Magicka 2 is fun in the right circumstances - i.e. when you've a friend or three in tow - but even then it's a case of an all-too-familiar experience to the first game. That's not in itself a bad thing, as the Magicka formula is a solid one, but it is disappointing - there's hardly any progress from the first game. For a sequel that took four years to hit, that's just not good enough.

Scars Above is a competent third-person action game. The story is just interesting enough to pull you through, while the combat is solid enough that you won't find yourself bored of the moment-to-moment battles. There's little here that you wouldn’t have seen before, but there’s some fun to be had in it's familiarity for sure. It’s just a shame really that, in its efforts to be a solid action-adventure, none of its ideas were explored any deeper as we’d have loved to have seen the team swing for the fences in one area or another to produce something truly standout.

Even though the controls were adapted for shorter rounds, the fundamentals of the game remain unchanged. As a result, every round feels incomplete, leaving you wanting more, but more of something other than Tetris Blitz.

Even when progress slows down, the game's light strategy and thrill of opening a new pack of cards is hard to deny, making The Collectables a surprising treat in the overcrowded sea of free-to-play games.

Activision has brought its classic platformer Pitfall back in a new iOS game. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the popular mobile game Temple Run, which will likely cause many to write it off as a simple clone.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst makes some major missteps in the story and character department, but hey, that's what the mute button is for...More important is that when the action is go and Faith is in full stride, Mirror's Edge Catalyst is as thrilling and sure-footed as they come.

There is also no multiplayer sadly, though there are plenty of single-player matches to keep you busy for a long time. Injustice does the best it can with the mobile controls, offering a fun, if watered-down, face-off of DC heroes and villains.

The Labo Vehicle Kit once again proves what ingenious toy makers Nintendo are while largely improving on its predecessors with a better thought-out game experience packed with additional modes and compatibility to make it viable for extended experimenting and party play. Just like with the motorcycle Toy-Con from the Variety Kit, you'll even be able to use the car Toy-Con with Mario Kart 8, though this update has not gone live at the time of review. The only conundrum left to unbox then is where you're going to store these afterwards.

Sometimes great, sometimes rough but mostly patchy, Star Fox Zero is depressingly mediocre. Fox and the gang deserve much better next time around.

After you get past that initial hump and strengthen your team there is an enjoyable Star Wars RPG to be had. But that initial hump is brutal, and prompt many players to justifiably delete the game and never look back.

Like short-term Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez, the Wii U version of FIFA feels like an interim edition, warming the seat for next year's release.

Mad Max is at its best when you're hurling through the desert with a pack of murderous bandits on your tail, but the on-foot portion of the game feels derivative and largely uninspired.

While Lightning Returns is in most ways the opposite of Final Fantasy XIII's overbearing linearity, it ultimately shares the same core recommendation; if you manage to stick with what's a very uneven first half, there's definitely an enjoyable and satisfying role-playing game to be found. It's just a shame it takes so much time to get there.

If I Am Alive were to be described in a single word, that word would be bleak. It is unapologetic in its presentation and unafraid to cross lines that most games never dare to approach. Those crossed lines are certainly through its subject matter, but also in its gameplay through the possibility of causing permanent damage to your stamina bar. It all comes together to make I Am Alive an uncompromising game of survival, quite unlike anything else on the Xbox 360.

The developers have crafted a competent third-person shooter in most respects, but the awkward integration of key elements from the XCOM strategy games, such as an in-depth squad system, result in a somewhat disjointed offering.

Despite the flaws, Alice: Madness Returns is still a really fun game to play. The combat is on the whole fluid and satisfying, making the most of the range of abilities, while the platforming and exploration rolls along at a decent pace. Spicy Horse has done an admirable job of continuing the legacy of Wonderland, but it's just a shame that some of the madness seeped into design choices.

