I can now safely say that I've started to see the attraction of NASCAR.

There are better games already out, but if you’re bored of them, need a trophy boost or just have an interest in this kind of shooter, know that it is an above average game, but at a price that should be reserved for much greater games at this length.

While the best part of the package lies in the repetitive but gratifying fist fighting system, a few more issues frustrated me to the end.

Race Driver GRID is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played and certainly one of the most exciting. You'd be a fool for missing this one. With better handling this would have been my first 10 score given for a very long time.

Grid won’t be for everyone, the handling is to blame for that, but Grid is far from stale and is exceptionally good at delivering wow moments, something that many other games in the genre fail to do.

The game looks and sounds as good - and with moderately decent hardware looks even better.

The story and general game play is very good. The game on a whole is good but is no better than Star Wars or any worse for that matter. It’s just a shame it’s let down by some poor finishing in places.

I can only recommend this game to hardcore fans of the genre. Others would find it hard to get much enjoyment from it, especially when there are a lot of great RTS classics out there. This game is six years old and looks it m’lord.

Given the new found popularity Limbo of the Lost has gained over recent weeks this may go down as a cult classic. However that’s not to say that the game is so bad it's good, the game is so bad it's an insult.

The words stunning, engrossing and addicting just don't do this game justice, and if it wasn't for my belief that no game will ever be truly perfect (as well as the vehicular silliness and the occasionally suicidal squad antics), the score you see below would have crept into double figures.

When you're making a game that's purely designed for online play, you have to make sure the basics are in place, and the frame rate is the fundamental factor in all shooters, but in Quake Wars it's all over the place, which is a shame.

This is loooooong term fun. This is rich in character and beauty. This is an ode to an author who started something huge.

By the end of the game I ended up hating both sides, which was perhaps the intention, but I wanted to be able to play the game my way.

It remains the best incarnation of the franchise.

As a videogame it's no great shakes really. But as a way of adding some interesting and fun exercise into your life it works very well indeed.

A really terrific game of football. The pace of play, the ball physics and the AI combine to make a top notch simulation of the sport. On the higher difficultly levels there's a very strong challenge ahead of you.

Maybe not for the hardcore gamer, Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble will really only appeal to niche market, but it is a wonderfully crafted game that rewards those who just want to sit back and be enthralled by a simple yet clever game that is completely unique in many ways.

Really good, easily approachable games are pretty hard to come by – especially on the Wii, but Boom Blox is a triumph in many respects. Whether you're playing on your own or with your friends or family, the game's difficulty slant and physical appeal drags in players and voyeurs respectively throughout the entire duration.

No-one’s going to argue over a couple of quid really, and if you’re looking for a lateral thinking puzzler, there can be no doubt that Sony has brought another unique product to the ever diversifying PlayStation Network. Just try not to fall off the edge.

GTA IV is the best game in the series. It's a triumph - especially in terms of design and character performance

Previous control schemes have always worked well with Mario Kart, and you can still use variations on these by adjusting your options, but the new wheel just feels so intuitive you’ll be wondering why they bothered including them.

A feature that is touted impressively then lets down over the course of the game is the animation and general cinematics.

Sitting down for half an hour will quickly lead to you looking at the clock and only to discover its 5 am three days later.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is a system selling game, it's too beautiful in adverts and demo mode not to. But it marks a failure of evolution in a series that was once groundbreaking and is now becoming a little stale.

It is a shame that you can’t simply fight the standard troops well enough for your friends to flood the main enemy and help you out there, but it seems to be a one man band at each Shaman or Champion, your allies acting as background help rather than making a real difference to the battle.

Again, it’s nice to see the duality of the FFVII games, (it is Zack that falls into Aerith’s church this time), and a genuine attempt to develop the universe so many of us love, but simplifying the battle system, story and general style of discovery and transport leaves Crisis Core being a welcome spin off, but no replacement for a real sequel.

The tracks do a good job of combining a load of remarkably great songs with the simple fact that they were released in the same decade.

