This is a flashy and technically sound beat-'em-up and its drawbacks are largely overshadowed by what is the strongest interpretation of the Dragon Ball Z anime in years.

Sure, it's probably the most morally bankrupt game we've ever come across, but if you delight in extreme violence, language that would make Tarantino blush and a more forgiving take on the GTA theme then you've come to the right game.

The likelihood, then, is that people who played DKC Returns will find Tropical Freeze a little uninspiring. It's a superior game - it looks nicer, it's easier to control on the GamePad than it was on the Wiimote, and there's slightly more to do - but like a lot of Nintendo's recent sequels, that doesn't feel like quite enough.

It's a delightful nod to early eighties platforming, but one held back by an ill-suited input method.

The meagre number of maps means repetition soon kicks in, but the gorgeous visuals, frenetic carnage and demanding teamwork make for the tightest Horde variant since Mass Effect 3's. A surprisingly good time for all.

PES 2010's team management options are a warning sign that the Japanese developer still has some tricks up its sleeve, and people for whom the transition to another football game is simply too much to countenance will buy and enjoy this, and discover it still plays a good, grass-roots game. For everyone else though, up is still down, because FIFA wins again.

It's a solid, enjoyable shooter, but one that ultimately fails to leverage its strange control decisions into a truly unique experience. It should be different yet, for all its bold ideas about movement, it ends up feeling strangely generic over the long haul.

What you're buying into is a fantastic celebration of a timeless classic, and one that does something genuinely interesting with the gameplay to make it relevant now. The problem is, basically, is that it's been put in totally the wrong price bracket for what is an impulse buy. A curiosity.

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.

Crucially, however, the game itself remains almost completely unchanged, the creative inertia all the more noticeable given the radical overhaul the series enjoyed over the course of its 2008 and 2009 incarnations.

Project Zero 2's gameplay is pretty basic throughout and showing its age in areas - although the graphical makeover, bar some dodgy textures, is very good. But with the lights off, it's as spine-tinglingly scary as any game I've played, with some truly haunting moments and gasp-inducing set-pieces delivered as it reaches its disquieting climax.

There's much work to be done before LucasArts can boast it has created the ultimate Star Wars FPS. Sure, it's the best one yet, but with some often laughable AI and creaking tech underpinning it, the flaws are there for all to see.

Snapping out of your glazed-eye reverie to find you've added a few points to the high-score table. Well Gunpey-R's sort of like that. Not quite as good. But it's almost as good, and that's a pretty significant achievement after all.

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.

A superb game with a truly deep story. Couple this with a rather good looking graphics engine, some great dialogue, detailed environments, and an all round attention to detail, and you have a great game. Unfortunately though, thanks to the nature of the adventure system and the pauses while loading scenes, the game can become tedious at times.

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.

More often than not though, Eden succeeds, and once you get to grips with creating Molotov cocktails, shooting bottles in mid-air, and using aerosol cans as makeshift flamethrowers, it hardly seems to matter that shooting itself is so ineffective.

It seems churlish to completely dismiss Scarface's many amusements just because of control issues, especially as they can be accommodated with patience and practice. For the bulk of its playing time Scarface remains an indecently entertaining bad taste romp and, for those who don't have access to a PS2 or Xbox, it's still worth having.

Taking a "glass half full" approach, you could say that this rather unwieldy spread of mini-games and challenges offers something for everyone, regardless of your style of play. Alternatively, you could bemoan the way that the game's strongest elements are the ones reduced to a couple of trials, and that these are the best ones with the most replay value.

If you loved Words With Friends, then it's almost certain that you'll waste just as much time here. Just don't blame me for corrupting your innocent mind.

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.

So Deadlight can lay claim to being as smart and atmospheric as previous 2D XBLA hits such as Limbo or Shadow Complex. There's one problem, though: Deadlight is an incredibly slight experience. A single play-through comes in at under two hours, and that running time's been bloated by an uncomfortable number of trial-and-error moments.

If you've never played any of Nintendo's many Picross titles, this is as good a place to start as any.

Xenosaga 2, is a big commitment for any gamer. If you want to get the most out of the game you're looking at weeks of concentrated staccato playing/watching/playing/watching as you work your way through the huge narrative arc.

