Pure, unadulterated joy.

At the end of the day there will be gamers who buy Fable 2 expecting a masterpiece of coding finesse, with every bug squished and a seamless play experience. The nature of the game makes that hard. The reaal challenge is if you can handle the design elements that pull you out of the game world and into the mechanics of gaming. There's plenty of people who can meet that challenge – if you're one of them, you'll love this.

Far Cry 2 is what you might call a risky move. In a culture of playing it safe with first person shooters, Ubisoft Montreal has created a title where you have to essentially make your own fun.

If you like racing games and customising your car get Midnight Club: Los Angeles. Apart from the fact that the AI difficulty setting is locked on "Nightmare" it's a flawless street racing experience. Just be prepared to scream at your TV a couple of times until you come to grips with the fact that You. Will. Never. Win.

The only people I wouldn't recommend this game to are people who fly into a homicidal rage over video game glitches.

Dead Space will play with your mind and keep your heart racing. While the horror element eventually gave way to action and thrills, I couldn't help but feel alert and ready for more the entire way through.

FIFA 09 plays well enough that the little bit of response and reflex you lose on the turf is not enough to stop it being the choice for players heading into summer.

It sticks to the basics of racing games - going fast and looking nice. It combines a well-balanced learning curve with realistic challenges to keep you coming back again and again if you're even remotely interested in racing games Wipeout HD is a must-have game.

The game has two main targets in sight – people who like hardcore, realistic tactical shooters and people who like World War II. While the latter group will get more out of the game than the former, there’s still enough intelligent design, still enough realism to appeal to both equally.

While there are slight drawbacks preventing Pure from being an absolute winner it is nevertheless a well executed racer and another excellent addition to the off-road racer genre from the Black Rock team.

It’s definitely not worth buying a PS3 over, but it’s definitely a must have title if you’re the kind of person who likes to have friends around to goof around with video games.

The story is engrossing and playing around with The Force powers is a treat.

If you can ignore the early level frustrations you’ll feel with the controls and develop a creature which is truly yours Spore is an experience like no other game. A perfect game wouldn’t make you combat clunky controls, but imperfect is still great.

Looks great, is super fun for about five minutes, then every second you play beyond increases the chance that somebody is going to get hurt. If you need to see some terrific visuals and brilliant animation, rent it out then breathe a sigh of relief you didn’t pay full dollar.

A must play game. It’s not a story-driven masterpiece experience like "Grand Theft Auto IV," but it is genuinely fun.

It’s one of the must have original titles on the Xbox Live Arcade – go and get it.

Its remarkable graphics and well thought out and voiced characters mark it as a definite achievement, and the sheer length and breadth of it means dozens of hours of entertainment. Plus there is a dog smoking a pipe.

With new features like Backtrack and old features like Superstar and Franchise mode, Madden 09 is probably the best Madden yet.

There’s a load of play modes to stop you doing the same old thing over and over again, including kickass, not internet play. The funny thing is most of us will settle for obsessively playing one mode anyway, and once again busting for just one...more...go. Not bad for a ten buck investment.

Ultimately however the extra fruit is aimed at making you stick with the game longer (logically enough). And while I wouldn't go as far as to say SC4 has reached the exalted heights of Virtua Fighter it does pretty good in it's own right.

A great game for both newcomers and old school players alike. It’s not the perfect Civ experience for either party, but the compromise is well worth your time.

If you're under 14, or some unfortunate pituitary disorder has rendered your hands miniscule, you can't really go wrong with Guitar Hero: On Tour. Just make sure that when you're touring, it's somewhere devoid of other people and their pitiless, judging eyes.

A hardcore gamer’s game, and it makes absolutely no concessions otherwise.

The unfinished, unpolished story mode, the average graphics and worst of all the frustrating, annoying gameplay make me think the Quality Assurance team on the game must be either punch drunk or non-existent.

When I finished TBC I found myself somewhat surprised. I completed a fight with a particularly nasty assassin when all of a sudden I received a heap of achievements. I waited for the cut-scene to play before checking them out, but by the end of the video I knew what they were.

The PC is an excellent offering, but if you’re without a wheel and you’ve got the choice – grab it on console.

Fans of the Lego Star Wars games, fans of Indiana Jones and gamers looking for a fun distraction even the younger ones can get into will enjoy Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures.

If you haven't already played it on the 360, get it right now and see what you have been missing. If you have played it on the 360, get it right now and play it properly, the way it should have been in the first place.