Maybe it gets a little too tricky for its own good sometimes, maybe it's just plain dull between missions, but when it gets things right it's a brilliantly enjoyable all-action extravaganza of blockbuster proportions.

This slick new Civilization may be more reduction than Revolution, but it's easily one of the most distinctive games on 360 and PS3. I can't see myself playing much more of the single-player, but I genuinely cannot wait to war over landmass with a few like-minded chums.

A gorgeous fantasy journey enlivened by some thrilling rock-climbing.

Despite the criticisms, Team 17 has still managed to pull off an impressive evolution of a much-loved series. The core game has remained barely unchanged, but the 3D engine introduces a lot of unexpected elements to get used to, both good and bad.

Minis on the Move is a thoughtfully constructed puzzle game, built around an appealingly simple premise that then gets reexamined and evolved in multiple ingenious ways. More than that, it shows Nintendo adapting to changes in the online and mobile market that suggest the best is yet to come.

Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is exactly that - wholly distinct from the rest of the crowd, a niche within a niche, marvellously thought out and mostly brilliantly executed. If there were other comparably innovative and inventive Japanese RPGs to set this against, then its flaws might cause it to be judged more severely. But it stands alone, a rare original expression of Japanese role-playing individuality.

This wealth of variety and reward structure is carefully considered, but ultimately it won't help the final outcome - you're either going to love The Sims, or you're going to hate it.

Drop into servers, start killing people, it's so natural to habitual gamers these days that it's hard to quantify how familiar and welcome these experiences are. With the sheer range of death-mongering that UT3 provides, it's hard not to get into the spirit of things. So yeah, Unreal Tournament pretty much remains The Daddy: consistent, meaty, and just weird enough to survive.

But as much as we wanted to hail EA's proactive progressive approach to FIFA as the great slayer of Konami's complacency, the fact remains that "PES6" is marginally the better game in ways that matter.

But Rugby Challenge is the nucleus of a truly great rugby sim. It's certainly the best rugby game currently available and one can only imagine the heights it could scale if a publisher with enough cash were to throw its weight behind it.

Puzzle fans bored of sliding tiles as quickly as possible will enjoy the change of pace.

But if you're the kind of hardy soul who positively revels in merciless treatment, then a couple of quid is a small price to pay for such joyful puzzle punishment.

To really catapult it into the very highest bracket, Ubisoft still needs to work on a more compelling premise and improve on some of the production values, but otherwise Vegas represents one of the best shooters on the market and deserves to succeed.

Most of that score is attributable to the superb quality of the core Valve games rather than the shoddy conversion work which sees one game out of the five ruined, and another badly compromised. That being the case, if you own a PC, even a relatively lightweight one, that version will almost certainly be the better - and definitely cheaper - purchase.

Hats off to Bizarre for a marvellous technical achievement, slapped wrists for meddling with the already perfect progression system and balancing and tarnishing what would have otherwise been a peerless single player experience and hearty congrats for an excellent online offering.

It hangs together well enough, and more exists as an excuse to create the set-pieces which provide Dungeon Siege with its most memorable moments.

What was once fresh and exciting becomes expected, and the recipe can be so delicate that trying to repeat it with different ingredients can easily result in an indigestible disaster. Fireproof has taken a conservative approach that avoids those pitfalls, but it hasn't abandoned ambition in the process.

It's bold, inspiring and bubbling over with dozens of ideas, any one of which would be cause for celebration in most games, but the over-reliance on a daunting sink-or-swim combat system that will leave many players gasping for breath ultimately counts against it. A truly brilliant game, it's just a shame that it couldn't ease off on the information overload and make that brilliance easier for everyone to appreciate.

This is yet another quality downloadable shooter that deserves both your money and your love.

By turns minimalist and luxurious, this is a thrilling exploration of the art of photography.

It's the shadow cast by Halo 3 itself, and its contemporaries then and since, that proves slightly too long and broad for Bungie's valiant efforts of the past 18 months to escape, because no matter the quality of what's on offer, they can't reasonably make the same demand of your wallet, and yet they still do.

What should be a transitional year for Football Manager feels like a quietly revolutionary one, thanks to a handful of little changes with big impacts.