New developer Slant 6 has done a good job capturing the look and feel of the original franchise, but the new gameplay will disappoint those looking for a standard third-person shooter, and the game's flaws keep it from impressing more than it frustrates.

There's a difference between kicking your arse until you learn from it, and kicking your arse until you get lucky, and Ninja Gaiden 2 fails that crucial test all too often.

The greater focus on third-person sections is also a pleasant diversion (especially when you're outside of the ship) but, realistically, the real problems are the drudgery of constant waypoint-following and the inability to play the campaign mode with a pal.

If you need you thirst for adventuring quenched, Another Code is an essential purchase, but novices need to bear in mind that this style of game is very much an acquired taste, and experts should be mindful that compared to the adventuring greats it's not exactly in the same league.

It's amusingly offbeat in places, but I can't help suspecting that the D&D hardcore will be deeply dissatisfied with Atari's offerings, at least until Dungeons & Dragons Online turns up.

Pursuit Force remains a great idea in search of the right execution, and there's clearly a fantastic arcade game in here absolutely bursting to get out, but it's still not there yet. Not quite.

Scarface is certainly several notches above the derivative insult we expected it would be, and those who can bear to wait another year for the next GTA will be well served by its faithfulness to the popular formula. Groundbreaking it isn't, but fun it is.

A fun, solid RTS. But that's all. It fatally lacks a sense of creative vision other than just being a bit better than "Rise of Nations," with its step-forwards more half-steps.

If you've got the stomach for repetition, this is well worth a look, but otherwise approach with caution.

Pleasant but undemanding, gorgeous but lacking in depth - fans will be forgiven for expecting something a little more chewy, a little more experimental, from a developer who made his name by turning adventure games upside down. Here's hoping Act 2 builds some gameplay muscle to go with the supermodel looks.

In other words, if this sort of thing matters to you, if you still can't bear to unplug your Dreamcast, and you do own "Virtua Fighter 4" and all the others and think they're brilliant, this is for you.

It may test your levels of forgiveness, and stretch the boundaries of your patience, but if you want a game that delivers something close to the unforgiving challenge, tension and confusion of real warfare, then give it a try.

With an evident determination to cut the crap and get down to business, it's a tight, brutal no-nonsense corridor shooter. Completely predictable, but fun all the same.

Despite its unevenness and occasional cruelty, Teslagrad is a bold and captivating proposition. The unusual and elegant aesthetic is persistently attractive, and the lightness of touch with the storytelling brings the world-building to the fore.

With its strict linearity preventing you from trying out songs in the order of your choosing, it's a little too easy to get snagged on one in particular. Without even basic hints on offer, you can end up faffing around to no effect for ages.

Its stunning graphics put most other third person games to shame, the ferocious hand-to-hand combat makes for a more visceral experience than is usual in this rather stale genre, and the heavy dose of Norse mythology provides an interesting and unique setting for the game.

It takes golf seriously, and it makes a nice difference. Just don't expect to be teeing off on the moon or anything.

Where Brotherhood enhanced the thrill of being Ezio Auditore, Revelations distracts from it. Ezio may look old, but it's the series itself that really shows its age.

Real Potter fans will love the ability to spot even minor characters from the books making appearances on the Quidditch teams and playing in their correct positions, and the whole thing has been put together with the utmost of respect for the material on which it is based.

But if you can bear to put up with the obvious lack of polish in the graphic and AI department, (similar bugbears that "Hidden & Dangerous" players will confess to), then there's a very absorbing FPS to get to grips with here.

EndWar gets a lot of things right: a beautifully slick interface, stripped down mechanics, and the best voice-recognition system of any game we've played. It's got plenty to offer armchair strategists, but balancing issues, pathfinding and AI niggles and a disappointing lack of variety in factions stop it just short of its obvious potential.

No matter how much you try to like it, the price of 'winning' will be spending the rest of your days gently rocking in the corner.

The greater focus on third-person sections is also a pleasant diversion (especially when you're outside of the ship) but, realistically, the real problems are the drudgery of constant waypoint-following and the inability to play the campaign mode with a pal.

SOCOM PSP is a simple, varied, and well put together game that works very well on Sony's handheld.

As with so many gaming oddities, Cell is haunted by the ghost of the game it could have been. Though, unlike so many of them, Cell barely ever lets you get bored. The screen's always bursting with poison voxels, the world s always a little bit of a mystery.