Fur Fighters: Viggo on Glass is the full Dreamcast game adapted to the iPad without being locked by in-app purchases, so there is a lot of content to keep you coming back. That is, assuming you can cope with the touch controls.

The brilliant design used throughout Octodad: Dadliest Catch brings out the absolute best from a bizarre concept that simply needs to be played to be believed.

The unimpressive visuals make a mockery of the HD moniker, while the lack of extras and bonus material does nothing to entice long-standing fans. Silent Hill HD Collection isn't short on scares, but it's lacking in almost every other department.

Chronicles: China is a valiant attempt at expanding such offerings, but it doesn't hit the bar of quality or originality that its genre peers have already set.

Doctor Who: Legacy could have easily just been a quick and easy cash-in on a loyal fanbase, offering a game that's sub-par at best. It has happened before, after all. Instead, fans are treated to engaging and fun puzzle battles featuring most of the characters from the series' more recent history.

Each course is admittedly rather short so most players will be able to quickly blast through the game in an afternoon or weekend, but it's hard to fault the bizarre bowling of Rollabear for leaving players wanting more.

Twisted Dreams will drive you mad. You rarely get the sense of reward when you finish a level - just a huge wave of relief that you don't have to suffer through that again.

The Amazing Spider-Man is one of the more successful movie tie-ins in recent memory, with a solid if short single-player campaign and an enormously enjoyable web-swinging mechanic. The sense of freedom and fun gleaned from swinging through Manhattan makes the latest Beenox release one worth checking out, despite its shortcomings. Much like Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker, the development team is starting to get to grips with its powers, pointing towards a greater adventure still to come.

The game has a lamentable amount of bugs and the combat is rather basic, but you will still have fun playing it. Intelligent level design means that the campaign is engaging pretty much throughout, but it's the sense of atmosphere that really brings back some of the Silent Hill magic.

At its best, Cloudberry Kingdom is a disjointed retread of what other more interesting platformers have already done better before it.

The whole game is pulled together by wonderfully drawn levels, with the bright colors popping even on the smaller iPhone screen. Mobile gamers looking for charm and challenge will find both in Grabbity.

The game feels short, but that's more because of enjoying the puzzles and wanting more to play than because of a lack of content.

Other than that, Picross e2 is the same 2D Picross you've known with a new coating of paint. The eShop title is, as you'd expect, not the best version of Picross out there (some might pine for the return of the 'create your own puzzle' feature), but for a significant number of puzzles at that price, Picross e2 comes recommended.

The enhanced visuals and local and online co-operative multiplayer are welcome additions, but everything else feels a little bit outdated, with a distinct lack of variety in enemies and objectives in particular making the levels bland and monotonous by today's standards.

It's also still an undeniably good game, and despite awful controls players can still have fun with it. But really, until a developer figures out a better way of adapting the controls to a touchscreen, this version of Metal Slug X should be avoided.

Wii Sports Club feels a little light on content and isn't quite as accessible as it once was, but it's still a great multiplayer game, whether played online or with friends.

Yes, Hatoful Boyfriend is a dating game with a bird gimmick, and that alone will be enough to keep many players at arm's length. But to pigeonhole your time at the St. Pigeonation's Institute as a mere gimmick would be a grave misjudgment of a game that is far more delightful and unexpected than even its bizarre premise would suggest.

Tokyo Crash Mobs should only really be considered by 3DS owners who dig the look of the game and are Puzz Loop fanatics. Everyone else should look elsewhere - there are plenty of superior puzzlers in the eShop.

There are also connection problems with online matches, though admittedly it is nice that you can compete in online matches at all. Tekken Card Tournament can get good if you put the time into it, but it's going to take a lot of your time and money along the way.

The horses here are an absolute delight and steal the show, and a large part of that is due to how much attention was given to them. Rather than spreading their resources a little thin, the developer was able to deliver on the main selling point of the expansion. And while it may not be as game-changing as some of the most highly-regarded packs, Horse Ranch shows that sometimes less is more and that having a more focused approach with the right theme can pay off.

