With only split screen to service your multiplayer needs, all you're left with is a solid, unspectacular single-player campaign that frustrates more than it entertains.

A gentle and unusual building game that's memorable but missing some purpose.

It's a game that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Undeniably, Thief suffers greatly by comparison to Dishonored - its more coherent, more thoughtfully and successfully designed cousin, in whose shadow Garrett and his game now cringe.

As you might expect, continual death loops start to chip away at your initial fondness for Intrinsic's stylish attempt, and once you get snagged on a particular problem, the temptation to part ways grows strong.

It's competent and capable of entertaining, and perhaps Camelot has proven that you don't need to exercise as much restraint as Wii Sports did to make a good golf game - but it still suffers from a lack of challenge for single players and being disappointingly unbonkers.

That sense of creating security from the environment, of making home, of surviving, is enticing and exciting. But if only it would just give you the time to play it.

There's simply nothing here that leaps out as being interesting, innovative, original or inspired. It's solid, entertaining, and for anyone with an interest in arcade flight combat, will while away quite a few hours some damp weekend - after which time it will be consigned to the corner of your games shelf and forgotten within a matter of weeks.

With a bit more substance to the missions and a few control refinements it would have been a must-buy. Let's hope Legendo gets it right in time for the next two parts.

The things it does are rife with potential it doesn't really exploit, and the result is adequate but nothing more - worth picking up in the January sales when you've overdosed on the competition, perhaps, but otherwise unremarkable.

There is going to be an inevitable split between tabletop players absolutely delighted with the best-ever visual recreation of their game of choice (though possibly also apoplectic about some of the liberties taken with Warhammer rules) and general strategy gamers nonplussed as to why they'd possibly want to play this messy, sometimes broken-feeling thing over the hugely superior (but less aesthetically inventive) "Medieval II: Total War."

The antiquated visuals would be easier to stomach if hot Nineteenth Century prospects like Napoleonic Total War 2 (a visually stunning R:TW mod due within the next couple of weeks) and HistWar: Les Grognards (a promising hardcore 3D Napoleonic wargame with an autumn ETA) didn't exist.

For a series built on high-octane thrills and explosive gratification, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's withdrawal to the well-trodden formula echoes the wider industry's continued allergy to risk.

Leaping from vehicle to vehicle like some sort of crazy offspring of Evil Kinevil and The Six Million Dollar Man is a lot of fun for a while. But then a combination of a horrible driving experience and some tedious difficulty spikes drain all the fun out of it, and you're left scowling about missed opportunities.

The bottom line is that Guardian of Light is plainly ill-suited to touch-screen controls, so if you like what you see, you're far better off playing it on the platforms it was actually designed for.

Skald is a propulsive throwback RPG that exudes grisly character, though its commitment to tradition holds it back in a genre rife with competition.

Fear the Spotlight is the least scary horror game you'll likely ever play, but there's a tenderness to its storytelling that cannot be overstated here, even if some of it's a bit muddled.

Almost equally fun and frustrating whether played in co-op or in single-player mode, it's a game you'll both love and hate in the same breath.

Teyon blends bloody linear shootouts with light open world action for an entertaining, if unadventurous, RoboCop experience.

Gotham City Impostors offers a minimum of substantive content - maps, in particular - and a maximum of unlockables that put unrealistic demands for grinding next to a 'buy now' button. It is possible, apparently, to reach character level 1000 in this. I cannot imagine it. The gadget-enabled shooter at the heart of Gotham City Impostors is fun, smart, and hard to dislike. But it's impossible to recommend.

All told, it's quite a lot of newness from an expansion pack, and in many ways makes for a pretty considerable shift from how the original game works.

Cheap, cheerful, timeless fun, and ultimately short-lived - but isn't that the whole point?

Apart from the obvious fact that party games have moved on an awful lot since Samba De Amigo first appeared, there's no denying that the control system just doesn't quite translate as well as it might have - and that can only hurt its appeal in the long run.

The main problem is that the online modes take the one element that everyone will want to muck about with - the glaive - then all but remove it from the equation.

It's just a shame that while EyePet has clearly been designed to stretch the PlayStation Eye hardware, it never tests the boundaries of the virtual life genre with the same vigour.