This is yet another quality downloadable shooter that deserves both your money and your love.

With those missteps cast aside, Toy Story 3 is a rare treat that appreciates the fine line between play and playing, and hints at a future where movie tie-ins could actually be something to look forward to.

A fantastic port - and unquestionably best on Xbox - but it suffers in part thanks to last century's tech and in part because pathetic team killing gits thrive in the current Live community.

Plague Inc. reminds you in its own little way just how fragile yet tenacious humans are. Be a real shame if anything were to happen to them.

Simple, beautifully illustrated and packed with addictive lunacy, you should give this a spin immediately.

Prepare yourself for a mixtape of lurid brilliance.

Far and away the best original IP on the Wii, Zack & Wiki is a compelling reason to own this console. Its superb puzzle design and ingenious mix of humour, cleverness and the occasional bout of trial-and-error recall the best adventure games in history, and yet its gorgeous cartoonish looks and innovative control make it refreshingly modern.

A worthwhile addition to the Company of Heroes war chest and one that rewards investment and exploration with a tactically satisfying campaign. That said, such is the obtuse nature of its presentation of key concepts and even basic controls that new recruits should deduct a whole mark from that number below.

Just don't expect a welcome return after frolicking with today's less punishing fighters, because this KOF is far from forgiving.

For a game that's entirely happy to plunder the past and repackage it all with a nod and a wink, this cheery portion of nostalgic blasting is well worth dusting off your neglected PSP for.

While it's a bit on the short side and a tad easy, this is a hugely promising start for Launching Pad Games. More, please.

Like the Blizzard hits of old, Diablo 4 is a designer's game at heart, built on intricacy and depth. A sense of fearful overcompensation holds it back.

In short, it's unquestionably the best dance game available on Kinect, and a successful, evolutionary step forward that will certainly please those who loved the original.

Drill Spirits may not use the DS's new features to conduct a symphony orchestra whilst penning sonnets and bringing democracy to Cuba, but when the underlying game is this gripping we refuse to sit around using its relative lack of invention as a stick to beat it with.

It's still a bit too complex to work as a kids' game (for that you might be better with the 360 sequel's co-op mode, where you can pick up a second pad and offer a helping hand), but for everybody else it comes highly recommended.

A pleasant anomaly: a stealth game that breaks out of rigid patterns and an episodic game that visibly evolves and improves from one chapter to the next. The game isn't quite everything it could be just yet - the occasional puzzles, although slightly more involved, still feel like the weak link in the chain - but with more episodes to come, there's a strong sense that by the end, it's going to be something very special indeed.

It might not represent classic Monkey Island in every respect, but there's enough going for it to warrant an instant purchase if you have the slightest hankering for some more from Guybrush and company.

A beautifully crafted side-scroller with a restless puzzle imagination.

In many ways it feels like an adult-themed Pokemon, complete with a cast of demons that, though not as adorable as Pikachu and company, nonetheless have their own dark charms. So, atrocious US boxart aside, this is one import worth the extra shipping.

A generous and lavish racer, with thrilling driving, that wants you for the long haul.

Resident Evil: Revelations is gorgeous, huge, and offers the most fully-featured online co-op experience on 3DS. The single-player isn't quite the survival horror comeback Capcom promised but, with its brilliant take on score attack, Raid mode ensures Revelations delivers at least once on its title.

I would say that EA has landed a knockout blow to the competition, but that would probably result in actual violence against my person, so I won't. Anyway, it's good. You should get it.

There's a thousand more things I could say to justify my hearty recommendation of this incomparably rich war sim.

Another strong, if understated slab of zombie-smashing from the people who wouldn't be told that a four-player FPS that lasts four hours was commercial suicide. In 24 hours I've already gone through it nearly a dozen times in various modes on Xbox 360, and I don't regret parting with five quid for the privilege (in fact, it was mis-priced at 800 MSP when I bought it, and I don't regret that either).

It's not a great leap forward for gaming; but in terms of reassurance and welcome traditionalism, it's a small step for cosiness.

Out There also reveals something of the human pioneering spirit and its twin: the urge to survive till the final lungful of oxygen is expended. And if and when you do manage to scrape through another day, it's a game that allows you to marvel at the unlikeliness of all this as well as the miracle and fragility of life.

