By turns clumsy and clever, annoying and addictive, Fable Heroes isn't as different from the series that inspired it as it initially seems to be. It turns out one of the golden rules of being Albion's king also applies here: surround yourself with good people and you'll enjoy yourself all the more.

Supermassive's decision to play it safe means too many familiar frustrations, but impressive artistry – and a mid-game uptick – makes for a grimly compelling adventure all the same.

Despite the crushing averageness that SWAT displays in the visuals and the by the numbers level design, it's a strange experience to reflect on how much we enjoyed it.

YourShape revolutionises fitness gaming with its amazing use of technology, but fails to back that up with a game that does enough to encourage you to be active. Which is ultimately the whole point.

If you can be bothered to go looking for it, Koloomn might be a good investment. Otherwise, particularly for those of us already mesmerised by Lumines or quite happy with our range of DS puzzlers, perhaps, it's almost too simple, and I can think of at least a handful of block puzzle games I'd rather play instead.

Waiting six months for what amounts to some minor tech tweaks and four additional mini-games certainly hasn't changed my mind.

If you’re close to a wall, Blinx regularly disappears, so you’re left waddling around in first person mode, completely unable to judge distance or aim properly or in fact play the game properly.

For those with infinite patience and actual artistic skill, then Creation Mode might offer some entertainment, giving you the chance to show off your talents, or, more likely, import pictures to daub obscenities over.

You can't escape the technical limitations, the little niggles, the frustration of having to start over every time your flick-and-tap skills desert you, and having to perform that boot-up sequence every single time, and the stupidity of Daytona-level pop-up in an Xbox-exclusive game.

It just about passes muster as a stopgap release to tide fans over until the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 3, but those looking to rekindle fond memories may find nostalgia's bubble all too easily pricked.

The sense of scale is also slightly lacking, with cars and tanks actually looking like teeny tiny cars and tanks instead of making your mech look huge.

If you're planning on playing the single-player much, it's an abomination, and you shouldn't touch it with a bargepole; and on Xbox Live, it's simply so flawed as to be unplayable in anything other than a basic 1v1 lobby, which arguably makes it into a pretty poor investment unless you have a friends list teeming with people who want to play.

And if the button-mashing, combat-heavy missions aren't underwhelming enough, or the under-use of web swinging doesn't deliver enough disappointment, then the often-iffy technical side of the game rounds off a less-than-stellar package.

At the very least a more responsive stick-based system would have been a plus. but as it stands it almost feels too much of a simulation at the expense of action - although doubtlessly some of you will admire that approach.

A straightforward remaster that struggles to outshine the Switch port of Tropical Freeze, but Returns HD is still a challenging and satisfying platformer that stands the test of time.

Poker Smash doesn't really work. Borrowing familiar poker hands is a nice idea on paper, but the need to include colours, winking icons and bombs ought to have been clue enough to leave it there alongside the spider-web doodles.

I can't pretend that Soul Suspect is a particularly great game, but I do know that it's the sort of game I'll still remember - and remember fondly - in five years' time, which is more than can be said for most of its glossier rivals.

It's a hard game to sum up. The flashes of genius in Concursion's construction are some of the freshest and most engaging gameplay I've seen from the indie scene in years. I want to be able to recommend it for that reason alone. But there's a lot of game surrounding those moments, and a lot of that game isn't particularly good. It's fiddly and annoying in a way that the best hardcore retro games - the Mega Mans and R-Types - never were.

There's no doubting that this is the very best way to play either game outside of an arcade - mainly by virtue of the fantastic controls, and that you don't have to fork out for expensive extra hardware to play them.

That so much fits inside an iPhone, and that so much can be streamed over 3G and Edge, is unquestionably impressive. Pocket Legends is a multiplayer hackandslash RPG on a phone: that is pretty bloody cool. Unfortunately, it's revealed as just the dry-boned skeleton of an interesting game once you're past the initial wonder of how much is happening on your tiny screen.

Repetitious combat, shallow RPG elements, and imagination-free quests might put you off. But if the basic process of combat and casual partying up for missions a few minutes grabs you, you'll forgive Dragonica a lot.

Metro Awakening VR delivers some terrifying moments in its deep, thought-provoking story, but after a strong start, repetitive levels and pacing issues kill most of its momentum.

General ugliness, poor presentation, ropey tactics, and a general lack of charm all doom Shattered Union to that bargain bin in the sky. The plastic CGI storytellers and the fuzzy, characterless maps just leave you with the sour sense of wasted-time rolling around in your skull.