For all the things Gat Out Of Hell could or ideally would do though, it's important to remember what it is - a standalone expansion. Go in remembering that, and knowing about the lack of missions, and it's a pleasant surprise how much it at least tries to offer within its limits. Just don't expect it to be a sequel, or even a full slice of Saints Row 4 at its best.

Foamstars is a serviceable paintballer in the vein of Splatoon, lathered with some wild lore and underwhelming hero shooter elements.

With its clumsy dialogue threatening to ruin everything at every turn, Lexis Numerique's high-gloss offering is a challenge to play - but perhaps not always for the reasons the developers intended.

While the Wii version is a good game and takes to its new control scheme well enough to justify the port, it's just not sufficiently different to recommend a purchase, especially if you can source it elsewhere.

It comes frustratingly close to delivering something special. But despite multiple gameplay avenues bursting with potential, it leaves them largely unexplored, showing more interest in wowing you with surface sizzle.

The thing that upset me, though, was that by the time I got through most of it there was a real sense that these ideas - however basic - could have been applied so much more exotically and with so much more freedom than they have.

Much like the unsubtleties of its title, Big Mutha Truckers 2 shows far too much too soon, and prematurely shoots its load before reaching the much pursued destination of Real Satisfaction. Sigh. A truckin' shame? Truck yeah.

Unlike its glistening, preening stars, Legends of WrestleMania is weak and insubstantial.

It doesn't scale well on gigantic tellies, and you must endure nasty 4:3 borders, but for the committed, that's all part of the authentic retro fun.

Although it looks like Rustin Parr and uses the same technology, there’s none of the flair and precision of its big brother, and it’s decidedly shorter, which isn’t great since "Rustin Parr" was over too quickly to start with.

What we're left with is a flimsy framework - a sort of clothes horse for content - rather than a truly great racing game.

As things stand, not only does Ghost Squad feel completely archaic on a number of levels, it offers very poor value for money.

There are reasons to play Allods: the visuals, the lore, the grab-bag of clever features, the astral ships, and the dim satisfaction that automatically comes from levelling up - for free! It's just that none of these are very good reasons, because this isn't a very good game.

In short, Mario & Sonic's London outing is much like their Beijing sojourn of late 2007. It'll keep younger children in particular amused and entertained over Christmas, and it's a safe bet for festive family fun if you have enough controllers to go around.

The missions are beautifully detailed, but characterless. The acting is just a few inflections the wrong side of ham. The units simply don't pack the punch you want from modern combat, and that lack of zing is pretty much found throughout the game.

Among the Ruins is The Walking Dead doing what The Walking Dead does well, but it's spinning its wheels when it should be racing towards the finale.

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

This collect-'em-all compulsion will see a certain type of gamer through, as will the charm and comedy of the Nippon Ichi fanboy. But for many gamers the infuriating platforming and a combat system that rewards pattern-learning and slow progression over fast, reaction-based advancement of Nippon Ichi's off-kilter design decisions will be insurmountable obstacles to true enjoyment.

Its designers have crafted a decent team shooter that, though small and imperfect, offers an alluring, dramatic kernel amid its see-sawing action beats. But the way it's been carved up and served doesn't inspire much appetite.

It's a game I found myself enjoying in ever shorter bursts as the prospect of farming more XP and Crystite from yet another nest of alien bugs, or finding another lost family member for a crudely modelled NPC, became less and less enticing.

The paid, offline version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is a lot more chill, but the legacy of its freemium systems still requires a little navigation.

The core concept - whilst interesting, different and certainly as well executed as it can be - never quite hits the level of compulsiveness and excitement that other high-score games like "Meteos" and "Zoo Keeper" and, to a certain extent, the Mario 64 DS mini-games have already hit.

As an actual coach it really only works in general terms: there's no way to finely tailor the experience for your own capabilities in ways that an actual person could, and there's not much to commit you if the determination lapses. My Health Coach is a fair package for those who treat this as a first small step in getting off their plump behinds, though it's not essential.

For the majority of Wii owners, I suspect this will prove simply too dry and convoluted to really catch on.

