Beneath the hysterical presentation, the frantic battle segments and the skittish storyline, then, Project X Zone is a thin game. The emphasis on fighting game reactions in the battle segments should appeal to genre fans, but these are too simplistic for genuine expression or mastery. Likewise, the tactical elements of positioning and unit movement on the battlefield lack urgency and true significance. The result is a humorous curio, perhaps, but one without the underlying game to adequately serve its stars.

Embark Studios' multiplayer shooter dazzles in the moment, but its AI voices are symptomatic of a broader issue with artistic vision.

A game that has a great little concept, a wonky campaign, AI bots that aren't quite up to the challenge of challenging you and somewhat dodgy netcode. It's incredibly frustrating, because the core concept works, and it works well. It's just all the rest that's falling apart at the seams.

While Infinity is adequate in basic gameplay terms, and will certainly amuse Disney-fixated youngsters for a while, it falls short of the games whose ideas it borrows.

The story may not be the most earth shattering we've heard, the voice acting (though delightfully it's British!) can be a touch jarring on occasion, and it's initially frustrating and rather basic and rough around the edges in some other respects, but nevertheless it grows into something that you can happily sit down and chip away at all evening without getting too worked up.

The camera is crap, the scale is awkward, the story and characters are basic and cringe-worthy, the combat is tedious, the platforming and puzzling is too basic, and I was well bored of it by the time I conquered the final level with the first of the four Teams, which wasn't even that long after I first grabbed it out of the shrink-wrap.

It's a more clued-up committee that's in charge for Razor's Edge, for sure, but for a series that once felt like a singular, twisted and brilliant vision it's still a depressing turn. This is a better game than Ninja Gaiden 3, and one that does commendable things in atoning for Team Ninja's past sins - but sadly it's far from a brilliant one.

No one should really expect it to be cutting edge entertainment, although it does succeed in providing a new spin on long abandoned gaming principles. Despite its overtly simplistic nature, it's still a blisteringly entertaining romp in small doses, providing you take it in the right spirit.

Admittedly better value for money than the rather uninspired "version 2" Dreamcast release, but for a game which has seen as much development as this to suffer from fundamental flaws and dodgy design decisions in so many areas is bizarre.

Respectable platforming and classic Sonic elements are undermined by inconsistent new ideas.

But more importantly, you do get to 'be' the Fantastic 4 and experiment with some really rather excellent superpowers, and the game isn't so bad that a serious fan couldn't overlook its flaws.

Some of it is down to the execution, which is mostly competent but lacks the spark and energy of Neversoft's original work.

The way the game manages to weave simple RPG mechanics on top of the narrative works surprisingly well, even if, ultimately, it all feels like a curious throwback to the days when even the most basic graphics were something of a luxury.

Absolutely enormous, endlessly gorgeous, but maddening (especially in its final moment), The Whispered World is a muddled shame.

Full of anomalies in more ways than one, Stalker 2 is a mess of bugs and jank that nonetheless stays faithful to the open world survival shooter of yesteryear.

It's hard to know how many people are really going to care about the return of Rocket Knight. Climax has done a decent job of giving it a modern sheen, but while it's mildly entertaining and completely inoffensive, it's also forgettable.

As relentlessly daft and shallow as it is, Nail'd is a very hard game to dislike. It's almost tailor-made for a weekend rental, which should give you enough time to rinse the single-player, have a few knockabout online races, and return it before the simplicity and repetition sours the happy memories of your brief time with it.

It's very good at what it does, but it doesn't offer anything new.

Elder Scrolls fans will be put off by its rigid structure and weak storytelling, while your average MMO player will tire of wading through the wan questing to get to the good stuff. Even the good stuff isn't outstanding, and the game doesn't represent good value compared to its competition.

Intriguingly, the presence of an all-encompassing online mode called Conquest ties up all the various strands of multiplayer game into a coherent whole.

For all its big ideas, Disney Epic Mickey never quite weaves its disparate strands into a convincing whole. Its conceptual ambition is let down by merely adequate mechanics, and Mickey himself remains a rather abstract figure at the centre of it all.

Grandia III can be an enjoyable trip for the 30 to 40 hours it takes to complete, as each battle is a joy even in the most boring of dungeons.

There are improvements, and there are problems - business as usual. The era of EA Sports' FIFA may be over, but the game goes on.

