World Championship Darts 2008 is a game that really has no reason to exist.

I personally wouldn't recommend ArchLord to anyone; there are much better games out there and much better ways to waste a few hundred hours or so.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A proper next-gen update to the classic franchise is something I'd love to see, but with its myriad of flaws and questionable change in style, this game simply doesn't cut the mustard.

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.

Hard Rock Casino is a poor game that could have been thoroughly enjoyable; however, the lack of polish, presentation and playability make this a game I simply cannot recommend. I like to make a bet every now and again, but place your money on Hard Rock Casino and you're backing a guaranteed loser.

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.

As a tool for learning, Animal Genius doesn't have enough going for it to be considered viable. It lacks any sense of fun or enjoyment to tether the educational aspects in with the mini-games. Scholastic has released a half-hearted Educational Videogame that fails at both of the tasks it sets itself.

This shovelware deserves no space in your home.

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.

The last thing about the gameplay I want to bring to your attention are the glitches that somehow got by undetected by the six testers listed in the credits. These range from projectiles colliding with your opponent but having no effect, to performing fatalities then having the game crash. With six testers on board, that's pathetic - did they even play the game before its release?

Simply shocking; it is a poorly put together mishmash of ideas that never gels. Ugly, repetitive and painfully boring, its mercifully short length and rousing orchestral score are its only redeeming qualitites.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Disappointingly dull.

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.

Looney Tunes: ACME Arsenal is just a slightly below average platformer hiding behind a powerful licence.

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.

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.

Ugly, repetitive and painfully boring, its mercifully short length and rousing orchestral score are its only redeeming qualitites.

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

A pretty-looking but utterly mediocre gaming experience that's little more than space invaders with terrorists. The concept is sound, the storyline is okay, but the implementation just doesn't work.

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.

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

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.

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

Winter Sports 2009: The Next Challenge is a budget title in every sense of the word. While the cheap price point and promise of numerous events may entice some gamers to give it a go, the repetitive and frustrating control scheme, the complete omission of online gameplay and overall lack of polish will turn most people off before long.

7 Wonders of the Ancient World isn't a bad puzzle game, it's just that there are so many more puzzlers out there that surpass it.

Its gameplay is niggling and its humour is trite and stale.

Kids aren't going to want to rescue the bad guys of the movie, kids want to explore the factory, swim in the chocolate lakes and hijack cars.

Mah Jong Quest Expeditions is so empty of challenge, intrigue or enjoyment that it can quite rightly be described as a hollow shell.

Simply shocking; it is a poorly put together mishmash of ideas that never gels. Ugly, repetitive and painfully boring, its mercifully short length and rousing orchestral score are its only redeeming qualitites.

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.

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.

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.

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

Stronghold has always been a series that was pleasingly enjoyable to play and has always had bags of potential, but this recent rehash does nothing other than highlight just how out of date it has become.

Kids aren't going to want to rescue the bad guys of the movie, kids want to explore the factory, swim in the chocolate lakes and hijack cars.

So much potential is wasted in poor execution, unfinished code and sloppy graphics that I can only recommend this game if you really have nothing else to play or are simply aching for a new WWII style shooter.

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.

Kids aren't going to want to rescue the bad guys of the movie, kids want to explore the factory, swim in the chocolate lakes and hijack cars.

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.

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.

A pretty-looking but utterly mediocre gaming experience that's little more than space invaders with terrorists. The concept is sound, the storyline is okay, but the implementation just doesn't work.

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.

Somewhere in Infernal: Hell's Vengeance is a solid if unspectacular addition to the shooting genre, but that game is buried under a pile of technical issues and poor design choices that ruin any chance that the game had of making an impact in an extremely competitive genre.

Reasonable graphics are let down severely by atrocious, uninteresting and frustrating gameplay, ill-considered sound and very little incentive to keep playing.

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.

This game doctor is diagnosing Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Ward as having contracted a terminal case of tedium, with symptoms that include repetitiveness and tiresome gameplay.

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.

A poor expansion, with not much in the way of expanding on the previous. In fact it's possibly made the game a damn sight less playable, although hopefully my love for Total War will return with time.

Megamind: The Blue Defender is a below than average attempt at a platformer.

A game has suffered from over development of one facet of its gameplay at the expense of the other. While the tournament aspects are as close to a perfect representation of the real world of Beyblading as you could expect from the Gameboy Advance, the RPG elements appear to be an afterthought added to tie the game to Season 3 of the anime.

And, well, that’s about it. You jump between islands (well, still shots of islands), you give and receive arbitrary gifts from Zack and the other girls which supposedly determine who will and won’t be your friend (these girls really are quite shallow y’know) and you play a bunch of dire mini-games. If that sounds fun – Paradise is the place for you, or Zack Island, or, whatever it’s called.

If you haven't realized by now, Godzilla: Unleashed fails on every level - the only thing I can credit it for is being just about playable.

Godzilla Unleashed is a latter-generation PS2 title arriving just in time for Christmas - it doesn't play well, it doesn't look good and it doesn't offer anything new.

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

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.

Given twice the time to work on this, nFusion Interactive could have delivered a solid Unreal-powered shooter, but everything from sound to AI seems to have been rushed for release.

Maybe if it had a modicum of quality – I mean you would think that the extra development time provided by the wait for a new publisher might have led to a more polished, refined experience, sadly, just as in the case with nearly every other primetime TV tie-in, Prison Break: The Conspiracy is little more than a rushed, poorly developed title with very little in the way of a saving grace.

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.

Everything about it is unpolished (save for the bearable shooting), from the graphics to the lack of any comprehensible plot, demonstrating why you should just go and see the movie instead.

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.

The developers of Jenga World Tour have done pretty much all they can to make the game reach its full potential - it's just that it never had much to work with. Single cartridge multiplayer would have helped a great deal, but even that wouldn't have lifted it into the average category.

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.

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!

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

This leads me onto the AI, of which I'm not sure there actually is any.