This is the best execution of Animal Crossing so far, but it is difficult to view it as anything other than a lazy remake of what's gone before.

The survival horror multiplayer has mastered publicity stunts, but it doesn't make a lasting impression.

If you should spot Speed Racer in a bargain bin, and fancy a few hours of simple, entertaining arcade racing, it's worth a look.

It's a safe if not spectacular middle episode to Ubisoft's mostly enjoyable yarn - one that neither sets up new mysteries or concludes any existing ones. It wraps things up with a sequence that suggests we're within reach of the season's denouement, with another shift in location to New York and a cliffhanger that promises a more dramatic conclusion.

Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is a successful homage to the venerable series, which tells an enticing story despite its repetitive nature.

Here's the difference between "Everything or Nothing" and From Russia With Love: whatever you thought of its approach, "Everything or Nothing" had to be invented; From Russia With Love just had to be filled. And it has been - with stuff from "Everything or Nothing."

You can't fault the presentation and all important street vibe, but you can fault the feeble level design, fudged controls and lousy camera.

It's just not the Grand Theft Auto experience most people will be gunning for, and certainly not for this price, not a chance in hell.

It simply doesn't really do anywhere near enough to unseat Polyphony's great monolith of a game. In some ways it's a whole lot more accessible (if you can be bothered to wade through the somewhat daunting layers of formulae that get you up the pecking order), but in others it lets itself down with appalling presentation, rank front end, awful music, and visuals which while perfectly serviceable won't have you gawping in awe if you saw it on a nearby demo pod.

It's a measure of how far we've come that just over 20 years ago the sight of blood alone was enough to shock and offend, whereas now it is nowhere near enough.

It might go some way to negating the slightly impersonal feeling of Master Quiz, too. The format is always fun and yet, as polished as the presentation is, this PSP version is a little bit Every Second Counts to the PS3's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

This is a game for the RPG fan willing to overlook intolerable weaknesses of character just to have a desirable looking girl on their arm.

Buy MotoHeroz, by all means - it's cheerful and fun while it lasts, with some levels that compare with the developer's very finest work. But in the context of what else is out there, and more importantly by RedLynx's own very high standards, this is, at best, above average.

Its dramatic and spectacular boss fights just about keep Black Myth: Wukong afloat, but behind all its glitz and glamour is a frustratingly hollow and rudderless action game.

Fans of Pangya on the PC will find it over-familiar and somewhat hollow without the online community aspects, and for anyone else the random and entirely unexplained Korean fantasy setting might be a distinct turn-off.

What annoys me here is that Castlevania was always doing several smart things at once and this one, conversely, is founded on a presupposition that pandering to the klepto sword-swinger niche is all Konami needs to do.

There are undoubtedly high points, such as the (mostly) excellent soundtrack, the fantastic controls and the truly impressive engine, but Moon is really just a supermodel in the Emperor's clothes, intriguing at first - but leaving very little to the imagination.

So while nothing substantial has been added to the SpellForce cauldron, the sequel's focus on smaller battles and quality questing has been refined, and the end result is a palatable expansion pack. With dragons.

It isn't broken and it isn't soulless, but it is pretty shallow. It's cute and passably entertaining, but there's nothing here that compels you to return to the game, and it's quite clearly aimed towards the younger end of the market. MySims DS is EA's family-friendly take on an existing idea; the Wii version is the one that innovates.

Someone somewhere is punching the air and whooping at their enjoyment of machine-gunning pseudo-Nazis while dressed like Elton John, but me, well, I'm hoping I'll soon move on to other, rather more evolved experiences.

A big throwback RPG that doesn't meaningfully mess with Suikoden's 30-year-old formula.

Much like Sid Meier's recent reinvention of "Pirates!,' huge numbers of ideas have been included at the sacrifice of any of them being particularly impressive. Jack of far too many trades, apprentice at only a few.

An entertaining one-stop-shop for competitive multiplayer action, but the recently released Black Hawk Down campaign is an unpleasant war simulation in all the wrong ways.

With this episode the Myst series goes out in respectable fashion. There's still nothing on offer for anyone that craves action, exhilaration or an easy ride but frankly that's no great surprise.

