Those of you expecting a return to the Prince's former glory may be disappointed, though this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Far from perfect, with a slightly unfair multi-player component for the cash or time impaired, Split Second is still tremendously fun and addictive.

So while World Cup South Africa definitely has some improvements, FIFA 10 is the better game.

Monster Hunter Tri is well worth a look for JRPG aficionados and a welcome new step in the right direction for the Wii, though casual gamers may not enjoy the opening grind.

The crescendo of the plot builds to a ludicrous point - the influence of (now canceled) 24 is extremely apparent, but as the one-man-army that is Sam careens towards his final goal the narrative goes a little over-the-top - not Metal Gear lunacy, but certainly a climax uncharacteristic of the series.

Just Cause 2 is one of the best sandbox games I've ever played. The action is absolutely insane, the plot ludicrous, the scenery breathtaking, and though there is a slight learning curve to get your funky fresh moves down pat, it's well worth the investment, as you find yourself drawn back to it again and again just to round out that last village as you edge closer to the massive task of 100% completion.

If you're a fan of games like Sim City, Tropico, Caesar or even the earlier Settlers games, this game probably isn't one you want to miss. The changes from the earlier games and from other games in its genre are almost all for the better, and it's just generally a well put-together piece of entertainment - whether you prefer to build sand castles or kick them over.

Once embraced and understood, I actually enjoyed the multiplayer more than SupCom 2, RUSE, and yes, even the Starcraft 2 beta. But singleplayer was like a tour of the worst parts of strategy games in the '90s, and hardly a fitting end to the Tiberium saga.

If you're after a story-driven action horror title, grab Metro 2033. The AI quirks don't detract from the outstanding graphics and the overlapping voice-acting only slightly degrades the overall atmosphere.

The reality is the game delivers exactly what any fan of the games could want - epic battles, loads of gore and a plot vehicle that sees Kratos take on the mightiest characters in Greek Mythology.

For your money you get about 15 hours worth of gameplay in a single playthrough, and while that seems a little light in comparison to Origins, it's a decent price for a stand alone expansion pack on a console.

The biggest drawback in HG and SS is without a doubt the random encounters.

If you don't have time for an incredibly long game, don't buy Final Fantasy XIII.

Walk a mile in the Yakuza's shoes and buckle up for a wild, weird and wacky experience only Japan can deliver.

The singleplayer isn't going to win awards, but it's a great training ground for new players.

In all, the game seems to alternate between a wonderful, engrossing experience and a frustrating, incomplete one - and while we can hope that upcoming patches fix many of these (often niggling, sometimes major) problems, for the moment, Silent Hunter 5 remains a interesting but partially-broken game.

With almost every aspect of the game improved and streamlined, one disappointing thing - and something that seriously limits the game's potential - is the lack of a good ladder & match-making system right out of the box.

Heavy Rain looks amazing and it puts in an outstanding effort to further how video games can be used to tell a story, but it's not good enough. David Cage - the game's Creative Director - has argued that Heavy Rain isn't a video game, it's an interactive movie. If you were to remove the interactive part of Heavy Rain and focus on the plot, characters and acting you'd come away disappointed, and by misunderstanding fundamental elements of character representation in interactive media it fails to utilise interactivity to its advantage either.

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is by far one of the best pieces of DLC out there and will give you a minimum of ten hours of gameplay, significantly more if you want to hit the new level cap, and with more Borderlands DLC on the way, they certainly know what the fans want, and how to deliver the goods.

If you've never played a game in the genre before, Ace Attorney Investigations is a great place to start - you'll miss out on the back story and character development, but the relative ease compared to the Phoenix Wright games makes it an excellent starting point, and a great addition to the series.

Sure, the philosophy is more obvious this time and there'll never be a real equivalent to Sander 'effing' Cohen but BioShock 2 still manages to live up to the high standard set by the first game - even if it doesn't exceed it.

The accomplished combat and surprisingly decent adaptation of the story make Dante's Inferno a fine diversion while you wait for the next button-masher... One based in a different set of mythology.