Endless Ocean is simple to the point of being quite dull, and certainly no masterpiece. But sometimes all a game needs to do is offer you something different, and it's an honest relief to play something that doesn't shout in your ear, set any time limits, or feature a single explosion; a game whose raison d'être is just beauty and peace.

Firefly has offered a level editor with the game, allowing players to compile their own campaigns or swap them over the net, but I can't see this breathing much life into a title that exhausts its appeal so quickly. Nevertheless, it's undoubtedly one for the management fetishists.

Only two of the four maps feel truly essential, the new game mode is more a frantic doodle than a fleshed-out idea, while the new weapon and vehicles are of negligible use beyond the shattered confines of Aftermath's dusty arenas.

It's not badly done - a good, clean, simple, average game.

Beautifully animated, wonderfully voiced and witty to boot, Loco Motive ticks a lot of right boxes for point and click likers. If only its underlying mystery wasn't quite so sidelined and predictable.

The acute sense of excitement and precision in combat of the "Halo" games is absent, likewise the intensity of being in a firefight delivered by "Battlefield 2." All the explosions and laser-fire feel a lot like window-dressing, even if the game does have some attractive scenery.

There is a Ferrari experience here, as long as your idea of the Ferrari experience is a Toyota MR2 with an ill-fitting F355 replica bodykit.

Star Trek becomes a rare movie game that rises above its peers and delivers something genuinely fun. It's only ever a partial success though, too bogged down by timid design and technical rough edges to really be the game that Trek deserves.

It's just a little annoying to know that SCEE and Team 17 are holding back on us, that this game could have been so much more.

The fantasy armies really do provide a fun twist, and the castles that are rapidly erected in Stronghold's clever building system are stunning. Ultimately though I wish this game had been Sandcastle: Legends, but it completely wasn't.

The puzzles aren't bad either, and flitting between nicely-rendered static environments is pleasantly old school, and works well on the iPad.

With a more refined combat system, BGT would be a fine prospect at its slim price tag. As it is, it doesn't quite live up to its title, but then Fairly Good Time doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

The platforming fluency is seductive, but it's a language of indifferent thumbing yawned through timing windows as wide as a house. The crushing thing about Prince of Persia, however, isn't this. It's that we're faced with yet another poor game planted in a bed of fantastic technology and interesting mechanics, which, rather than empowering the player to solve interesting problems in new and exciting ways, merely sends you for a long and elaborate stroll through a beautiful world devoid of challenge or variation, and marred by excessive repetition.

A pretty good game in its own right, if you try to forget that it’s pig-ugly and meant to be a sequel.

But right from the word go it takes a backward step by trying too hard to (ulp) be authentic and realistic, introducing some shonky control elements that never quite work and almost completely overlooking the fun aspect that was there in spades last time around.

That's really Blade Dancer in a nutshell: a decent combat system and an interesting crafting mechanic, but in terms of the rest of the game, Hitmaker doesn't really cut it.

Cygni stages impressive action from a bird's eye view. It could do with a little more variety, but will appeal to more than just experts.

The sequel to Squanch Games' detestable FPS demonstrates significant improvement, though its biggest features remain its weakest - and technical issues hinder the progress made.

As for the narrative that the cinematic camera serves, Rain's tale is too flimsy and poorly-paced to build into something significant.

An enjoyable title, just not one that will last you very long or give you good value for money.

If Deep Dungeons of Doom ultimately feels a tiny bit hollow, this may in part be due to its dazzling presentation.

Some of the old charm is still there, but it's starting to wear a bit thin after four years, and for those of us with more refined tastes there are much better third person games out there now.

If you're used to the sensibilities of modern gaming, I can imagine this being a massive let-down thanks to its unforgiving nature and lacklustre audio-visuals. See past the limitations and embrace the challenge and you may well enjoy what's on offer here.

It's a strategy game of uncommon substance. The painstaking management and honing of your team, the desperate push-and-pull war for territory, and the gradual incursion towards Arulco's heart of darkness offer a hearty feast for anyone who can make it past the more superficial disappointments.

Falls awkwardly between two stools; neither retro enough for the purists, nor accessible enough by contemporary standards, it's a disappointing backwards step from its flawed but fascinating forebear.

What scuppers Leviathan is nothing more than a slightly slapdash release - and greed.