Even the fast turning speed with beautiful motion blur seems to add to the sometimes frantic feel of the game.

Taking into account the design flaws, AI inconsistencies, the lack of progression and that the PS2 version is arguably a lot better (and cheaper) than the ‘next-gen’ versions yet again (albeit very little different to PES 6 save for some subtle differences), but also taking into account that for some people the frame-rate issues and online play aren’t as bad as they are for others, PES 2008 still just about manages to scrape a six.

It won’t set your gaming world on fire, and FIFA might even be the better option (it’s a close call, much closer than on the PS3/360) but if you do have the PS2 version and fancy carrying on with your Master League on the move (and are prepared to put up with the control foibles), or just have to have the latest version, PES 2008 is unlikely to disappoint.

If you can grin and bear your predictably initial lacklustre performance, you'll soon realise you're within the grasp of one of the greatest Wii games to date.

The single, or should that be double, player campaign is a bit on the short side, but it’s quite replayable due to being fun with a friend, and the multiplayer is good for a blast, just hope some new maps turn up for it pretty soon.

Unfortunately, overall, it just falls short of the mark. Though you'll definitely be aware you're playing a God of War game – so much so that it's hard to write a review without an odd sense of Déjà vu – it makes itself apparent quite early on that it's a diet version.

There’s a good game here, with at least twenty hours of gameplay to keep you occupied, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, even if this wasn’t essentially just a re-release with a few added extras.

You can’t help but feel cheated by the lack of polish overall on this game as a PC gamer. Spark has taken the tried and tested graphical powerhouse that is the Unreal III Engine and churned out a straight port of a console game that takes all the power of the modern PC and totally ignores it.

While far from faultless, this is one game PSP owners cannot afford to miss, and hopefully one that will capture the hearts and minds of developers for years to come.

Frontlines isn't exactly an original game but it mostly succeeds at what it's attempting to do. As an online shooter it has plenty of legs and you're likely to have more fun here than in Quake Wars or the online portions of other shooters released recently.

With the game populated by ‘real’ people, it will entertain, especially through the wide selection of games but make sure you invite enough kids, because if you have to play to fill in the numbers and an AI dinosaur beats everyone it doesn’t fill the room with much pleasure.

While it’s a great game, if you bought your 360 to see high definition graphics and all new gaming experiences, N+ won’t satisfy your modern hunger for High Definition. But if you liked the flash game, rate gameplay over graphics and don’t mind paying just over a fiver for some old fashioned entertainment, buy it… but be prepared to destroy the odd controller at certain difficult levels.

Sufficient sums up Iridium Runners quite succinctly. It's surprisingly entertaining, especially with four of your friends in multiplayer, but it's by-the-book in every way and you simply need more to be able to compete with today's higher profile offerings.

I really disliked the single player aspect, but the multiplayer saved the game in my eyes.

Dynasty Warriors 6 is a hard game to recommend to anybody that hasn’t enjoyed the series before or expects a bit more depth from their gaming, while at the same time unlikely to disappoint those wanting more of the same.

With one of the most engaging and mature stories that I have played in quite some time, great visuals and well designed and acted characters (not to mention Nobuo Uematsu’s expectedly brilliant soundtrack), Lost Odyssey did not let me down, despite great expectations.

The sequel is out in Japan. The sooner it arrives, the happier I will be. If it’s not as good as the first, I may resort to self-harm.

Sky Diving remains a cheap and cheerful title that will get your Sixaxis muscles flowing again.

A shamefully small amount has changed with each game apart from graphical upgrades, new characters and some abilities, but it's still an entertaining formula, and DMC4 is proof of that.

Overall this is a fairly solid title, nothing awe inspiring yet nothing dismal, and unfortunately for a movie tie-in that is quite an achievement.

Sins of Solar Empire is a must have for any strategy fan and is definitely a contention for game of the year. For me it just falls short of a score of ten.

