For the brief stretch you spend with Riddick in the galaxy's most notorious correction facility, Escape From Butcher Bay will keep you imprisoned in your house and chained to your PC from start to finish. [PC Zone]

Despite its smattering of positive elements though, D-Day reeks of being rushed to the table like a pot of undercooked sauerkraut.

But when you find yourself contesting an LDV Vans tie at six in the morning, you have to concede that they've got it right. Quite simply the most addictive thing I've ever tried. And I've tried the lot. [PC Zone]

Those who've already tasted the Prince's heady delights might be a little disappointed - this feels like a collection of new levels and bosses rather than an honest to God sequel. Like we said, call it a remix. [PSW]

Military obsessives will love it and, providing those who play it are prepared to put in the time required to learn its quirks and foibles, they should be rewarded with a fairly satisfying experience.

You could say the new dark and gritty atmosphere isn't as enchanting as the sumptuous visual quality of "Sands of Time," but what it lacks in the beauty stakes it more than makes up for in pure visceral excitement. [Offical UK Xbox Magazine]

Sadly, the developers have completely missed the point of the TV show, knocking out a second-rate two-wheeled racer that will disappoint fans of the programme and appear pointless to anyone else. Even the ever-excitable Teutul boys sound bored of it all. We can't blame them really. [PSW]

Ironically Worms Forts would probably be a faster and more intense game if worms didn't feature at all. Read into that what you will.

Blizzard has done what every MMORPG should be trying to do - it's ticked all the right boxes and really tried to forge the link between the heart and the head in a hugely immersive virtual space. This is what creates the stories in your imagination. These aren't just battles, they're adventures. Now that's what role-playing should be all about. [PC Zone]

A mess, a hurriedly produced and lazily-designed RTS produced to cash in on gamers hoping to relive the film's stunning battles. Just make sure you're not one of them. [PC Zone]

Like its predecessor, Sid Meier's game effortlessly takes the best of every style of gaming and mixes it into a consistent and enduringly charming whole. Certainly there are games with more strategy, and others with more action, but few, if any, can claim to be as breathlessly easy to enjoy. [PC Zone]

Perhaps Snake Eater's greatest achievement for games in general is this: it makes it very clear that making an organic environment like a jungle is not merely a case of changing colours, textures and maps. It's a lush, chaotic place out there in the real, natural world, and computers are just at the very edge of starting to replicate what that's like. Snake Eater does it so much better than anyone else. [PSW]

The action is bewildering and frenetic, the challenge is minimal and the usual camera problems persist, but this is still an exuberantly entertaining game.

This game is so close to flawless it's painful to the eye. It's so beautifully constructed, so immaculate, I can barely bring myself to divulge its details...Simply the most essential gaming experience of the year, the game the entire FPS genre has been building towards for the past decade, and one of the defining moments of the videogame medium as a whole. [PC Zone]

Had the melee combat been more refined, the engine used to its full capabilities and the niggles ironed out, then you'd be looking at perhaps the finest RPG of all time. As it is, it'll have to make do with the accolade of being one of the deepest, most engrossing and entertaining PC games of 2004. [PC Zone]

The whole thing's about as free-roaming as a man in a straightjacket locked in a padded cell, and about as fast moving as a glacier.

If it had flashier graphics or a simpler, more intuitive fighting system, it might appeal to everyone. As it stands, it's a curio and only of interest to completists and Street Fighter obsessives after a bargain exhibit to stroke in private. [PSW]

A game with a severe identity crisis, clearly trying to appeal to the action-loving masses while attempting not to alienate fans of the slow-paced gameplay of yore. Problem is, it's unlikely to truly grip either group, and may well estrange many core fans. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

With only two way multiplayer returning, this really was a missed opportunity to improve upon a disappointing franchise. As it stands, BW2 gets the smack put down on it by virtually every other fighter out there. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

Blinx 2 is on par with the original, but the fact is that there are better alternatives out there that don't muddy the platform fun with complicated game mechanics and dull level design. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

Races feel more like a monotonous chore than a speed thrill, purely because the tracks fail to inspire exciting burn-ups. [PSW]

Squeezed down to small screen size, it loses a lot of what made the Super NES game a classic.

It's just a shame EA insist on using a blurring effect when you boost. The graphics are already blurry enough to make it tough to see where the track ahead is taking you. The last thing you need when rocketing along at some silly speed over 100mph, is an effect that looks like someone's smeared Vaseline on your windscreen.

It looks more surreal than ever, provides a decently sized chunk of gameplay (although the multiplayer modes feel a tad half-hearted compared to the attention that has been lavished on the single-player game) and, despite being a first-person shooter, is cleverly suitable for all ages (although Nintendo's younger punters will find it prohibitively hard and confusing).

In truth, the puzzles are rather refreshing, not least because you have a gurgling baby to help you who eats literally anything.

It's a reasonably fun title, but tired graphics and monotonously easy challenges mean this is strictly one for undemanding kiddies. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

For an arcade game, it's even surprisingly playable with a steering wheel, with near misses causing no small amount of amateurish flinching. If you can't afford to attach largely pointless gadgets to your otherwise moribund vehicle, this is the next best thing. [PC Zone]

The sensation is difficult to explain, but it's akin to abandoning the sensation of control itself, as if you're truly within the gameworld and every neuron twitch in your brain results in precisely the correct physical translation.