So if you're new to the series and want to see what all the fuss is about, Splinter Cell Trilogy HD is still a decent stealth package. It should be much better, though - and that's why it's hard to recommend it as strongly as the games themselves deserve.

The truth is that Third Strike is an elitist's game in the truest sense of the phrase. History has shown that, through its demands on player execution, this is a game that shrunk the audience of active Street Fighter players. But few would argue that it's anything but the pinnacle of 2D competitive Street Fighter design.

If the point is make your mundane life seem exciting by comparison, then I guess it's job done, but hardcore adventurers may find these sections taxing for all the wrong reasons.

Experiments feels more like a straightforward level pack than a bona-fide sequel - and one that most players will blitz through in no time.

Despite initial appearances to the contrary, you spend most of your time swiping The Last Rocket through various hazard-strewn rooms, negotiating air currents and conveyor belts and dodging flame jets and inconsiderate spikes.

With its familiar interface, simple mechanics and hummable ditty, resistance to its effortless charm is completely futile. At this stage, you might as well buy shares in Kairosoft.

One of those rare games that knows you can't be perfect all the time, and that you have the right to change your mind about your actions later. It just wants to be played with and enjoyed - and when you finish, you just want to play with it again.

Determined types fond of incessant repetition might eke some mild enjoyment from The Lost Town, but the rest of us can move swiftly along and leave the town to its inevitable fate.

Somehow, though, prancing around like a sweating monkey makes the magic happen, and turns it into the craziest fitness game yet. Never mind UFC Trainer, I may yet get buff from repeatedly removing the stupid tufty hair of imaginary pineapples.

If you can accept the pleated pixels for what they are, can appreciate the accomplished fluidity of the on-screen animations and - more importantly - are prepared to invest time into learning a technically demanding yet ultimately rewarding combat system, then Arcana Heart 3 is one of the most flexible, diverse fighting games that money can buy. It's far from perfect - and the variety it offers will be too spicy for some - but it effortlessly positions itself next to the current cream of the crop as a colourful, curious alternative.

Age of Empires, great as it was, doesn't quite stand up against the best in the RTS genre today - and Age of Empires Online doesn't improve on its mighty predecessors in any meaningful way in-game, while adding a lot of bumf around it of questionable value.

It's a game that invites us to reassess an entire genre, pointing to a bold future while nodding its respect towards the past. It's a towering triumph.

If you haven't already given yourself carpal tunnel syndrome playing these games, then Flick Soccer is a great place to start. It's hardly a masterclass in reinvention, but just like Flick Golf, the tough part is finding the time to stop playing.

In isolation, all would be entertaining if rather sterile. But in the context of the heist and the pretend phone-calls from the lovely Sophia, The Heist proves greater than the sum of its parts.

Groove Coaster still lacks enough of a challenge to be interesting, and it's only when you play each song on hard that the game's potential reveals itself. Even then, it's unlikely that hardcore rhythm action fiends will care much for its casual approach.

If Revolutionary Concepts came to charm us senseless, it worked. There are so many reasons to enjoy Gesundheit; its 40 levels of puzzle nonsense are only a small part of why you should dutifully surrender your loose change.

Stuck awkwardly between action game and top-down strategy, Cold War is an affectionate and exhilarating blast in the short term - but much like the cheap action figures it pay loving homage to, it can't survive more than a few days of intense play.

Unfortunately, Let's Golf 3D isn't one to get overly excited about, and in a market drowning in rival offerings, you won't have far to look to find a better one.

As it is, Lucid flows along happily over its 55 levels, but playing for high scores alone may not be enough to tempt you into the zone.

With a slightly gentler ascent, Go! Go! Kokopolo could have charmed us into submission. Instead, this chaotic, vibrant and original idea quickly descends into a battle of wills that only the most determined aggrophile will want to see through.

Whether you're a Warhammer 40K aficionado or not, this is just the right kind of uncomplicated stress relief to distract you from the BBC News 24 ticker.

Whether you're a Warhammer 40K aficionado or not, this is just the right kind of uncomplicated stress relief to distract you from the BBC News 24 ticker.

It's mean-spirited, dizzyingly deep, and snarkily nostalgic all at once - and those are just the skills and attributes I look for in a roguelike.