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice is the sort of game ‘real’ gamers hate to acknowledge, and having it in my collection makes me feel somehow illicit, like a raw-foods vegan tucking into a Big Mac. It’s bold, brash, skin-deep but oddly irresistible, and while it doesn’t leave my desk with a firm recommendation, fans of arcade action could certainly do worse.

It is a lot of game for your money, especially if you have the patience to slog your way through it all, much like more classic video games that we remember fondly, but it does bear more than a passing resemblance to ‘Desktop Tower Defence’ (Google it) in its gameplay choice.

It’s hard to see anyone over the age of 12 getting enough enjoyment out of M&S DS to recommend it as a purchase, and then only if they have friends with the same game.

Criterion has made a major mistake removing crash junctions and replacing them with the rather poor red-headed stepchild showtime. But the racing events and seamless online integration mean that Burnout Paradise remains a game that I can still highly recommend.

Criterion has made a major mistake removing crash junctions and replacing them with the rather poor red-headed stepchild showtime. But the racing events and seamless online integration mean that Burnout Paradise remains a game that I can still highly recommend.

It’s something worth experiencing even if you end up coming to the conclusion that it isn’t for you, your gaming perspective will have been broadened.

I don’t want to play this game anymore, and I can unreservedly suggest you don’t play it either. Go swat flies instead – you use the same motions and will achieve more satisfactory results.

Your girlfriend might like it, your mum might even like it, but with all of the excellent games coming out on all platforms over this holiday season we reckon it’s only worth a quick play through to justify to yourself why you spent the cash to buy the newest version of the EyeToy.

Hardcore fans of the original will either be apologetic of NiGHTS shortcomings out of loyalty to the original, or be completely incensed with the shoddy production values.

With over 40 characters to master, there’s a fair lot of classic brawling to be had here. Had it actually included a more substantial experience, rather than feeling so empty, it’d definitely be worth recommending to both fighting fanatics and casual goers alike. Instead, it feels more like a relic of a past age, thrown together to into an exceedingly demo-like affair.

Epic Games has done a great job in returning the series to its roots, and while there are plenty of new additions in there, the core gameplay remains fast, frantic and as action-packed as ever.

Avoid Unleashed like you’d avoid Godzilla himself.

Really this is the definitive Dragonball Z game, for the fans anyway, there’s not much they can do to improve it, bar maybe a class system and some working net code.

Not to say that it isn’t fun, but Pain is clearly a victim of its own hype.

Not to be missed, in short. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s an abyss of self-reproach I should be wallowing in.

What's up with having an analogue controller that can only aim in the old style 8 directions? What's up with the huge loading times and rubbish user interface design? All these failings could be solved in patches in the future but they really shouldn't need to be.

The more time you spend interacting with the characters and the world around you, the more you will enjoy the wonderful experience it has to offer. This is a galaxy truly worth saving.

It may however still end up being my game of the year; 8/10 for a £180 game is still a pretty incredible recommendation.

It looks and sounds ok, but one play through and you’ve seen all you need to see. Mindless blasting can be fun, but this is soulless blasting.

Geo Wars offers you the same, basic and fun gameplay but with the added twist of a level structure. However, it really is all about shooting and avoiding getting shot. After a few hours play I found I was just stuck in the same groove and the game doesn’t offer much in the way of variety.

With little additions to the franchise, a decent but not mammoth amount of maps, and some pretty standard gametypes saved by Warfare (that I’m not even so keen on) it’s only the extension to the Single Player Campaign that saves the score from being considered little more than an expansion pack.

I encountered a number of bugs on my play through, to varying degrees of seriousness.

It capably provides its gun and grenade ridden action entertainment, but disappoints only because of the massive marketing campaign that led us all to believe we were in for something extra special, rather than the adequate but ultimately not stand-out shooter we have here.

Even with "Halo 3" and "Bioshock" adding to my 360 game collection, Assassin’s Creed has stepped in and stopped me worrying about what to choose for our ‘Game Of The Year’ article this year. Clear enough for you?

Smackdown vs Raw 2008 is an unpolished game. It's an odd thing to say because it's basically an annual update on a game that's always been pretty good.