It's a solid adaptation of a fun card game, and at 400 Microsoft Points it's priced just right.

Big Brain Academy's certainly fun in an innocent kind of way, but it's probably a better bet for your offspring than for you - although you won't regret joining in for a bit of multiplayer.

It just doesn't hang together as a coherent package in its own right, and while the gameplay certainly doesn't sully the memory of the original, the thin spread of content is cause for concern.

I just didn't feel the same magic, the same excitement that flowed from "Sorrow."

It's another small step forward for the series, but that's not quite enough to dispel the suspicion that Codemasters' F1 team doesn't have the resources to create iterations compelling or different enough to justify the annual churn. F1 2012 is a good game, but it's some way off from being the classic it could be.

Coupled with archaic AI and the isolating absence of PlayStation Network support, this makes for a game that feels unfocused and regressive, despite its considerable technical and mechanical accomplishments.

Fans of Japanese RPGs should bear in mind that behind the problems lies an extremely competent, if not terribly imaginative, RPG which will certainly fill a couple of dozen hours of your time in an entertaining and involving manner.

Yes, some of the enemies don't seem particularly interested in your existence. Yes, some of the characters' weapons are so brutally overpowered to turn bosses into braggart-mush with worrying haste. But the game doesn't really care, and neither do you. It's a run-and-gun that chooses to step back from the difficulty cliff and just show all the gleeful nonsense its managed to think up to anyone who cares to persist.

Another solid instalment in a brilliant series of games, and with the single-player campaign's branching structure providing about a million campaigns and battles, there's certainly enough to keep you going till Vol 3.

As a package it's excellent to have two timeless games to dip back into whenever you feel like it, but there's still the niggling feeling that Nintendo's pricing strategy for such things is bordering on insane.

SEGA fans, run don't walk to the shops, but be prepared to give Superstars a few hours before the gameplay starts hugging you as hard as the graphics and sound. Everyone else, dust off Virtua Tennis 3 for a more complete alternative.

as adventures go Nightfall feels much more open than previous Guild Wars modules. While many of the quests had been tied to tightly linear the maps, the missions of Nightfall are far more open-ended.

There's little argument overall that Tiger Woods 07 is the best possible starting point for golf-game beginners...but anybody who was getting a bit bored of the same formula last year will be even less impressed with this outing.

The trouble is that Shadowgrounds was a game bursting with unrealised potential, and this sequel still leaves too much of that potential untouched.

Held together by Sellotape rather than superglue, LittleBigPlanet 3 is in constant danger of falling apart.

Despite a dozen little annoyances, despite that sluggish pace and some dated visuals, Case Zero remains a lazy pleasure to plod through as you divide your time between story missions and a therapeutic culling of the masses.

It's pretty, it's quite a challenge, and is loaded with rewards. But you'll quickly come to the conclusion that for all its charms, it doesn't offer enough new ideas, and that its competition is just too strong.

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"].

But as ultra hardcore as Flux remains, concessions have finally been introduced, such as checkpoints, and the ability to select each mission at your leisure.

If you love the film it's impossible not to like this game, despite its faults. That would be like hating a puppy just because it's got a wonky leg. This might not be the best videogame ever made but it's one of the better movie tie-ins out there, and it's the closest to being a Ghostbuster most of us will ever get.

Another one of those weird little offerings that is as much a place as it is a game: an old tree filled with strange life, in which dazzling secrets lurk under every stone. Click!

A mixed success. In terms of its childlike spectacle, Klonoa is quite brilliant, offering a number of memorable set-pieces and an unforgettable, wistful ambience throughout. But its challenges, while obvious, are often fiddly to overcome, and the sense of deep achievement that comes from completing one of Super Mario's tasks is here replaced by mere relief that it's over.

In a perfect word, the meta-games would be as good as the mini-games themselves. But with four people, Lambrini and deely-boppers (just me?), Wii Party's still a reliable, if fairly thin, source of entertainment all the same.

No matter how good it is - and in Skirmish mode, it really is pretty good - it's a bit saddening. The future never seemed so far away.

If you can bear the disappointment, and push on through, you'll realise that, between the whole intertextual thing and the interesting-but-average RPG mechanics, there's still a decent game in here. It's just a shame it's not the amazingly brilliant one it could have been.