While Buried at Sea - Episode 1 is well-written, intriguing and presents new questions by the end to tantalisingly set up the last installment, it also doesn't feel like an essential piece of content that enhances BioShock Infinite from a narrative point of view.

In the ten years that have followed since its launch on the original Xbox, Fable continues to charm, even though the mission structure, morality system and combat have started to show their age. As such, Fable Anniversary is a fun game to revisit for those with fond memories of breaking wind and booting chickens, but isn't likely to appease modern gamers with more sophisticated tastes.

Labo's best, then, as a collaborative experience, bringing parents and their brood together to flip, fold, tab and, finally, take turns on another fascinating step forward for the ever-unique Nintendo.

Wraithborne's beauty is only skin deep, leaving a repetitive action game with sluggish controls once the shiny coating is peeled away.

Instead, the re-release should be considered by anyone with an itch to revisit the well-loved game or anyone looking for a new and entertaining strategy title at a reasonably low price.

Technically it is possible to complete all of the levels without using any of the power-ups, but with so much of the game based on chance the game is designed to try and make players reliant on power-ups to squeeze a few more dollars from players.The insidious design sours the fun of Papa Pear Saga's vibrant and cheery stages, making it a far wiser investment to just play through Peggle again instead.

With Deadlight, Tequila Works has clearly taken inspiration from the critical and commercial recent success of Limbo on Xbox Live Arcade. The gameplay in this original survivalist horror title nods to PlayDead's masterpiece, but that is not a bad thing.

Unquestionably a fun game, but it's the same fun we had with its PS2 and Xbox 360 predecessors. The latest game offers very little that it can call its own, has a severe lack of memorable moments and is often incredibly dull and repetitive.

Need for Speed: The Run is a case of a good premise not quite realized.

Go ahead and replay Smash Cops or Smash Cops Heat, but Smash Bandits feels like a wrong turn for the series.

Its lack of subtlety in its mechanics, it's rather clunky nature and its somewhat dull, basic setting mean it will never be more than a decent distraction: a game to play in between other games, or while you wait until Bloodborne early next year.

The slim amount of content is more tolerable for an iOS game though, giving leaderboard chasers an action-packed shooter that is fairly unique among smartphone and tablet games.

While it's pretty to look at, The Gods: Rebellion offers an inconvenient control layout and relies too heavily on lengthy arena battles. At moments it shines, but those moments are few and far between.

Each run typically lasts less than a minute, so there is either a lot of waiting around until you can play again, or you'll end up spending more on stamina refills than on a classic Pac-Man arcade machine.

Fans of the original will enjoy seeing Lost Wages with high definition backdrops - and may understand more of the jokes if they played it when they were young - but the wit is not nearly as sharp as you remember it. New players, on the other hand, will simply stare at the screen incredulously, wondering why the remake's Kickstarter was embraced so enthusiastically.

Quite simply, Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse is one of the best platformers Sega has put out in years.

The controls too, while still endearingly clumsy, are perhaps streamlined to the point of losing the punch line thanks to the ability to aim your instruments with a tap. The result is a Surgeon Simulator that is easier to control, but loses some of its signature humor for it.

With a darker location, additional powers and more varied selection of missions, Assassin's Creed 3: The Tyranny of King Washington: Part Two furthers the potential of Connor's episodic adventure.

That being said, the improvements aren't enough to make it worth a purchase over the free version that was already available, making Wreck-It Ralph a difficult game to recommend.

Fish Out of Water! is still a fun pick up and play game, but after five minutes you have essentially seen everything the game has to offer. Like the game's title, Halfbrick may have stepped out of its natural element with this game, and the result is gasping desperately for air.

Sailing around the ocean and discovering treasure is fun, but the ship battles that make up a majority of the experience wear thin quickly. And with a mostly uninteresting story and thin connections to the Assassin's Creed series proper, Assassin's Creed Pirates is just floating dead in the water.