Call of Pripyat is definitely the best STALKER game yet. It's a much tighter package, but for a budget title there is still a hell of a lot to do and The Zone still seems intent on killing you or scaring you senseless.

Some hardcore RPG fans will be disappointed by Mass Effect 2 - the higher focus on the shooter aspects of the first game and the streamlined nature of the combat might turn them away from the game. We'll call this their loss, because one thing is certain - Mass Effect 2 is the perfect blending of Shooter and RPG, mixing Gears of War style battles with one of the deepest, most immersive fictional universes in gaming history.

At the end of the day it may be trite and an unfunny pun, but unless you’re a massive fan of Battlestar Galactica and have the ability to put shonky gameplay to the side, I’ll offer this one piece of advice… Avoid the Void.

It may be strange to say, but part of me wants to live in the Shanghai portrayed in Army of Two: The 40th Day. Not the world crumbling around you part, or the millions of civilians dying part either, more so the absolute black or white dividing line between good and evil, without even the slightest shade of gray.

Darksiders is an absolute must have game, and the best possible way to start off gaming in 2010. In a year where almost every anticipated game is a sequel, Vigil Games has delivered a brand new IP the only way possible - flawlessly. The combination of action and puzzling is so perfectly calculated it screams 'gamer' - there's a gamer at Vigil with some power and s/he knows exactly what we want in a game.

Maybe Platinum Games had deliberately pushed the game so far over the top it became ridiculous and stupid, not out of an attempt to circle on round from stupid back to awesome in that out-there-crazy-no-holds-barred-explosion way, but as a direct parody of all of the previous games which have tried to do that. Maybe Bayonetta isn't a terrible game, but is in fact the pure utilisation of irony to mock both the game manufacturers and its fans!

The whole title is actually engaging and fun to play. I genuinely enjoyed playing it despite it's shortcomings, and I find myself going back to it when I have free time. Players who want to cavort about a highly stylised Paris with a shell of a character will definitely enjoy The Saboteur - those who want substance in their period games might be better off considering 15th century Italy.

Your 15th trip through the barren Hyrule countryside sums up not just dodging trains in Spirit Tracks, but basically the entirety of Spirit Tracks.

It's not Might and Magic the JRPG, but it is both a solid entry into the Might and Magic universe, and the Puzzle-RPG genre.

I've got to recommend it as a purchase - if only because the fantastic free-running, beautiful Italian vistas and engrossing Animus world far outweigh any ludicrous ending or shaky start. If you didn't finish the first Assassin's Creed however, you would do well to find some background information on the story using the magic of the internet - something you really shouldn't have to do.

Regardless of my feelings for The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie, its levels were longer, set in interesting scenes, and did what the Lego games have been doing from the start - paying excellent tribute to one of my biggest heroes.

When it comes to games which offer single and multiplayer, you'd have to be a harsh judge to claim a better first person shooter on console has been released this year, if ever. Modern Warfare 2 is closer to fulfilling the promises made by Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 than any game out there beyond Uncharted 2.

If you told me three months ago we would be suggesting PC gamers hold off on buying Modern Warfare 2 I would have thought you're crazy. But if you are buying this game mainly for multiplayer - especially if you're contemplating serious competitive play at a high level - that's exactly what we're saying. The single player story is great, and if your idea of multiplayer is a quick zap with mates maybe an hour or two a week then by all means - it's great for your purposes. However if you're a Counterstrike, Battlefield, ETQW or even a COD4 player looking for a serious competitive platform to move to - best wait. Wait and see if Infinity Ward can implement dedicated server support.

BioWare has done an excellent job making such a huge game readily accessible while maintaining the vibrancy and richness of the game world, and the depth and strength of the story.

It's absolutely the new generation of the Hero franchise - I just don't think the general public is ready yet.

Even with the pet and the infinite dungeon, Torchlight is very much the definition of a Diablo clone. If you liked Diablo and you want to play it again, saddle up because you are going to love Torchlight.