There's precious little depth lurking in Hammerwatch, then, but if you've got a few friends handy or are willing to wait around online for the worryingly small community to make itself known, this is genuine old-fashioned skeleton-bashing with a gloriously tidal approach to chucking in the enemies.

The fine-tuned excellence of Army of Two's co-op gunplay will easily sustain you through one run through this gutsy, broadly enjoyable game. But the desire to revisit it is weak, and for game that's designed with social online play in mind that's a big problem. Any level of the current co-op king, "Halo 3," has more spectacle and incident packed into it than the entirety of Army of Two.

The audio doesn’t live up to the visuals. Digitised audio has been a standard fixture of SF titles for years, but the infamous “Hadoken!” and “Shoryuken!” are both scratchily rendered for SFA3, and the music isn’t much better.

Overall, it's a solid and unique JRPG which, thanks to some brave and interesting design decisions is worthy of attention, even if it will do nothing to convince genre detractors of that fact.

One of the better examples of a DS companion to an established game series - not much threat to Mario Kart in pure playability stakes, but home to surprising depth and fun all the same, providing you can look past the fact it's designed for people to play when they're not the one talking on Jeremy Kyle.

And that's the Saints Row 2 PC experience neatly encapsulated: a great - and often underrated - game, but one that is rendered significantly less appealing than in its original console incarnation.

Hell's Highway represents little more than a solid evolution of the original, as opposed to being a game which takes strategic World War II gaming to dizzy new heights. With an engaging but ultimately repetitive play mechanic at its core, it's a game which deserves a decent amount of respect, but whose charms wane rather than grow as the game progresses.

Smackdown vs RAW is the wrestling "FIFA" - drowning in customisable settings, but the gameplay isn't always completely there. However, like "FIFA," SvsR has made some admirable steps this year.

It's deep and complete in a great many of the right ways. It's just that it'd benefit enormously from having options to be friendlier. But once you're in you're in, and beneath that fusty layer of endless menus and cold numbers there's a strategy game of near-unparalleled flexibility.

An enjoyable, polished, satisfying game. It may only be a few hours long, but it's worth a tenner. It's perfect for those afternoons when all you want to do is close the curtains and collect rainbow gems while listening to some nice music. Just don't expect to remember the experience in 23 years. Or indeed next Tuesday.

But however good a game this may be, it's still left falling off the shoulders of a true giant, and even without online play and custom soundtrack options "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004" still hits the clubhouse well ahead of its rival.

It's an adventure for kids, but it's also a museum, a diorama, and a weird kind of historical document - and that's a combination that only video games could have given us.

This is really a release made for, and by, Castlevania fans. If you don't think much of the series, this isn't going to change your mind.

The beloved and well-balanced gameplay has been approached with care and reverence, but changes and tweaks have been made to keep everything in line with modern expectations.

The Lost in Blue series is still the most compelling and realistically punishing take on the excitement and hardships of survival on a desert island that videogames have to offer, even if it still has much room to improve.

Worse for the game's long term prospects, the ability to toss yourself round corners and into awkward spaces is too difficult to master, because even with the ability to change camera rotation speed, precision is difficult to attain.

Feels like an uninspired, by-the-numbers sci-fi B-movie of a game with high production values. It's 'fun', for the nine, ten hours it lasts, but only in the same brainless sense that allows us to enjoy dumb popcorn action movies.

Poorly upscaled visuals and a price wholly out-of-step with what you'd expect.

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.

The combat in Phantom Crash is mostly excellent.

The incredible intensity and vividness of Wings of Prey's dogfights is built on the authority of its flight models, the verisimilitude of it graphics and the quality of its bandit AI (excellent, apart from the odd sleepy moment) but there are other smaller factors at work too.

For more than five years, the PSP version has provided the closest approximation of the stripped-down FM experience that many of us naturally gravitate towards, and this year's edition continues to stick doggedly to those sensibilities.

As with many reconstituted products, NES Remix is immediately delicious, but inspires an obsession that it can't sustain for long.

It's rough around the edges, and amuses only for a short but sweet time, which may lead some to look askance at the price tag. Yet there are plenty of games which cost more and entertain far less, so while Goat Simulator is a joke, it's at least one in which the player is a willing participant. No kidding.