The Showdown Effect isn't a bad way to kill some hours, and the developer is clearly intent on supporting the game with new content. We also didn't have many problems finding matches. But while this is a promising start, the game doesn't quite scratch that multiplayer itch just yet.

Bloodstroke is a stylized collection of half-realized ideas that don't quite live up to their potential.

Game of Thrones fans will delight in seeing the fantasy world in a new way, but poorly implemented waiting quests bog down players from experiencing all Westeros has to offer.

To be clear, Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut is still not an easy game. It is a better-paced and better balanced game, allowing even relative newcomers to zero-gravity dogfights to be able to build up the skills to become ace pilots.

There are glimpses in here where some of the potential shines through, but not enough. Held back by a lack of depth and polish, the big selling points of the expansion struggle to flourish, resulting in a pack that's underwhelming despite its initial promise.

Tin Man Can's 60 levels offer a lot of bang for the buck, at least assuming you have the reflexes to make it through them all. It is definitely on the more challenging side of the mobile gaming world, requiring precision timing pretty early on and never letting up after that.

That said, the iOS version is superior for the simple fact that the mouse controls on the computer are more fiddly. We recommend that you try out 10,000,000, but if you have an iOS device, playing with the touch screen is the way to go.

While the game does have its faults - particularly falling apart when Garrett is spotted - Thief excels in the shadows as a pure stealth title, becoming increasingly enjoyable as your skills improve.

Corpse Party: Book of Shadows has its moments from a storytelling perspective, but it would have benefited from more interactive features. There's some morbidly creative horror for readers to sink their fangs into, but don't expect to encounter any believable characters or award-winning wordsmithery.

Ring Run Circus has a steep learning curve and awkward controls that work against each other for a game that is far more complicated than it probably intended to be.

CounterSpy is a stylish game with wonderful art direction and a humorous tone - it's just let down by a few sneaking flaws.

Leon and Jake's campaigns, in particular, are hugely entertaining, showcasing the survival horror genre at its best. While Chris's campaign might well prove that two's company and three's a crowd, the excellent plot, cast of characters and additional content should ensure that Resident Evil 6 is revisited more times than Tall Oaks' pharmacy.

With this being EA's sixth add-on to the game, fresh ideas are beginning to look thin on the ground with concepts from previous packs re-emerging. That said, Sims fanatics will always be hungry for new content, so there's no reason why this won't be another roaring success.

Unfortunately, playing solo is not that fun. Without friends, you're supported in your party by bots, who are mindless and quite incompetent. It becomes even more challenging to get through levels, and without the aspect of teamwork, the whole experience is just dull and not very enjoyable.

And while an overarching storyline makes a valiant effort to tie the whole experience together, it's hard to make up for the unsatisfying puzzles.

If not for the unfortunate shot restrictions Pangolin would be a hard puzzle game to put down. As it stands, you'll want to take long breaks between play sessions, but it's still a journey worth taking.

Ultimately, this Doom 3 redux reveals a game that conjures the same tricks as its predecessors, but without the humor or flair.

Football Manager Classic 2014 represents a step forward for football management simulations for handhelds, yet the Vita doesn't quite feel like the optimum platform for it.

It comes as no surprise that Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games is another colourful, fun and accessible package offering plenty of family-friendly kicks. While it hardly deserves a gold medal for design and presentation, Wii owners will get some festive thrills out of this one.

Sadly it is a short-lived experiment, making it a difficult game to whole-heartedly recommend, but those who find relaxation in flashes of psychedelic colors will fall for Simian.Interface's charms.

There's nothing quite like the feeling of having to rip the PS VR headset off mid-session to hurl up chunks of your breakfast, or having to spend the next hour feeling like the room is spinning. It was frustrating enough reviewing the experience - we dread to think how angry we'd be if we'd just spent 30 quid on it...Avoid.