It’s not a perfect port, however, but much like my breakfast this morning it’s still good enough to keep you planted on the sofa for a few hours and bask in its goodness.

It was always going to be a struggle, but EA didn’t help itself with poor controls, a visually horrendous game and the need for a more varied and challenging racing game.

By taking out the two aspects of the series that made it stand out from the slew of other racing games on the market, Need For Speed ProStreet ends up as an exercise in mediocrity and offers nothing new or remarkable.

With ample moves, special attacks, dozens of characters and a couple of extra good modes to boot, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that matches the level of quality seen in SNK’s latest release.

A budget game being sold at an inflated price, likely to fans of the genre only. But I’m still really looking forward to Orcs & Elves II on the DS.

With the lack of challenge, the absence of fun and no attempt at providing an experience for it’s target audience, EA has managed to produce one of the worst ‘games’ (if it can even be called that) that I have ever had the misfortune to play.

The game works well because it doesn't stray from the known formula, but at the same time it leaves you with a strange sense of having done it before.

On the one hand it offers reasonably entertaining action and a good mix of strategy and battling, with some excellent music and a strangely compelling story mode to play through. On the flip side, dodgy AI and a feeling of being detached from the game at times can raise the question of whether you’re really having fun, or if you just think you are.

A finely-poised slice of real-time tactical action. Tactical Strike won’t pry you away from the likes of Company of Heroes, and series purists may lament the loss of direct control, but it stands foremost of its genre in the handheld arena.

Eidos and Beautiful Game Studios are getting there. It’s a slow process yes, but they are getting closer. If they can concentrate on more of the basic stuff, team talks and being more interactive with players, rather than on the fancy stuff such as the 3D matches, then next years match could be a close one.

So, £25 or thereabouts for some reasonably entertaining times (and a few real stand-out sequences) over about 10 hours, 500 or so easy Achievement Points, and that’s about it. If that seems worthwhile to you, then go for it.

The game is enjoyable and has some great stand-out moments, but it’s very much a case of the more of the same here.

It seems to borrow too much, and doesn’t really deliver in terms of an immersive story, hoping that the gameplay itself will be addictive enough to keep an audience captive and paying extra per month.

Despite all of the points I’ve raised, however, the only true measure of a MMORPG is whether you are still enjoying and paying to play at the end of your ‘free’ 30 days, and as of the time of this writing, I am doing precisely that.

The one aspect that does feel out of place though is the game’s approach to sex. Geralt can basically one-night-stand his way through many of the world’s female NPCs, with the game issuing incredibly tacky “sex cards” of the women in each encounter.

A great game, perhaps unfortunately overshadowed by the number of higher profile FPSs being released around this time, and let down only by an overly confusing plot.

Would your parties be better with a quiz show to add to your Karaoke marathon? If so, Buzz: The Mega Quiz is the one for you.

I enjoyed it as a mindless entertainment that kept me going through each level by incentivising the cinematics.

Manhunt 2 isn’t a bad game as such, and had a lot going for it, if it had been released in the PS2’s heyday. It wasn’t, and a year later, those polygons aren’t looking any smoother.

The best game in the series so far and well worth adding to your collection. If you are new to the series however, I would recommend starting with an earlier iteration, simply because the learning curve is quite unforgiving for an absolute newcomer.

I’m sure it won’t appeal to everyone, but go on, admit it; you kind of want to try it.

A story that took you into twisted, deranged, decrepit worlds that just yearned for some fantastic art direction and varied, interesting level design - you didn’t get any.

A real victory for blue skies in games and the very welcome return of a great franchise.

Brings the previous generation’s top gameplay, injects it with a few Sixaxis treats and pumps up the presentation to a top standard for a package that few will want to miss.

If the difficulty levels were sorted, the turn-based combat system rehashed and the player was told with reasonable conviction what the hell is going on, Hired Guns could be quite enjoyable, but as it is it's a frustrating, indecisive, low-level strategy game.