As singleplayer experiences go it's still phenomenal - especially for a loot ***** (rhymes with boar) like me. I've racked up 25 hours in the game now on just one of my characters - and I'll absolutely play it more.

If the user-generated content goes well it will continue to be a worthwhile purchase months after it comes out - if you're a fan of ridiculous storylines and overblown characters you can't pass up WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010.

Rather than merely adhering to a score like a Metacritic slave, I will say this: FIFA 10 plays a better, more realistic game of football than any football game that has come before it. To do this it has had to take some subtle liberties, but the overall outcome - as we stated up front - is the best footy game of its time. Until next year, or - our sadly frequent disclaimer - if Konami pulls Pro Evolution out of its funk.

People with both a DS and a PSP will probably want to get the game on the DS - it's the better version of the game. If you're a PSP loyalist though, Chinatown Wars definitely rates as a must have on your handheld of choice.

I'm a casual metal fan, and I have a pretty decent knowledge of the tropes of the metal universe, so most of the humour and the overall theme of the game wasn't lost on me, but I'd hesitate to play the multiplayer if it's simply more of RTS lite gameplay. If you're big on your metal, Brütal Legend was made for you and you'll learn to deal with the quirks in the gameplay. Alternatively, if you hate metal there isn't much appeal for you here.

The streamlined nature of the story also helps keep the pace of the game up - and the game rarely takes a breather. When Nathan isn't blasting dozens of enemies he's showing off remarkable athleticism as he leaps across buildings and dives around corners. Naturally all of his companions are just as athletic - the amount of climbing and swinging they do leaves me out of breath just watching.

A huge part of the NBA's appeal is the individuality of its players – 2K Sports has grasped this and more importantly – conveyed it. As a result, we’re damned if we haven’t noticed the maverick souls of Williams, Allen Iverson and Dawkins stirring within the 0s and 1s here - and the game is more "real" for it.

Our problem is where Polyphony Digital has focused their content here. 800 cars and 35+ tracks(which can be played in reverse) is super generous and no small feat to cram into a PSP. We'd trade half of them for a career mode – even if it was a cut-down version of past GT games – so we'd feel like picking the game up for a quick race was actually progressing something more than our track and car count.

The core gameplay of ODST is decidedly average - as such it earns a decidedly average score.

Overall, excluding the jumping puzzles, there isn't anything particularly bad about WET. It's a fun shooter, it's clearly designed for adults, and it gives you a lot of options for looking cool while mercilessly slaughtering hundreds of people.

The more you play Need For Speed: Shift the more you find yourself forgiving the half-arsed attempt at vehicle damage.

The game doesn't have the depth to keep the average gamer interested, especially not for a second round - even with the branching storyline.

The only thing holding back Scribblenauts is the DS. The reliance on the touchscreen hampers what would otherwise be the best new games franchise this year.

It combines the best features of any superhero series with fantastic graphics, solid gameplay and outstanding voice acting. The minor flaws - the easy gameplay, the initially confusing layout of Arkham and the occasional loading time hitch - are all negated a dozen times over by the game's character, atmosphere and attention to detail.

Frustration and lack of tension aside, Osmos is an excellent game. I would only hesitate to recommend this to the most diehard ambient music hater, and I imagine such a person would be too angry for video games anyway.

HOI3 has a steep learning curve and it will be a struggle at first, but once you've got it all under control you can have some serious fun.

Battlefield 1943 definitely has something for all shooter fans. Old school BF1943 will appreciate the map choices and the new ability to destroy what was once cover. New players will come to appreciate some of the best map designs ever all while immediately finding themselves able to compete against veterans.

BlazBlue Calamity Trigger nearly didn't make it out here - which would have been a tragedy. It is one of the most entertaining, bunny boiling insane 2D fighters I've played, though it does have a distinctly Japanese feel to it which may not appeal to all - I'll be there for another round.