Archangel is slow to get started, but after gaining some abilities and spells the pace of combat picks up for a satisfying and long-lasting dungeon crawler.

Kinect Sports: Season Two is a case of one step forward and one step back. Games such as darts, golf, baseball and skiing are intuitive, responsive and make wonderful motion-controlled mini-games, while American football and tennis are poorly executed and offer little in the way of enjoyment.

It's a unique take on the war-based theme, and will evoke your inner voyeur, dazzling in its moments of exposition as well as its suggestive junctures.

As a tidy-looking package, Civilization Revolution 2 ups the ante in almost every way. It's bold and colourful, and looks fantastic on iPad's gorgeous Retina display. If you're a veteran fan of the series like me, then this mobile sequel might put you off at first. It feels constricted to the mobile world, without the sense of epic scale you get zooming out on your huge empires in the PC games.

Alone in the Dark isn’t a perfect experience or a five-star return to form. However, the game really nails the tone, and it is just a joy to explore Derceto and drink in the spooky vibes of this Lovecraftian detective thriller. There’s enough twists and turns to have you hanging on until the end, even if the latter half of the game feels a little too reliant on action that isn’t quite up to snuff.

Ragnarok Odyssey is a polished offering with tight controls and nice graphics, but a little innovation would have gone a long way. In terms of both style and gameplay, this is little more than a generic RPG offering that fails to build on solid foundations.

Breach & Clear is still a serviceable strategy game, and has the potential to become much more if the upcoming DLC modes infuse the mission structure with some much-needed variety.

If you like your Metroidvanias it's well worth diving in.

Your mileage will depend on the friends you have to play it with, but if you're looking for a word game alternative to Zynga's With Friends series, Beejumbled makes for a great alternative with a bit more personality.

When playing a good skill-based minigame it can be a blast, but these moments are far too fleeting. It's a fun game to stick on when you've got company round from time to time, but don't overdo it or it won't be long before people stop accepting your party invites.

Despite The Amazing Spider-Man's ambitions, the game's imprecise controls aren't suited to letting players do whatever a spider can.

2K Drive is still rough around the edges in spots, most notably with its controls, but given some time for refinements 2K Drive could give other mobile racing games a run for their money in its next iteration.

Never Alone is, nevertheless, an important game offering a fascinating window into a rich and ongoing culture among native Alaskans. And if you are open to accepting that cultural exchange then the barriers dividing the people of the world get a little bit smaller, and we all grow closer to never really being alone in the world again.

The free-to-play design elements may hold some players back from completing the game, but it is clear the developers have a lot of love in their homage to the Ghostbusters films.

In closing, Sniper Elite V2 does a lot of things right. The tactical components have been well thought out, despite predictable enemy AI upsetting the balance somewhat. Minor issues aside, headshot enthusiasts and stealth fans will find much to love here.

In a perfect world, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD will lead to a brand new game in the series, because the core mechanics are just as fun as ever. But the bare-bones presentation around those mechanics may not be quite the return to form for which fans had hoped.

As a budget bundle, Saints Row 4: Re-elected and 'Gat out of Hell' is worth considering if you're looking to waste a few weekends before this year's influx of blockbuster releases.

Strike Suit Zero feels very much like a product of the time when space combat games flourished on PC. Your enjoyment will greatly depend on whether you think of that as praise or a condemnation.

If you spend Saturday nights singing Black Eyed Peas songs into an old hairbrush, not only do you need to get out more, but you won't regret picking up The Black Eyed Peas Experience. Everybody else, however, might be better suited rocking that body to any one of Kinect's alternative rhythm action releases.

F1 2011 is a laudable attempt at scaling down a sophisticated simulation racer for a handheld platform, but it would have benefited from stronger AI and more challenge. In its defense, it caters well for newcomers due to its casual Challenges mode and forgiving level of difficulty, but still falls marginally short of expectations.