Black Knight Sword is a stylish anachronism, but an anachronism nonetheless. Its richest ideas are to be found in the presentation, the aesthetic, the art direction and stage direction. Elsewhere, this is a rather rote production, its substance plainly enjoyable, but mostly forgettable.

A decent enough result after 20 years in the wilderness.

There's just not enough depth and nuance here to sustain prolonged play.

As brightly as it burns, it's an all-too-brief fix that doesn't leave you wanting more.

Homefront floats in the limbo between "not bad" and "pretty good", and is hamstrung by a single-player element that feels like a half-hearted obligation. What's most disappointing is that Homefront wanted so much to join COD and Battlefield at the top of the genre, but has ended up as merely a weekend timewaster for players waiting for the next shooter fix.

And viewed as what it's meant to be - a game for kids - Jambo! Safari isn't too bad. It's simple to understand and there's plenty of stuff to do. You get to drive a big car and throw ropes about and pat lions. There are no guns or scary bits. You might even learn something, although nothing you learn will be very interesting.

Lack of coherency, imagination and self-awareness.

A zany, knockabout co-op action adventure that's kaleidoscopically colourful but wears you out before you get to the good stuff.

While its battles can be surprisingly punishing and occasionally uneven, there's a lot of heart in this gorgeous turn-based tactics anthology, and the scale of its ambition just about sings through.

The drab lunar landscape which makes up much of the game is a poor substitute for the rich snowfields and forests of Earth 2150, and poorly balanced campaigns make the single player experience less satisfying than it perhaps should have been.

As a concept, it works. The physics is decent enough, but the game itself never finds the tone or hook that elevates its gameplay model into something truly compelling.

But we've all done Lemmings at one time or other, there's nothing new about this, and as much as it might sound like a good idea in your head it's a nostalgic itch you can scratch without spending £30 on another PSP game that makes you wonder why you ever doubted the DS would kick it all around the playground until its shiny little face was thumbsmeared to death.

A strangely compelling, if completely non-essential, diversion for adults and definitely a recommended rental for the youngsters.

Aliens: Dark Descent is an occasionally wayward but on the whole, inspired movie adaptation, and a suspenseful real-time tactics game.

A shallow shooter that doesn't offer anywhere near enough bang for your ill-gotten buck.

As there's no real burden of expectation on its shoulders, it's hard to imagine anyone getting angry with Fable Anniversary, and yet it's equally hard to shake a feeling of disappointment. It's the original, rather than this update, that's the problem. Fable's fundamentals already had a major overhaul in 2, and while a return to those ideas in rawer form provides an insight into the evolution of game mechanics, it also serves as a stark reminder of its age.

Perhaps biggest problem with the game: it's too short.

With its moreish pace and compelling presentation there's the basis of a really great tablet RPG here, but Warhammer Quest makes two misguided assumptions that hold it back. It assumes that role-playing works better with all the dice and messy statistics brushed off the table, and it assumes that a multiplayer board game and a single-player video game are the same experience.

It's nice to be reminded of where games started going wrong back in the '90s. It wasn't 3D, it wasn't FMV; it wasn't anything like that. It was when we did away with big stupid smiling still photos of sportsmen gnawing on trophy handles as background graphics, with preposterous guitar music playing over the top, like a sort of hungover Sunday morning TransWorld Sport nostalgia vomit fantasy.

Developer Harebrained Schemes returns with an evocative and pulpy tactical adventure, where enjoyable turn-based combat just about offsets some woeful real-time stealth.

A charming, if flawed and anorexically shallow, kids' action game. Parents shouldn't feel bad about buying it. Kids won't feel bad playing it.

With such a tediously unengaging storyline, vanilla locations, rubbish camera system and an all-round feel of technical impoverishment, what you're left with is a game that's certainly fun, original and hugely engaging for a while, but one that fails to live up to its early promise.

As a standalone experience, it's shambling but lovable: two parts quirkiness to one part tedium. Compare it to the original, however, and it's hard to escape the fact that a once-brilliant game has been put through a mangler. Somewhere along the way, Capcom's zombie apocalypse has been bludgeoned into a zombie compromise, and, unless you really like poodles, the Wii offering can't really be said to add anything that the 360 version was lacking.