The sooner Gameloft stops wasting its considerable resources making console-lite games and starts figuring out how to make the most out of mobile platforms, the better. Like 9mm, Silent Ops is gaming at its most clueless and uninspired.

Limbic's stylish shift in approach makes a substantial difference, and any indifference is swiftly swept away as you attempt to cut a swathe through the undead hordes from the air.

It's hardly lacking in content either, despite the impulse price, with 60 levels as well as Wi-Fi multiplayer, a track editor for the creatively minded and a soothing massage thrown in free of charge when you're done.

But despite its hugely endearing premise, the dizzying, chaotic novelty soon turns into a muddled scrimmage where success tends to be measured as much in luck as in skill.

It's competent. Solid. Inoffensive. Somewhere down the line, DnS Development got mired in the details and neglected to inject the spark necessary to make the run-and-gun fun.

A monstrously addictive quick-fire affair that utterly nails what on-the-go handheld gaming should be about.

What's left is the nucleus of a Metroidvania game, mechanically functional and regularly interesting, but a shadow of its inspiration nonetheless.

A passable addition to the game, but one that doesn't do anything to make itself essential. Better than a lot of BioWare DLC packs, but nowhere near as satisfying as their best work.

At first, it's just a mild irritation, but the further you progress into this 60-level affair, the more aggressive the drones become and the more it starts to aggravate you when you can't see what to avoid.

Once you're in the zone, it starts to feel like a slapstick top-down Burnout. And if you don't feel like paying for that, maybe you should have your eyes popped.

And with online leaderboards, Game Center integration and universal iOS support, it works even better on iPad, as you'd expect.

As a relic to amuse your friends with it serves a purpose, but you could probably achieve the same result by visiting YouTube.

One Epic Game gets by through the tautness of the level design, the unexpected variety, and its ability to keep you coming back for more even when you're being driven around the twist by its playful arrogance.

But with a little perseverance, you start to learn the formations, and begin to improve your performance with every passing attempt. Success comes from meeting the rigid points target, with bonuses awarded from getting to the end of the level alive.

Unless you're some kind of creepy time-rich retro masochist who actually enjoys having to start over from scratch every single time, Xevious is likely to provoke nothing but buyer's remorse.

It doesn't seem to be slowing down, either, meaning the game you can buy today wonít be the same game you can buy in six months time. So that twenty hours can easily turn into forty, sixty, a hundred. If you let it.

The game will draw attention for its wonderful weirdness, as it should, yet that's only half of the story. Catherine plays its eccentricities against its more down-to-earth side, which makes for a richer comic world than you might get from bizarro fare alone. The upshot is an experience that's both fun and provocative - a nightmare worth staying awake for.

There's no question that Order & Chaos Online is a remarkable – albeit cheeky - achievement for the mobile gaming scene. You shouldn't buy it because it's an outstanding game (it's not - at least not yet), or because you'll receive an experience on a par with it's clear inspiration (you won't). While it's certainly a thrilling ride in the short-term, longer-term it will simply leave you pining for WOW itself.

From Dust is a crescendo - of ideas, but mostly of the glorious and fearful drama of nature - that will leave you feeling both humbled and thrilled...But it still feels like a beginning, and not just because it tells the tale of one. It's a big idea in a small package, and it's begging to be expanded, as Ubisoft has hinted it might be. Pray that it is.

Unfortunately there's not a great deal to it; just a succession of questions, and no other modes to explore - and if you were expecting Game Center integration or real-time multiplayer competitions, you're out of luck.

Taken at face value, these 'remakes' aren't as disastrous as they sound, but not including the original versions alongside them guarantees a testy dismissiveness among the very people who would champion this collection the most.

As a puzzle formula, it's incredibly simple but alarmingly addictive once you get going.

Imagine how stupid you'd feel if you actually ended up paying for more of it?

Regardless of how great it was considered back then, Spelunker HD is the kind of shoddy remake best ignored. The download scene is hardly short of platforming fun, now is it?

As a freebie to PlayStation Plus subscribers, Me Monstar Hear Me Roar is a cackling feast of projectile-vomiting silliness to while away an hour on, but you might balk at having to actually pay for it.

A simple yet robustly entertaining kid-friendly racer that switches from accessible fun to gruelling grind in the blink of an eye right before the end.