Fight Night Round 4 is easily the best boxing game out. Graphically and technically it's unbeatable and it's absolutely an achievement. In terms of gameplay - well, just as Tony Hawk pundits all got used to the FlickIt control system, people will learn to deal with Total Punch Control. I don't like it, and I shouldn't have to, but with everything else the game manages it's forgivable.

In a world where First Person Shooters come free with pizza (Pizza Hut gave away the Battlefield series for a while for those of you leading a healthier lifestyle than me.) The Conduit really doesn't stand out in the crowd. If anything; other, better games are sitting on its shoulders.

Very average in most respects - everything it does right has some element which drags it straight back down. The one thing which makes the game amazing is the attention to detail given to the characters, story and the world they live in.

It doesn't have a lot of replayability in the traditional sense, but Prototype is worth a purchase because at the end of the day, when you've finished the main mission and you unlock New Game + there is nothing more satisfying than coming home, switching it on and punching a dozen people in half.

Virtua Tennis 2009 isn't a bad game - it's more fun than most sports games with three other people at hand - but it certainly isn't a good game. Go and get Virtua Tennis 3 or Top Spin 3 if you desperately need a tennis game on your Xbox 360 though - they're both better.

I honestly never thought I'd see the day where I would recommend a game on the Wii above its Hi-Def console counterparts, but it's genuinely here.

A flawed masterpiece. It has so much to offer on so many different levels, and while it does fall down in a few places I'd heartily recommend it to anyone.

The massive jump in scale, increase in options and improvements in overall quality make The Sims 3 a worthwhile addition to any games library, and while it may be frustrating at first for a beginner, it won't take long for most to get the hang of it. It is well worth the effort - we're now taking bets on how many expansion packs this one will get.

The other thing hampering this games replayability - and playability - is the repetitive nature of the side missions. While thought has definitely gone into the main story missions, the side missions are taken from a stack of about ten different options - kill 14 of these guys, find 12 of these transmitters - and they tend to get tedious fairly quickly.

This is the best brawler I have played in years, and Fight Night Round 4 is going to have to do something truly special to take this one's championship belt.

The biggest issue I have with Terminator Salvation is that it doesn't even try. It's resigned to the idea that it is a shameless movie tie-in, and it's not going to try at all to do any better.

The best reason to buy this is if you don't think you can hold out until God of War 3 - the other reason is if you're a huge fan of the character. You'll find that this is ultimately the definitive version of the Xmen Origins story.

The weirdest thing about this game - I've never had so many gripes and still found myself so incredibly addicted. I played the game all the way through - around 25 hours - in two sittings.

If it weren't for the QTEs during cut-scenes I'd say it was nothing special but nothing brutally terrible and probably worth it if you desperately wanted something like Ninja Gaiden to play.

At the end of the day Guitar Hero: Metallica offers just enough to justify it not just being another track pack - just barely offering enough to be worth purchasing yet another Guitar Hero game.

The game's worst enemy is the clearly rushed production time. You can feel a decent idea inside Stormrise, yearning to get out.

Chinatown Wars is an achievement. It's not the typical kind of game you'd expect on the DS - the learning curve is steeper than normal thanks to the small help text (expected on a portable) and the legions of police and it's a very adult game. Still, I'll gladly take the time to learn if it comes with the entirety of Liberty City, a working drug economy plus people, cars, boats, and the occasional helicopter and next to no loading times.

The teammate AI is painfully bad and it will go down as one of the biggest mistakes in video gaming history. To take you back to the painful train analogy from before, Resident Evil 5 is a train where the engineer is retarded and steals all your god damned ammo. Replace that engineer with a human and you'll have fun with the game.

I love the new "adult" tack Sega are taking with their current Wii line-up and I hope it continues. What MadWorld needs is more complexity, but a lot of what makes it great is the fact that it's so easy.

It takes a hard-line approach at strategy gaming and despite a few hiccups it conquers all those in its path. If it comes to a vote though, I say we go back to Rome and we fix that iffy AI.