What Blood Bowl offers is a way for enthusiasts to enjoy their chosen tabletop sport without much of the hassle, remotely and conveniently - and for those with friends who'll also indulge, it's probably a no-brainer purchase.

Solid fundamentals, a good selection of modes and a huge cast will no doubt make this top of the must-have list for followers of the series but unless you're ga-ga for Goku, there are definitely better, flashier and more rewarding fighting games out there.

It's plodding and lacking in imagination, and it's mostly the great cut-scenes that will get you through. It's certainly not 'rip out your optics' bad - but Transformers: War For Cybertron hasn't got the touch either.

At its best, it's all very bite-sized and relaxing, like a bucket of M&S flapjack bites, a glass of red and some ill-gotten American-strength meds.

Overall, while it certainly captures a lot of its source material on spec, Wallace & Gromit's other strengths - Peter Sallis, Gromit shrugging or staring despondently into the camera, needless contraptions and simple directorial flourishes - are sorely missed in Fright of the Bumblebees.

Atlas Fallen echoes other mid-00s slashers with fun melee combat and cool ideas, trapped in a run-of-the-mill open world.

Special Forces is not without its moments of drama and excitement, but ultimately there is an overriding sense that you are simply going through the motions – Move or no Move.

With brainless autoaim combat, forgettable missions and little in the way of challenge, the flash stunts and crazy moves can't hide Just Cause's flaws, and ultimately, rather than being some sort of "GTA"-beater, it's more of a poor man's "Mercenaries," ludicrously padded out with hundreds of entirely worthless side missions that sprawl over uninteresting terrain.

Ultimately, despite the pleasing use of the stylus, there aren't enough original ideas to make it stand out from the crowd.

Detective Pikachu Returns is a straightforward mystery adventure whose strengths lie in its Pokémon setting and breakout star.

Its ideas for first-person puzzling mechanics are original, and when it starts combining them all into larger and more baffling setups it has great moments with a chilled-out pacing all their own. But that creativity is smothered under slavish imitation of the aesthetics and structure of the Portal series, and such a large influence is malign.

Despite throwing in a canine companion, button-tapping mini-games and retweaking difficulty levels and so on between NTSC and PAL, Dead to Rights is fundamentally underwhelming to look at, repetitive to play and riddled with more flaws than bullet holes, and this'll stick like rigour mortis after your fiftieth fistfight.

It's a fine showcase for some good ideas, doing for Arkanoid what Flipnic did for pinball. But its novelty value doesn't make it a game you'll come back to for long, though.

A solid core could provide some great competitive match-ups, but the dreary, generic campaign will fail to impress solo gamers.

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.

As a concept it sounds pretty liberating, but in reality, the fact that there are no preset challenges actually limits Jam Sessions in terms of actual playability.

If you weren't around for the old days Micro Machines, and you're desperate for something to race around on the DS, this is a solid, straightforward game that should keep you going, providing you can put up with its inherent foibles.

Van Helsing isn't a polished game, or even a particularly thoughtful one for most of its campaign, but it has scrappy charm and schlocky character, and it benefits from leaning on one of those design templates that is ultimately really, really difficult to screw up too badly.

A well-designed, well-conceived game.

It's just a shame that such a fundamental feature as combat takes the shine off what could have been the sequel to make Risen popular beyond its small audience of devotees.

Where Shellshock succeeds is when it resolutely refuses to pull punches in its general content, and when it hits the spot it's briefly thrilling. But for those occasional flourishes it's simply weighed down by being an average shooter, albeit one that's boosted by contentious context and some well-realised attempts at atmosphere building.

Although Field Commander has plenty of options, it's doubtful hardcore strategy heads will find enough to get lost in.

To some extent it suffers from selective authenticity. Ten two-minute rounds against a tough opponent can be tight, tense and technical, but the skills you're applying are arbitrary.

Nintendo serves up another bumper blink-and-you-lose blitz in WarioWare: Move It!, but the package is let down by the need to fumble with often-fussy motion controls.

The unremitting bleakness has a certain stylistic charm, but such is the relentlessness of it all, Vampire Smile is too intense to digest for more than a few levels at a time. It's an-all-you-can eat banquet at gunpoint.