Devotees may still play along, through fandom obligation if nothing else, but there's no spell that can change the fact that Harry Potter's videogame saga ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

There's a great Kinect workout waiting to be made - this isn't it. But though it is flawed, UFC Personal Trainer should still get the committed fitter faster than its current rivals - just not without frustration along the way.

It all adds up to the strongest expansion in the relaunched series, across both Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

There's just not enough at stake to make this secrecy worthwhile.

Bastion may have you tugging at its threads to decipher your role and meaning, even as you return for a second go-round - but you're unlikely to question the choice you made to buy it.

Behind its playful charm is a platformer of rare quality. Blobster combines the best of what we love about retro platformers, but with modern refinements, and then has the cheek to charge next to nothing for it.

You could get away with this kind of guff in 1994 when we were all thrilled just to have justification for the £180 we'd shelled out for a CD-ROM add-on. Walking around a 3D tech demo was interactive! And immersive!

Even if you're not a hardened follower of the board game scene, Ticket To Ride stands out as a great turn-based strategy game in its own right, and right up their with the mighty Carcassonne as one of the finest examples on the iPad to date.

You'll flail your way half-heartedly through a miserable procession of encounters, against enemies that seem as thrilled to be there as you. In between, you'll weave through generic platform negotiation sections, before inevitably being forced to dispatch another prescribed gaggle of bored foes and, gasp, maybe a boss.

Jamestown certainly isn't the biggest shooter you'll ever see, but given the amount of replayability built into the structure, you'll play it far more than you might imagine.

Despite the initial audio-visual horror, Boulder Dash XL ends up being far greater than the sum of its parts. This is one ugly ducking you won't be ashamed to spend time with.

But at least this game does have potential, unlike Iron Man and Thor, and if you can make your peace with its clunkier aspects then it's a passably enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

Ms. 'Splosion Man may lack the impact of its predecessor and the taut focus of rival Super Meat Boy, but it nevertheless offers an explosive start to the summer season of Xbox Live Arcade releases, a game surprisingly freshened by lipstick and a bow.

It may be fun and it may make you sweat, but as an interactive fitness companion it's a feeble, infuriating effort that lacks the stamina to compete.

For as much as I wanted to experience more of its restless, morphing environments, there's only so much personal failure you can take before it's time to wave the white flag of surrender.

If you can divorce yourself from the fact you're playing an agony simulator, you would at least hope to extract some enjoyment out of the 'puzzle' nature of the game. But the humdrum truth is that there's not a great deal of challenge within Torture Bunny either - just a whole heap of trial and error and an element of luck.

Given time, though, and Pocket Academy gets under your skin just like the other Kairosoft efforts, largely thanks to the attachment to your pupils, the satisfaction from their eventual progress, and the burgeoning relationships with other pupils. It's enough to bring a tear to your eye.

Dream Trigger is a novel experiment that starts off refreshing, surreal and unique, but it's too content to regurgitate the same tricks and never evolves past its base mechanics. New coats of paint can only mask so much before it grows tiresome.

With just a smidgen more subtlety it might have worked, but the cod 1950s B-movie horror shtick is rammed home in CAPITAL LETTERS and SHOUTY VOICES at EVERY OPPORTUNITY to the point where you just want to tell Digital Reality to just PLEASE SHUT UP.

All told, you're getting an absurd amount of content for your 800 Points, but such is the incessant repetition at the core, you may question whether you really need it. If the answer is yes, then this is unquestionably an instant purchase, but over the long haul its infectious opening gambit doesn't quite sustain.

Scores feel entirely inadequate when it comes to rating a project like this, but if you feel like rewarding one man's six-year-long quest for creativity this week, Joost van Dongen's work truly deserves it.

It feels familiar, but it's unlike anything else - and even on DS, where good RPGs are plentiful, this is in the top tier. It should have been called Awesome Robot-Riding Dog Adventures, of course. But you can't have everything.

It deilghts in the moment-by-moment empowerment of piloting a 1970s vintage mecha in battle, the medium-term enjoyment of turning the tide of a battle through strategic thinking, and the long-view 'gotta catch 'em all' collecting loops. If you have never tried a Musou game before, this is where you should start.

