And that's Crime Stories biggest folly; it's just not fun. There's nothing remotely interesting to keep you engaged for long periods of time, certainly not long enough to stick with it to the end and the ancient and poorly designed levels combined with some of the most tedious puzzles I've ever had to endure make for a well meaning but entirely failed venture.

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.

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.

Wacky World Sports is one of those games that you like and don't like. Good graphics, fun and enjoyable characters… some flimsy games and terrible sound effects.

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.

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to play and has always had bags of potential, but this recent rehash does nothing other than highlight just how out of date it has become.

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

Right now drift racing has the potential to be the next big thing, so you may as well try something that emphasizes the extreme difficulty it takes to gracefully glide around curves.

It doesn't matter if you are the movie's biggest fan or a young child who can only play simple games; this shovelware deserves no space in your home.

It's like a coin with a good and bad side - sometimes you flip it on the good side and get the really well told story and interesting situations you find yourself in, but then you flip it on the bad side and get some awkward gameplay that really should have been better at this stage of videogame technology.

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.

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

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.

The one thing FSR does the best is prove once and for all that the budget car racer is the most pointless genre ever to be created, and the sooner developers realise this, the better it will be for all of us.

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.

There's an arcade mode, which is identical to the main one but with a level select, as well as a multiplayer mode, but my friends would all get horribly offended if I asked them to play this.

Hard Rock Casino shouldn't be a terrible game, but it is.

The problem is that multiplayer is not enough to save this pointless and empty attempt at creating a new game.

There's clearly talent behind the game, producing quality visuals and a technically impressive and bug-free experience. The plot and characters are dull and lifeless however, and there's nothing here to draw you into the world and make you want to stay.

When Big Beach Sports first arrived I smelled mediocrity a mile off - the worst trait for a reviewer.

The disappointing weaponry visuals are complemented with equally hum-drum sound effects. The assault rifle sputters rather than chattering away and sounds more like a rapid-fire spud gun than a machine of death.

If you can get past the technical issues, Neverend is a very good entry in the RPG/Adventure genre that's best suited for those who play games to experience new worlds, not new technology.

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.

There is a very tiny weeny fragment of game hidden beneath this shambolic detritus but don't waste your time by searching for it. Cops 2170: The Power of Law is outdated, outclassed and outright appalling.

A game that lacks anything even remotely compelling, a short, repetitive, bland, dull mess of a game, the only redeeming feature of which is that Perlman's Hellboy is effortlessly likeable.

It doesn’t happen very often but a hidden gem has slipped under the radar with Scorpion: Disfigured. On first inspection you might dismiss it as ‘just another shooter’. I implore you to look a little deeper as you will find that this game blossoms.

This is a product developed as a labour of love for over a decade, with the core aim of bringing the RTS genre back to its roots, away from the glitz and glamour of 3D graphics and tacked-on RPG elements its creators claim have watered down the genre. Instead however, we end up with a half-finished product, brought to its knees by game-breaking bugs and the absence of key gameplay modes, which ends up looking considerably better than it plays.

Despite its flaws, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning on the GBA does offer a decent handheld-sized bit of side-scrolling platformer action, looking and sounding pretty good in the process. But disappointingly the game comes and goes in the blink of an eye, lasting only around two hours tops with no replay value to speak of.

Paint by DS is absolutely accessible regardless of age or gender and comes highly recommended - if it doesn't blow the casual gaming market open even further then I'll eat my French beret!

Word Puzzle is a nice title for those looking for a decent word search experience in videogame form and the added modifiers such as bomb timers and stringing words together for extra points is a nice idea to bring in a wider audience, but the constricted playing space that's just completely unwarranted really hinders the gameplay when you get to the later stages of the game with larger board types.

If you enjoy darts in real life then you're likely to have some fun with PDC 08, but if you don't then there are many, many more enjoyable and better looking games out there.

This Wii version is horrendous in almost every respect, from its atrocious controls and lacklustre presentation to the very limited content and omissions of key modes.

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

Final Fight was a classic and Streetwise is a long way from some of the crummy remakes that seem to be springing out lately, so if you're the type to go into everything fists flying, then Travers is the perfect character for you.

Zathura isn't a particularly bad title; it just lacks anything that puts it above most other recent releases.

Its main selling point is realism, not in all aspects but enough to make the game more unique than it would first seem. It's flawed, but if you give it a chance you'll discover a reasonable game wrapped up in an excellent story.

Samurai Warriors 2 is a bottle of Saki that's well past its sell-by date.

You are indeed going to need a Will of Steel to play this game, merely because it takes tremendous patience to put up with terrible AI.

A disappointment, considering that the Xbox, PS2 and GBA versions are so much fun to blaze through.

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.

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.

The frustrating and sluggish gameplay is only marred further by some completely uninspiring visuals.

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.

Final Fight was a classic and Streetwise is a long way from some of the crummy remakes that seem to be springing out lately, so if you're the type to go into everything fists flying, then Travers is the perfect character for you.

If this was an Xbox Live Arcade title, then the score would be a little bit higher than it is, but as a full price release, there's just not enough content, and too many problems, to bump GI Joe up into the higher brackets.

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.