A decent arcade tennis game but not a classic - and this New Play Control! conversion isn't anything more than a more-or-less functional reboot that gives away a little precision, and doesn't add much in return apart from a sore arm the morning after.

A vast world and even vaster array of MMO-like activities mix with glittering fidelity in Crimson Desert, but what good is it without much character, texture or charm?

With a comprehensive array of multiplayer modes adding plenty of dogfighting action to the fray, this is well worth checking out, if inessential for the committed veterans.

Beneath the mis-steps and the schmaltz, and beneath the dictatorial heft of the soundtrack - gorgeous and emotive, but laid on a little too heavily throughout - there's still that fascinating glimpse of a boy making the best of a lonely childhood.

It's just a shame the presentation is so rubbish. The characters are horrible to look at and the environments are ugly. At least the games are quite good fun, in a limited sort of way, and the selection isn't bad.

Put MicroMachines in front of four people instead of one and it’s a revelation.

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.

Dead Rising's over the top zombie shenanigans still hold up in 2024, but next to the remaster from 2016, this is definitely geared more toward first-time players than returning fans.

We've used the word a few times during the review, but "chore" probably sums up TRON 2.0 if we were to plunge to our most uncharitable.

A game that offers a decent amount of fun, with great combat, occasionally inspired set-pieces, but sub-par driving and a half-baked story mode with barely enough variety to fill a long evening.

You'll probably feel that Odama doesn't quite work. But there's such love in it, so much needless, thankless extra toil and detail, like using the Ninten bell as an excuse to remind us of the etymology of a very familiar name, that at the very least a few more radars deserve to be tuned to Saito's movements in future.

There's simply not a single thing that Risen 2 does well, not its stilted combat, not its transparent towns, and definitely not its plot, which feels like something you'd come up with after passing out with the Pirates of the Caribbean DVD menu music in the background. Then again, there's nothing it does badly either, so it's no thief.

If Beenox had been allowed the time to build on that foundation - to add more life and colour to Spidey's world, to construct more compelling reasons to explore and develop your abilities - then it could have earned the adjective of its title. The Passable Spider-Man just doesn't have the same ring.

If you do know your Kakashis from your Irukas, add a couple of points to the score and think about picking this up. For everyone else, games like Kingdom Hearts 2 and Ninja Gaiden offer far more substantial and rewarding adventures in a similar vein. Everyone's a winner, basically. Hurrah.

a stuttering start for F1 on the 3DS.

The chucklesome cut-scenes and warbling background music briefly raise a smile, but beyond that this is only a mildly entertaining throwaway.

Scarygirl is cute, workable, but otherwise routine - its style inching ahead of its substance.

It's just that what it does still isn't that exciting or memorable, and without the lure of permanently capturing your Poképals, it falls to the rather dull storyline to try and keep players engaged.

Kyle Crane is back, and looking for revenge on the evil scientist who's spent 13 years experimenting on him in this enjoyable if sometimes uneven romp through Techland's greatest hits.

The curious structure of Burnout Crash makes the overall experience one of giddy highs punctuated by fist-clenching lows, and as such it's very difficult to recommend with any confidence.

A standard management sim with a coat of cosy paint lies under the short-lived novelty of using love as a resource.

Our advice: load Adventures as soon as you unpack your Kinect and enjoy it, preferably with small children to hand. Within a couple of weeks it will be gathering dust: another brave bundled game, first up out of the trenches, first to fall.

Many will leave disappointed, yet the more reasonable should still welcome this faithful yet flawed interpretation of their sport. Come the inevitable sequel, though, the developer will need to really turn the corner.

This is not a sophisticated game in ethos or execution: it's a series of environments in which you shoot men's balls off in slow motion. But this singular calling is, on the whole, well served, and Sniper Elite V2's perfunctory ancillary mechanics don't distract from the practice of cinematic Nazi gelding.

It makes some small progress in freeing point-and-click from the needless bonds of tradition but is it really a compelling, imaginative experience that proves mouse-based adventuring isn't dead? Nope. Not even close.

Some excellent enhancements make this the ultimate version of Dragon Quest III, but it could still do more to make it wholly welcoming to newcomers.

The weak cutscenes, poor combat system and somewhat redundant spell system don't help its cause, and the game falls far short of what it could have been.

There's no denying, however, that the platforming feels a little tired and the constant blibbering of the characters is rather trite.