It's basic stuff, its frame-rate can stutter, and it's got a handful of minor - ha! - bugs, but if you're looking for a source of guilt-free insect murder over the next few weeks, this is the best show in town. Just ask the ants.

The iOS is hardly short of inventive platformers, but this one certainly ranks as one of the freshest and most engaging to emerge for some time.

Apart from the delightful pixelart visual style, there's nothing particularly enjoyable or interesting about Nimblebit's 'freemium' effort. You build a tower, floor by floor, with the 'goal' simply to see how high you can build.

A concentrated dose of twisted real-time strategy for your money.

Despite - or possibly because of - its simple premise, Critical Mass is a game that's hard to put down once you get into a groove, and its a game we're likely to see a lot more of on handheld platforms once word gets around.

A relatively pretty update of the classic formula, but one that lacks the soul or spirit to make it even vaguely interesting.

If you missed out on one of the finest puzzle games to grace the download scene, then don't make the same mistake twice. Puzzle Dimension demands a place in your heart.

An exceptionally accessible package that fools you into thinking you're doing well - until you observe your pitiful online ranking.

The Mercenaries gets off to a promising start, and in the short term it can be a thrilling blast, but by refusing to augment or develop the core idea from its mini-game roots, Capcom has doomed it to second tier status.

A step in the right direction. The first Backbreaker struggled with the central mechanics (although a post-release patch worked wonders). The second game only really struggles with the over-optimistic pricing... Next time out, then, we should be in for something special.

This is a satisfying genre crossover that follows through on what Brutal Legend attempted. I'd chalk that up as a victory.

The original Ape Escape was charming and innovative, but this entry is as basic as motion gaming gets. What really hurts is that there's no reason why Ape Escape couldn't have been the game to take the waggle genre to the next level, if only it had a bit more passion behind it.

High Moon should have been given a little more time - and a lot more freedom - to play with their toys than they received for this outing. Hopefully, if we ever head back to Cybertron, the team will get another chance to show us what it can really do.

Little angry robots need love too. But it's a special kind of love that one formally expresses via the ancient art of turn-based combat and fruit machines.

So even if golf brings out your inner chainsaw-wielding Alf Garnett, face your demons with this playful physics-based catharsis. All yours for 59p.

Apart from being a thoroughly engaging game to fiddle around with, Feed Me Oil also looks the part, with a disturbing selection of slurpy behemoths to satiate. And then there's the price. Honestly, it's getting rude now. How is anyone supposed to compete with that?...In summary: Oil have some of that.

In terms of how it performs on an Apple touchscreen, the answer is: flawlessly.

For your money, there's plenty of gentle strategy on offer, and a lovely way to pass the time for those of us whose brains come alive to the unfolding of tech trees.

For a while, it's intensely good fun, but every man has his breaking point. At some stage, mania sets in, and fending off the determined alien hordes requires a desire to replay levels that only a gurning leatherface should tackle. You should know which side you're on by now.

There are some decent games here, in other words, but not enough to make this something you simply have to try. As for the Wii, it's on towards Zelda - and beyond that lies sunset.

Nicholson Electroplating doesn't have time for that slow-burn organic process. It attempts a brute-force attack on greatness and comes up short.

More varied, colourful and refined than its predecessors, F.E.A.R. 3's single-player campaign would be enough to recommend on its own. Supplementing it with Fettel's brilliant body-swapping mechanic is a masterstroke. F.E.A.R. 3 is like a Siamese twin; two great games sharing the same campaign. Coupled with four unique multiplayer modes, there's a lot of lasting value here.

Lacks the polish of Mikami's Capcom work, showing a rough edge that its creators no doubt hope communicates their punk attitude to game development, but really just comes across as a bit shoddy. But at a time when few publishers of EA's stature are willing to take genuine risks, its uniqueness is welcome and interesting. And as a celebration of the puerile, it leaves Duke Nukem Forever standing, staring longingly at its tit bridge.

In practice, it's a sticky platform-puzzler, tenuously reminiscent of System 3's ancient Amiga classic, Putty. The big difference with To-Fu is your inability to walk around. You can stretch yourself in any direction, but all you're really doing is setting yourself up to be launched onto another surface.

And like a lost relic of our now-mythical past, it's a love affair with all things spiteful.

Like most things in life, personality goes a long way, and Hard Lines has it in spades. And probably buckets as well.