The game is still jolly good fun.

It's an engaging, exciting, fearless and endlessly imaginative masterpiece with a clarity of vision that is so, so rare in traditional big-budget releases.

It's not up to Mario Kart standards, but for a family get together it's an entertaining alternative that sits well with all ages.

It's not good enough, frankly. The fun zombie-bashing can't sustain itself, and the plot, characters and setting aren't good or memorable enough to justify wading through the 20 odd hours it'll take to finish.

Human Revolution is an engaging and compulsive piece of work that'll find itself nestling near the peak of many a top 10 chart. With Mass Effect 3 postponed, this'll be the one bit of interactive escapism that the fella in the Battlestar Galactica shirt can rely on for his kicks this year.

Control issues aside, Puzzle Agent is a refreshing and entertaining adventure game, filled with memorable characters and a setting that will please fans of the modern mystery genre.

Boulder Dash XL is highly recommended for anybody who likes their arcade games with a puzzle element, young or old alike.

I did not regret playing Madness Returns, nor could I earnestly recommend it. There's incentive to brave a secondary play through to obtain more unlockables – by way of memories and opening up new nooks by shooting pig snouts, naturally – but the problem is thus: we've been blessed – daresay spoilt – by better action/adventure titles over the past few years for Madness Returns to ever compete. Hopefully we see Alice again. I sensed a great game in Madness Returns and occasionally played one but this spicy gift horse would be best looked in the mouth.

Shadows of the Damned is one of the best games of the year, and I never expected to say that. The only fault I can think of is that it's probably a bit too easy.

A better journalist might make a little comment here, just to wrap things up, about how you were fighting for freedom in Red Faction: Guerrilla, yet as a gamer you had it all along. Despite liberating Mars at the end of that game, find yourself more restricted than ever in the follow-up. I'm not that guy.

I don't think anyone who had realistic expectations about Duke Nukem Forever will be disappointed with what we've finally gotten. It's not brilliant, but it is a good solid old school shooter, which feels like its predecessor. I just hope this isn't the last we've heard from the Duke, and that we won't have to wait so long next time.

No More Heroes is still a great game, if a little inconsistent; dozens of inspired moments with the dullest sandbox world yet produced as the hub, sacrificing fun for drudgery, yet somehow getting away with it, a fast-paced action game, coupled with a frame rate volatile when you do anything too fast. This is a deeply flawed game but it is brilliant; overcoming a multitude of shortcomings and refusing to be crippled by its own flab.

Dead Mage Studio took on a huge challenge in creating a compelling combat action game. They succeed in picking an interesting and mostly untouched mythology, but it's a shame that it's bogged down with a lack of polish and glitches.

A few ill-judged action sequences, occasional leaps of logic during the interrogations and some gunplay that just about scrapes through on the positive side of functional prevent this from being a stone cold classic in the same way Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption are. But if they're A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, this is surely Rockstar's Return of the Jedi – not the best of the bunch, but still loads better than most of the other stuff out there. Highly recommended.

This is a game that could have been a lot better than it is. But it is not better. It is exactly as good as it is, and that is not good. It is, in fact, bad.

Dead or Alive Dimensions is a great game. It's loads of fun, lots to do, and has plenty of longevity. It's pick-up-and-play nature makes it perfect for a handheld too, it's easy to have a quick blast through an arcade course during a short bus journey. With the current lack of quality titles for Nintendo's new handheld this shines out like a star.

Unless you are a die-hard on-rails shooter fan it's quite hard to recommend Yar's Revenge over some of the much more loved classics on Xbox Live, like the brilliant REZ. Yar's Revenge is the exact opposite of Mizugichi's masterpiece as it lacks the memorable moments and set pieces. This re-imagining of a classic isn't what it could have been.

The thing is that when everything does work, Brink is a fantastic fun online shooter, with just enough stolen ideas all rolled into one package that it ends up feeling very unique.

There's no denying it. Star Raiders is bad. It's repetitive, embarrassing, rushed and tedious.

All in all it's another winner from the guys at Sega. Enough has been added to make it worth buying, while not messing with the perfection that made it a hit in the arcades over a decade ago. If you want to play tennis on your console it doesn't get any better than this.

101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix lacks imagination, polish, passion, quality, depth, and will ensure your house will never be the place to party at again.

I'll admit that I've played games that are technically worse than Homefront, but I have not played a game that irritated me as much as this in a very long time.

This is definitely a return to form for for the franchise. It's not as good as the original game, and much as that was what I was hoping for, it's not a disappointment.

This is easily the best Lego game to date, and although lacking any huge leaps forward in the gameplay department, still offers a lot of fun for anyone who picks it up.

The franchise needed this. It's not remotely original and it occasionally threatens to drown under the weight of its own bluster, but it's also clever, challenging, bewilderingly pretty in places and a ripping good yarn.

The franchise needed this. It's not remotely original and it occasionally threatens to drown under the weight of its own bluster, but it's also clever, challenging, bewilderingly pretty in places and a ripping good yarn.

It's fun, it's fast and it's fantastic, unless the sight of (virtual) blood makes you faint there's no good excuse not to pick it up.

The core game just needed a bit more refinement to match up with what seems to be an exciting initial vision. If that had panned out, I honestly believe Swarm could have been something great.