With only genre basics in its bag of tricks, and hobbled at every turn by clumsy implementation, in a gaming landscape that already offers Battlefield 1943 and Call of Duty: World at War's Nazi Zombies mode, Wolfenstein's bargain basement charms are of limited appeal.

Blind jumps, enemies that re-spawn almost instantly combined with boss battles that often require repeated attempts make this a difficult game. But the formula has been expertly updated here and, while the game never achieves the excellence of those titles from which it draws heavy inspiration, this is still a competent and engaging proposition.

Like its own hero's dabbling with time travel, Life is Strange: Double Exposure highlights the troubles of trying to revisit old memories, while raising unanswered questions about the future.

When it's firing on all cylinders, AlphaBounce can be a riotous diversion; full of inventive ideas and bold scope, the potential's clearly there. But rather than make a tight, focused design that continually entertains, MotionTwin waste far too much of your time.

As long as you're all in the same boat, Top Darts is fun in its haplessness, and a cheap bit of Move-related throwaway entertainment.

Super Princess Peach is not a truly remarkable title on the scale of Mario & Luigi, not only as it's not very funny, but its innovations in interface and design actually make it slightly less fun than it might be if you played it 'straight'.

It remains a simple, addictive and hugely enjoyable game concept, and that alone makes Bomberman PSP into what you might call a "fairly good game" - nothing remarkable, but a nicely presented repackaging of a much-loved original.

For those few short hours the title doesn't really involve much more than collecting, leaping and basic problem solving. The plot doesn't interfere much, and as such the time travel element that could have been used to good effect is cast aside as just another excuse for all Banjo's hard work.

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.

Sony has at least attempted to approach the genre from a quirky and strategic angle, but our lasting impression of the game is one that mostly entertains, but rarely inspires.

Sacred 2 is the best Diablo clone since Titan Quest and its excellent expansion, Immortal Throne, and while the compulsion to play is there, the unholy alliance of clicking and collecting works and works well.

There's nothing special here. Elebits is a fairly competent FPS tidy-'em-up with a great edit mode, but that's all.

It still feels clumsy, and while it's possible to overcome this in time and reach a decent standard, it robs the game of some of its accessibility - something critical to its multiplayer appeal - and your ultimate proficiency in moving, jumping and firing at the same time is only likely to announce itself long after you've exhausted what depths there are to excavate.

It's just that it hasn't really addressed the chief failing of Parallel Lines, which is that, as polished, and competent as it is, it still feels a bit like a soulless GTA clone.

A horror game with a twist? We've not seen one of those before! But The Cabin Factory's big trick is just enough to set it apart.

All you're left with is a game that costs almost three times as much as the original, isn't as pretty, and still has all the frustration intact. What a shame.

This may not be the most exciting celebration of 47's career that Square Enix could have mustered, but it is one last chance to experience the single best real-world assassin game around - and a chance well worth taking advantage of, if its dark magic has somehow managed to elude you until now.

I liked playing Banished. It was complex, but never fiddly, difficult, but rarely cruel, though it would benefit from a little more transparency. But as soon as I had a handle on it, as soon as I'd started to see through some of the fog of its complexity, I wanted to grasp for something bigger, something greater. Banished is satisfying, but never spectacular. That's not quite enough for me.

Whatever the cause, the result is nothing if not a totally fascinating game, one with vast potential and reams of signature Rocksteady detail and panache and all the structure necessary to make a live service shooter that's genuinely enjoyable for months to come. There's just no central, underlying game to actually hang it on. A glittering, custom-made suit, without the hero to wear it.

Because it's scientifically impossible to have too many match-three videogames in your life, here's another one to salivate inappropriately over.

The resolutely linear nature of the gameplay, as well, is a throwback. There are so many possibilities for a Silent Hill game set in a more expansive environment with multiple threads running concurrently, with a more fleshed-out cast, but that's never the case here.

A remarkably solid and substantial game. Certainly no one should be ashamed of owning it or giving it as a gift this yuletide.

Placed in the context of the Star Fox series, however, it is profoundly disappointing. It lacks Lylat Wars' balleticism, subtle difficulty curve and queer beauty, and its dialogue and plot really are extraordinarily bad.

For all its exterior charm, Park Patrol is a game built largely on repetition and slow steps.