But while laudable in many senses, ultimately King Kong is as Carl Denham - fascinatingly single-minded and full of wonder, but ultimately shallow, and too caught up in its initial achievement to really think the rest of it through.

Mechanics and content can make or break a modern fighting game, and Injustice delivers on those fronts.

Everybody's Tennis is aptly named, appealing the everyman despite speaking in the vernacular of the RPG nerd.

An exceptionally enjoyable first person shooter and should not be discounted on the basis of its length. If you fancy a new first person adventure and already own "Deus Ex," this is the game to buy.

Deception throws in an extremely polished Konquest mode, the fun Chess and Tetris modes, plus online play.

From its dazzling battle system to its overarching temporal puzzle, this is the best of the set - even if it's dragged down by an exhaustingly impenetrable plot that its creators will no doubt be pleased to be done with.

Justified cynicism aside, Infinity Ward's latest effort unquestionably refines the cinematic World War II shooter genre to new giddy heights of bombastic brilliance.

Get to the end of the short campaign and you realise it isn't short at all, with time attacks and plus levels and expert levels unrolling before you It's a lovely package, and another pleasant stop on the Switch's protracted farewell. The more I played, the more I found myself collecting fragments of memories of the GBA original which I thought I had lost. Familiarity, then, and forgotten pleasures: isn't that what a Vegas residency should be all about?

Strong Bad is funny, varied and just the right length for an episodic game. The puzzles aren't particularly strong - though they're as good as anything in the recent Sam & Max games - but this is balanced out by the additional stuff to find and muck about with.

It's playful, subversive, irreverent and, at times, impudent, revealing a darker, more left-field side to Nintendo that increasingly stays hidden. Let it out, we say. Let it out.

As a retro revival, Chronicles of Mystara does a commendable job of raising a fondly remembered arcade game from its grave.

Cor, this is all lovely. And I need to tell you that outside of the campaign there's a level editor, which is terrifyingly powerful, and a near-endless supply of user-made levels to work through, many of which require thinking that is utterly, hopelessly beyond me. There's also a VR mode, which Ian will be writing about on Sunday. I haven't been able to test it.

Firaxis' latest 4X is not without annoyances or bugs - one mistake can still lead to a lengthy bleeding out, units still get stuck on long journeys, hotseat multiplayer is currently a mess of missing buttons and there are still some moments where you're almost hypnotised by the endless procession of incidental choices you're presented with - but it is a surprisingly profound experience at times.

As lovely to watch as it is to play.

Little King's Story is not the best game you'll ever play. It's repetitive, it's lacking in depth and it can feel slow and frustrating at times. Plus it's got some dodgy politics and a rubbish save system. But it's the best game I've played all year, and that includes Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad. It's charming, engrossing and just plain fun.

Pixel Defenders Puzzle is 69p, less than a chocolate bar, yet it over-delivers - and although it offers in-app purchases, you won't ever need to spend money beyond that purchase price. It's a great game - and also proof, were it needed, that Ken Levine really knows his niche puzzlers.

Far Cry 2 is unforgettable rather than perfect, then; brilliant, frustrating, sombre and comical, it offers freedom within extremely curtailed limits, and strives to treat its players like adults. In the end it remains, true to its source material, a game that was born to struggle with itself.

But for the vast majority of players there will be a challenge hurdle at some point that is just too high to overcome. It's no accident: the game has been designed that way. It's testament to the strength of the surrounding package that Skate 2 continues to be compelling place to inhabit even after its primary purpose is gone and all that's left is the playground.

In truth, despite giving the gamer a huge arsenal, pleasant gameplay diversions and dressing it up in shiny new clobber, RFII doesn’t take us anywhere we haven’t been before, and plays by the FPS rulebook for the most part.

For Rainbow Six 3 fans, Black Arrow may be a repeat prescription, but it's just what the doctor ordered.

Just take it as read that you shouldn't buy this game if you're not going to play it with friends, and assume that the verdict is based on those who will be making their pals go pop on a regular basis.

