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.