It's Kubrick's "The Shining" to most other developers' "Scream 2," and it's the kind of game to play alone, in the dark, with the back door open and a dose of prescription medication in you.

The Second Story, with it’s excellent skill system, item creation and complicated character relationships, takes two steps forward in RPG gaming. Unfortunately, it takes one of those steps back by being mired in some old and tired RPG conventions and by lack of documentation.

Fans of anime should rejoice in the story, and those looking for a strategic level game for the PlayStation 2 will no doubt be captivated by this intense title.

You know you’re in trouble when it takes you five times to get through the first training level of a game, and it freezes on the second.

In only a few days my anti-videogame girlfriend had become a wide-eyed, pixel staring “let me try this level just one more time” gaming geek.

Asheron’s Call is full of successes and problems and provides a game world that provides both excitement and frustration.

The action is intense; the settings are spectacular and the gameplay is very well balanced.

So what’s not to like? Really nothing, but neither is there really anything that stunned me. This is good, solid, ‘Mech gaming, yet nothing more.

This game is different, has a great style, and will give your brain a workout. If you like mystery novels or courtroom dramas, you gotta take this case.

Possibly the best all-around baseball game for the PlayStation 2.

You can expect some immense spaces to trek around, just don’t expect too many courses to race on.

The most enjoyable new aspects of the expansion are the vehicles, and nearly every side gets new ones.

The game is also annoyingly dark during night missions. Even with the brightness cranked, it was pretty hard to see.

It sounds totally weird on paper, but as soon as I tried it, I found it grew on me really quickly. Give it a try, and see if it charms your frog costume off too.

An obsessive-compulsive's dream.

It’s a slightly empty, guilty and dissatisfying sensation, like pleasuring yourself with an adult mag that you stole from your senile grandpa. Sure, it felt good for a little while, but it was wrong on so many levels that you have to wonder, after the fact, what the Hell made you do it.

The combat system of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is just brilliant.

Use of the Unreal engine brings alien worlds and starship interiors to glorious life in stunning detail and colour.

A joy to play. The voiceovers and multiple camera angles continue the series' entertaining tradition.

One of the great strengths of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is that although everything is pretty simple, none of it is so simple as to be boring.

No doubt, the batting mechanics are complex and the franchise mode a bit hard to get a handle on, but this is console baseball at its best.

Seeing Top Gear Dare Devil’s virtual landscape is like visiting a world-famous tourist attraction on psychoactives.

It looks good, has some clever tracks and is peppy enough to stay exciting for some time.

The major factor holding Outlaw Golf from being a top tier golf game is its unforgiving control system.

Not since "Excitebike 64" for the now-defunct Nintendo 64 and the original "Motocross Madness" for the PC have I enjoyed a motocross game as much as MX 2002 featuring Ricky Carmichael.

Doom may be looking a mite long in the tooth in terms of the larger world of first-person games, but for a GBA title it's one Hell of a ride.

I enjoyed Crash's new abilities (extended jumps, spins and that extremely useful bazooka). I just wish the platform jumping elements in Crash 3 were as original and exciting of the motorcycle, jet-ski and biplane sequences.

It is considerably more challenging than the first at many points, yet it doesn’t have quite the polish of the original.