It's not a Halo killer, but like Rocky versus Apollo Creed Killzone 2 would last the fifteen rounds.

The clichéd characters, the abysmal voice acting and the repetitive, unrewarding gameplay all reinforce this idea that you are playing a video game - a poorly written, poorly made one at that.

A great game. Even with the few bugs it released with DoW2 is a recommended purchase for any PC gamer. It will run on archaic computers fine and still look fantastic, it plays well in both MP and SP - even if the two are very different - and the core decision to switch things up from the previous Dawn of War is a brilliant way to keep the series from becoming stale.

It's the first game in years which inspired me to play it enough to get a blister on a blister on a blister.

The new music and radio stations are a testament to the attention to detail you'd expect from Rockstar. They went all out to secure new music for the game as well as create brand new shows, ads and news stories, which is fantastic.

The more I played it the less I wanted to as the story got sillier and the horror theme phased in and out. I wouldn't recommend F.E.A.R. 2 to anyone except the ultra hardcore fans of Monolith Productions - even then you'd be better off playing Condemned 2.

Skate 2 is an amazing skateboarding game. It's better than skate., the best skateboarding game out there.

The gorgeous graphics, proper radio customisation, the much better multiplayer and the phenomenal video editor and what it boils down to is... Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC is the definitive GTA IV experience. You haven't played GTA IV before now - not properly. I guess what I'm really saying is... PC Supremacy.

A near flawless epic.

Since we’re stuck with an unrefined and choppy experience, it’s better to dust off some classics and remind yourself what makes this genre so special. After that, give Square Enix a call and let them know.

The biggest issue I face with Left 4 Dead however is that I can't stop playing it. And when I can't play it I'm thinking about it.

One of the biggest early appeals of Mortal Kombat was the forbidden factor, personified by that curtain that appeared around some of the earlier arcade cabinets to shield kiddies from the evisceration. In its quest for broader appeal, that element of MK is now dead and gone.

Shaun White Snowboarding just isn’t very good. With completely uninspiring mountain designs, a pitiful single-player quest and awful controls, there’s really no reason to pick this one up.

There's not a lot to redeem Mirror's Edge beyond its immersive atmosphere. The clipping is probably the worst thing about the game - it's simply inexcusable to have a game rely on something so much only to have it not work when it should.

Soon I found myself scouring the hub world obsessively looking for cool new bits to add to my machines; larger engines, lighter wings, better weapons.

Compared to The Force Unleashed’s Duel Mode, Lightsaber Duels is too simplistic and shallow to warrant purchasing – while it would suit younger fans, the wait continues for the rest of us Star Wars fans for a game that lets us unleash our inner Jedi and use the Wii-mote like a lightsaber in a realistic manner.

Overall Call of Duty World at War is a great game with some great ideas, but it feels too familiar to be a real must have title.

EndWar is probably the best attempt at a RTS on consoles, while it’s far from perfect Ubisoft has managed to find a way to allow you to command an army in short but explosive battles - which should suit most console owners. Even though the single-player is best left untouched and the graphics are not up to par with other new release titles like GOW 2, there’s still a lot of fun to be had here with EndWar if you’re a fan of online gaming.

The story is great, the teen girl soldiers are hilarious, and it’s definitely worthy of a look for those wanting to commit to a lengthy and challenging romp in a war-torn anime world.

Quantum of Solace directly suffers at the hands of a strict movie release schedule - with more time the game could have been the Goldeneye replacement everyone has been dreaming of.

Unfortunately, if you’re waiting for the big gameplay twist that really sets this game apart from the rest, it isn’t coming. What we’ve got is a high definition, high budget, tinsel filled version of the last few games that ads more than enough for fans of the series, but will once again fail to convert the non believers.

Hardcore Fallout fans will either hate Fallout 3 because it's not Fallout or Fallout 2, or they'll love it because it's still a great game set in one of the best freaking universes ever. If you never played the original games and you like shooter/rpg combinations Fallout 3 is a must buy.