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.

When you are attempting to implement two gameplay styles then you'd better be careful that there are no distractions or irritations to the player, or the tentative grip a game has to build upon will be lost. Stranger is still just clutching out with a gauntleted hand.

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.

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.

It is unfortunate that Mana Khemia: Student Alliance is such a technical mess because it might have offered some fun for those looking for a crafting-focused PSP game.

Rapala Fishing Frenzy 2009 is a truly abysmal example of a game. It's broken, heartless and about as fun as attaching fishing hooks to the most sensitive areas of your person.

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.

There's something here for stealth fans, the puzzlers amongst us and those that like a good laugh, but the patience involved in moving from one level to another may have the casual gamer reaching for a title that provides more instant gratification.

There aren't any two player options and the main game is remarkably short. There isn't anything to make you want to play Around The World In 80 Days again, particularly not the tedious and often frustrating gameplay.

With presentation that's lacking flair, no tournament options, sub-standard opponent AI, no rule variations other than 8 or 9 ball pool and limited stimuli to continue playing, Frontline Studios appear to have just gone through the motions with Actua Pool.

As just a basic shooter it isn't actually too bad; but with some incredibly short and easy levels, the game can be completed in a couple of days and you will probably have little desire to play through it again.

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.

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

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

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.

The pictures will likely be too off-putting for this to be enjoyable for fans of Sudoku, and considering it actually makes the game a little trickier to play, I question how suitable this is for children.

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.

Flushed Away isn't a terrible game, but it does nothing to encourage me to go and see the film again, and tarnishes what is easily one of the funniest films of the year.

In short, Ju-On The Grudge is a pointless approximation at a movie tie-in, the name alone being pretty much all there is similar between the two interpretations.

The many, varied game modes will keep you and your friends busy for a long time, while trying to unlock every last cartoon episode is an excellent incentive to complete the whole game.

Sure, there is plenty of content and replay value to be found here, but when the entire gameplay composition and technical makeup are so miserably flawed, the abundance of game modes, cars and tracks is completely useless.

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.

Sure, it's not a long game, the graphics aren't great and there are problems with the AI, but the game is so much fun to play that none of this really matters, especially not for the price tag.

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.

Vampire Rain reeks of a lack of effort; it is hard to imagine that any developer would defend a title so flawed, boring and ultimately devoid of fun.

Those who have played Tekken and Mortal Kombat to death they may find some enjoyment in this fairly simple but engrossing game, which might fulfil your beat 'em up cravings for a little while - just bear in mind that this is most definitely not another Tekken.

Where Eternal Forces does a great job is in the loads of biographies for what would normally be throwaway units. Granted, some of the bio information is strangely comical, but you end up caring about each character under your command. Sadly, there are far too many other characters that might be seen by some as astonishing stereotypes.

And while the graphics are fun, the translation into 3D has been totally mishandled and lost the whole appeal of the gameplay.

This shovelware deserves no space in your home.

If the developers had made more use of the Wii's unique controllers and cranked up the graphics, I could have given this a better score. But, like ordering a Mixed Vegetable Soup at my local Chinese takeaway, I'm going to have to give Legend of the Dragon a number five.

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.

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.

Off Road doesn't redefine bad games or make the genre worse - all it does is make you hate the whole concept of the shovelware title. Why are games like this made and, more importantly, why do people keep buying them?

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

Damnation is an unfinished game, a concept with good ideas and a real sense of scale but terrible implementation in almost every way.

Damnation is assuredly bigger than your average game, but the better for it? Oh my, no: its scale only exacerbates its innumerable deficiencies.

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.

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.

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 as a rental, this game isn't worth the mind-numbing frustration it can cause.

George of the Jungle is a poor effort that, while looking fairly good and staying true to the style of the TV show, features derivative, repetitive gameplay, coupled with such poor controls and such a ridiculously high difficulty that it's rendered almost unplayable.

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.

Despite the intelligent control system, the on-court offensive action rapidly deteriorates into a quick pass, followed by charging the hoop to make the same basket shot/dunk over and over.

Where King of Clubs really excels is in its humour and lifespan.

A reasonable game that shows off every weakness of the DS and every technical deficiency - the under-powered graphics, the limited audio, the lack of full analog controls and the impact of the screen size on the ability to use the bottom screen for precise controls. But the gameplay is also just plain fun.

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.

I truly am blown away by how terrible this port turned out to be.

Monster Trucks DS is the worst game I have played on the DS since its creation. There is not one area of the game that I can drag out any positive aspects out of.

AMF Bowling: Pinbusters is nothing more than a well packaged mobile phone game. It is short, poorly executed, unbearably lazy and has no place in anyone's collection.

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?

You could even call it Mobile Suit - but I prefer Immobile Suit, because few too many problems stand in the way of the gameplay being in any way entertaining or enjoyable.

Code of Honor 2: Conspiracy Island is a game that simply won't appeal to anyone who knows what a real first person shooter experience is like. It isn't over the top or realistic, it isn't exciting or interesting, the story is awful and none of the technical details are even close to being up to scratch either. All it really has going for it is that it installs, you can play it, and, as far as I know, it won't plant a virus on your computer.