It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination: the level design is still a cut above so many of Nintendo's peers. But by the series' consistently high standards, it qualifies as a disappointment.

One for 80's obsessives (you know who you are...) and die-hard GH fanatics only.

By no means a bad game. It's just horribly average, with some hugely disappointing lows counterbalanced by some genuinely excellent high points.

Forget about tactics: it's about pitting your silly custom character against someone else's silly custom character in a giggling orgy of button-bashing. It's not big or clever or deep, but it is fun if you take it for what it is.

There's fun to be had, but this isn't the reliable source of brilliant design that it should be. If you expected breezy old Wario to make sense of the Wii U in some fundamental manner, you're going to be disappointed by a game that occasionally seems quietly defeated by its host platform.

Republic would quite probably work excellently as a well-implemented "spreadsheet" style game; the 3D element is worse than pointless, and just gets in the way of the gameplay.

There are just a few development decisions, made too early or too late, that bring down the experience.

In its quest to be the most meta game ever made, Alan Wake 2 becomes a spectacle about writers and writing that badly needs an editor.

Supermassive Games' collaboration with Dead By Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive results in occasionally awkward fan service.

Space Hulk could have - and should have - been better than this.

It is a hard and maddening slog at times, but one that still has its moments where it surprises and quietly delights. Like the original, this isn't an RPG designed to make you feel good - you continue to be little more than a passenger in this historical tapestry, following along behind the horse tails of Henry's betters, and clearing up the mess they leave behind. Some will revel in that work, but I for one won't be chomping at the bit for another sequel any time soon.

There are moments where the noise and fury onscreen coheres into an honest and intuitive arcade rush, but there are also too many where you get the impression that it simply isn't playing fair. Whether or not this is actually the case, such suspicions crank up the frustration and make the full 800-Point purchase less desirable.

The best thing you can say about Rogue Trooper is that (despite some clunky control decisions) is almost always good fun. Thanks to well-paced design you'll certainly never feel like downing the pad in abject frustration, or out of plain boredom: it's the gaming equivalent of popcorn sci-fi action movie fodder.

Everything or Nothing represents progress, and proves that the abysmal "Nightfire" was a genuine blip rather than a sign of things to come, but the more discerning gamer will still come away nonplussed.

Slam Bolt Scrappers certainly merits applause for managing to make the idea work at all. But the constant need to multitask makes it feel like you're being persistently harangued by a hyperactive four-year old. If that sounds like your idea of entertainment, be my guest.

Despite having wings, your Unpleasant Horse's flying abilities are poor to say the least, so getting around requires leaping from cloud to cloud while stealing passing birds.

The problem with moving a lot of the skins over to songs familiar to a Western audience, though, is that it's harder to maintain that illusion of interaction when the player already knows the song intimately.

Dawntrail ups the ante with exhilarating combat experiences and builds a stunning new world, but meandering storytelling highlights the MMO's flaws.

A neon-lit murder mystery unable to uncover a deeper core.

Not half as bad as the limp first few hours suggest. It's perhaps not the greatest company epitaph in the world but, as Devlin might say, while throwing himself out of a speeding car, knocking back a slug o' the good stuff and mashing a Nazi's head in with one punch: "It coulda been a lot worse."

It might be cheap and considerately tooled for both the iPad or iPhone, but it's no Piyo Blocks. But hey, it has birds, and we all know that's all that matters.

Another frustrating 'nearly' package from Pterodon that's suffering from a dated look and feel. The single-player offering misses the mark, arguably, even more than it did last time.

There are some nice stretches of track to travel on and plenty of things to do along the way, but several of the activities are downright dull, while others are marred by questionable design decisions such as lengthy stops and the excessive use of temporary speed limits in the most boring parts of a track.

While the lack of absolute control has the unfortunate effect of making Super Rub'a'Dub a repetitious annoyance when you reach its hardest levels, there's more than enough fun overall to warrant the game's GBP 3.49 introductory price tag.

Only dedicated deadheads need apply.

Clearly the aim here has been to make something broad, to bring this story and its amplification of southern culture to as many people as possible. But in the process the joy of more rewarding interactivity, or more uniquely defined identity beyond the familiar platforming and fighting patterns, has been lost. So, again, the overwhelming sense here really is one of disappointment. Not that South of Midnight is a disappointing game - far from it - but that it's such a shame for it to get so close to being something so genuinely special. This is a game of just remarkable craft - we've not even mentioned the stop-motion style of animation! It's lovely - and likewise remarkable attention, thought, and care. If only just a little more of that care had been afforded to the playing of it.

