But playing the game makes you realise just how little effect any one pilot has on a war, and how futile and dehumanising the whole thing is. I'm sure it wasn't meant to, but there you go... The world's first pacifist space combat sim?

It's just a shame that one of the best ever action games has become another casualty of the Wii controller. Indeed, for a controller that was supposed to herald a new dawn of inclusive gaming there are a lot of third-party publishers who have yet to get their heads round it.

The single player campaign is, if anything, too long, and focuses more on continuous combat than actual role-playing. The lack of any support for parties in the single player mode is also disappointing, and makes the game far less involving than it should be.

GRAW lets you down just when you start to believe in it, and the net result is that although it's still very good, it's simply not as polished or amazing as it should have been.

The marginal improvement on display here is happily eclipsed by rival extreme sports titles which do take steps to reinvent themselves, and partly because there are four other Tony Hawk games out there and they all do much the same thing.

In its quest to be the most meta game ever made, Alan Wake 2 becomes a spectacle about writers and writing that badly needs an editor.

Of the shooters available on the 360 at launch, Call of Duty 2 is easily the most accessible and consistently entertaining single player offering, but if online is your thing you're better off considering what Rare has to offer ["Perfect Dark Zero"].

The camera view is frustrating, the controls are frustrating, the AI is frustrating, the resource system is frustrating, the missions are frustrating, and above all the fact that this game isn't half as good as we were all hoping it would be is very, very frustrating.

Yes, just to add an even greater degree of random nonsense, you can shake the device to jog the coin a little, and therefore give you a chance to influence its direction. Once you start employing this tactic, of course, you can't bloody well stop, and so spend most of the game spasming like a drunk with an involuntary tic.

None of these criticisms will detract from your enjoyment, provided all you want from a game is the opportunity to repeatedly turn evil monsters into red mush in gorgeous HD detail. Dead Space easily delivers on that promise, but fails to turn its polished production values into something truly memorable over the long haul.

It is a hard and maddening slog at times, but one that still has its moments where it surprises and quietly delights. Like the original, this isn't an RPG designed to make you feel good - you continue to be little more than a passenger in this historical tapestry, following along behind the horse tails of Henry's betters, and clearing up the mess they leave behind. Some will revel in that work, but I for one won't be chomping at the bit for another sequel any time soon.

So - here's a rating for the casual gamer. Add one point for every air show you've ever attended.

By no means the best the genre has to offer any more.

Stranger's Wrath simply isn't a better game for having first-person mode, and many of us would have maybe preferred the choice.

While the repetitive nature of the sub-games is what really keeps this away from true greatness, what leads to an increasing sense of the game being a chore is something as simple and ethereal as a wind.

Mobile games always work best when they're simple and refined, but LEGO Harry Potter's debut on iOS feels flabby and unfocused.

The storyline, while clearly bonkers, makes a refreshing change to the standard RPG fare, if only because it draws at least superficially, on historical characters and events.

A smart combat system straining under the weight of a characterful but ponderous pseudo-medieval soap opera, with some of the grandest bosses and dullest sidequests in FF history.

With so many games promising the Earth and only serving up dirt, it's reassuring to know that good old-fashioned balls-out action, when produced with such care and skill, is still as reliable and thrilling as it should be.

It's only masquerading as its own game - really, coming straight to this without having played its predecessors will be frustrating and bewildering, and the inability to play as Space Marines, Orks et al online a real slap in the face.

It's not that A Crack in Time is all fur coat and no knickers. The problem is, it's all fur coat and the same knickers it's been wearing for seven years. Time for a change.

As a statement of intent, Gone Home is laudable; as a technical exercise in game narrative, it's compromised, but it definitely has its strengths and is worthy of study. But you can't escape the sense that Gaynor, Zimonja and Nordhagen started on this project with grand designs for games as a storytelling medium, yet without a story they desperately wanted to tell.

Put bluntly, the combat and AI is merely average, the visuals don't really wow, and the much-vaunted weaponry makes little difference to how it plays. To say we're underwhelmed is the understatement of the year.

There's no doubt of the passion and heart that went into the creation of Sword & Sworcery. The artistry is extraordinary. The resulting art is not, not quite. Artistry is important, and I admire it to the fullest extent. In considerations of art, though, I want something more profound. Love, perhaps.

RPG fanatics without a PC will probably want to fight their way through these flaws to get to the meat of Dragon Age: Origins - which is all still hanging off the bone, and which still makes for a filling, if slightly flavourless, meal. But they won't be able to escape the knowledge that they're playing an inferior version, a game that's been squeezed into a suit that doesn't fit. PC gamers can - with a flick of the mouse-wheel - look down on them.

It's a staggering achievement that makes it difficult to imagine a better handheld God of War today. And yet, as with the stories upon which it's based, this is a game with nothing new to say, a myth told many times before and, in some cases, told better.

Sucker Punch's sequel offers more great swordplay and heartfelt storytelling, but would be better served as a linear action game, freed of its poor sidequests and dated open world.

The series has always ridden in the wake of its own spectacle, but after years of unfocused deviation, we finally have an evolution that demonstrates clear progress. It's the best 3D game in the series by a long way, and that's because it embraces the 2D heritage which always made Mortal Kombat its own kind of game.