There's ambition here that you wouldn't expect from a series on its eighth iteration. While stretching those boundaries has meant that the game loses some of its structural shape, the moment-by-moment experience is as enchanting and engaging as any previous entry.

Still a classic, but a little of that vital weirdness is gone.

More than just its nostalgic visuals, Crow Country is funny, self-aware, and extremely hard to put down.

It's brave, and manic, and fun to play, and that's everything it needs to be.

Enslaved is a solid, well-built offering which is a pleasure to play. The excellent storytelling, great acting and fantastic pacing elevate it above the ranks of your average action adventure, and indeed your average videogame.

Definitely more than the sum of its parts, and a rare case of a game getting there before Hollywood.

The lack of multiplayer and a few soundtrack changes may irk some, but overall this is a surprisingly enjoyable conversion that old hands will get a lot out of.

Don't Nod's latest adds a near-revolutionary twist to choice-based narrative games.

It's a game that dares to tear up the rulebook and start over in the quest for a better sequel, and is all the better for venturing beyond the boundaries established in the previous game. The sort of old-school puzzle game that demands patience and dedication, it repays both in abundance.

If you're looking for a more entertaining game of attacking football - and you can laugh about it when one of the game's many remaining rough edges fires a moment of absurdity into a finely poised multiplayer game against a fierce rival - then PES 2012 is well worth investigating.

A near masterpiece, managing to not only stay utterly faithful to the subject matter, but in many respects creating a benchmark mech shoot 'em up that practically bends the PS2 out of shape for technical merit.

With the PC's internet potential yet to be realised it could well be the making of a classic.

Luckily for a game with such unapologetic cinematic pretensions, Dead Space: Extraction does a fine job of weaving an engaging sci-fi narrative into a slick action game. Far from being a stripped-down side-show to the main event, Extraction provides yet another reminder of how brainlessly entertaining the on-rails shooter can be when it's done properly.

TrackMania 2 Valley's another Nadeo title as brilliant as it is scruffy, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

For Battlefield fans, this is an essential expansion.

A masterful sequel to one of the genre's most beloved games, but it carries an ink stain that's hard to ignore.

At its best FIFA 11 is enormous fun and brilliantly engineered, but in its battle to be more varied and realistic it has lost some of its momentum, and off the pitch returns are starting to diminish too.

You can't cut-and-paste the artistry and attitude that Vlambeer has brought to this extravagant bit of disposable nonsense. You can't copy a true original - even before it's out.

A busier, louder, and more emotionally resplendent take on this singular hiking sim.

Possibly the wisest tweak is the balancing of the gameplay, which with a bit of practice ought to see players able to compete with Colin and co. within the matter of an hour or so. Previously the barriers to entry seemed to be set inexplicably high.

Charming and witty.

At its best FIFA 11 is enormous fun and brilliantly engineered, but in its battle to be more varied and realistic it has lost some of its momentum, and off the pitch returns are starting to diminish too.

A joyous and rugged display of rally racing, with exquisite handling, lightly flecked by technical issues.

Two and a bit out of three isn't a batting average to be ashamed of, though, and since Castle comes packaged with the usual array of playlist polishes to keep the game fresh, there's absolutely no reason for anyone still loving Halo 4's multiplayer not to embrace it. After all, it's a long wait for Halo 5.

Middle-aged role-players should need no encouragement to plunge into Grimrock's depths, but for new players discovering the genre through sprawling epics like Skyrim, its robust reliance on the strength of squares will make it a refreshing experience.

This is a muscular and confident game, one with the utmost faith in its own fiction and a dedication to gameplay satisfaction at a microscopic level, paid off in dozens of situations that feel completely random and organic, even when they've clearly been planted there for you to find. Tighter control and a more generous approach to replay value would elevate Dishonored to true classic status, but it stands as one of the year's best all the same.

Undertow is a fun, no-brainer and is a welcome addition to Xbox Live. Make sure you convince a couple of mates to fork out for it as well and you'll have a blast.

More of a smash and grab than a smooth raid, then, but you can't deny that it's come away with the goods.

It's both more of a role-playing game than it's ever been before, and more of a design game than it's ever been before. It may suffer a few glaring compromises, but it's an essential play for anyone with an interest in what videogames can achieve outside of a targeting reticule.