What a bizarre, improbable thing this is. If Control was all about a fairly standard action game with world-beating set dressing, it feels like Firebreak has worked backwards from that set dressing to build all its actual ideas from. It really is a game about fixing furnaces and picking up Post-its, but it wants you to do it with strangers, and, heck, why not have a little interference from the Hiss as you go? It’s pretty much Control fan fiction - and I mean that even if you don't get the mission in which you're fixing giant fans.

A typically snappy entry in the best series that action tower defence has to offer, held back by a repeating roguelite structure that's only partially successful.

The worst accusation I can hurl at With Fire & Sword is also the kindest compliment I can pay it. Despite the new setting, infernal weaponry and bespoke story quests, most of the time the game plays just like Warband or the original Mount & Blade.

It helps that The First Templar's endearingly off-kilter presentation keeps expectations low, and even at its best it's still only pretty good at what it does. But being surprised by a game that succeeds on modest terms is often more satisfying than grudgingly accepting a hyped blockbuster that fails to deliver, so while the final "not bad" score might be the same, the actual experience couldn't be more different.

Once Human offers a deeply moreish open world scavenge-em-up, but weak action and generic clutter hold it back.

It's a shooter without eloquence or crunch, an MMO without content or personality, and as an experimental combination of the two it's missing ambition.

Microsoft is attempting to do pretty much everything the purists will hate with Flight, but everything that is necessary to save the IP. How well it's doing it is open to debate, and much will reside on what steps it takes next with the DLC. At present, it's not really a simulation, and nor is it fully convincing as a game experience. But it's definitely no longer scary and that, at least, is a step in the right direction.

Much like the cakes that the princesses so greedily scoff down, the game is delicious at first, an overwhelming confection of bright colours and varied flavours, but the sugar rush wears off much too quickly, leaving you bloated and exhausted.

Although still passably entertaining much of the time, stood next to other shooters on the Wii it doesn't even come close to matching the look and feel of games designed specifically for the system.

Even at its best, Caesar in Gaul wears thin long before the end of the campaign.

A game of limited worth, then, less enjoyable than 2012's World War 2-themed Sniper Elite V2, but which demonstrates a developer on an upward trajectory nonetheless.

While this is definitely a solid improvement on its dreadful predecessor, it needed to achieve a basic level of competence and build upon it, and it only does that to a very limited extent.

It's too old, and too dull.

A classic example of a game that isn't any good yet manages to be enjoyably passable for long enough that you might come away with the mildly mistaken impression that it's actually good.

A truly excellent combat system and neat character-centric episodes complement a compelling tale, but weak side activities and some turgid grinding hold it back.

Hopefully the community will build and become more sociable over time, but until that happens Clone Wars Adventures is a nice website full of decent mini-games with a less than rewarding membership scheme.

A massive improvement on the previous Taito-related DS efforts issued to date. As short-lived as it is, and despite some irritating control and level design issues it's a lot of fun.

Ingenious, unstable, and uncompromising in pursuit of its goals, Shadows of Doubt truly is the ultimate hard-boiled detective sim.

While it's obvious that, in theory, SimCity can be done on the DS, in practice it could have been done a lot better with a lot less wackiness and a little more depth.

Part of me has always thought that Nintendo doesn't really care about technology. The company's made games that look like they're made of paper and felt, and when it dabbled in VR it did it with cardboard. So it feels a bit weird to see Nintendo banging on about HDR and, in the later moments of the stamp rally, diving inside the Switch 2 console itself and letting you walk over its battery and its heat channels and all that jazz. It feels like Nintendo spends a lot of time pretending that this isn't technology at all. It's just imagination and playfulness.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream offers luxurious cutscenes and a focused twist on stealth by remaining intentionally inflexible, but doesn't quite pull it all together.

Excruciating brevity is Neighbours From Hell's most hideous drawback, and we can't imagine you sat there a week from purchase playing the same levels over and over. There's a disturbing lack of variety as well.

3D Dot Game Heroes does have its moments and fun features, like a cute little avatar editor (guess what I made), and the ability to take screenshots and save them to your PS3's photo gallery. But every one of the problems it suffers from elsewhere is something that Legend of Zelda, through its longevity and the massive expertise of its designers, has either long since overcome or never had to worry about anyway.