It's a fiendishly fast-paced puzzler. Beneath the gentle pastel exterior lurks the heart of a beast.

There are still times when you'll enjoy yourself, but they're few and far between, and ultimately prove to be poor compensation for the loss of the intrigue, subtlety and intelligence that characterised the films and books whose bullet-riddled back the game is straddling.

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.

Otherwise, GRID is a great success: the single-player is varied without being confusing; the online multiplayer supports 12 players and damage modelling, reducing the number of first-corner pile-ups; tracks and cars are well chosen and recreated; and Flashback allows you to race with the same determination on lap three as you did on lap one, mitigating risk in a manner of which other racing game developers will soon be envious.

Kung Fu Panda won't be winning any awards, and it won't be gracing any end-of-year lists, but that's not to say it doesn't deserve carefully measured praise.

In gameplay terms it represents a commendable improvement on an already solid framework and seems to captivate its young players with the same gently challenging grip o' fun as LEGO Star Wars did. It's just a shame that this evolution seems to have come at the expense of many of the peripheral activities that made the previous LEGO games a more robust and varied experience in the long term.

It's a quick loader, too, with minimum turnaround between holes.

It's deceptively tricky, hiding a razor-sharp puzzle game beneath its cutesy exterior, but it's the sort of intuitive and methodical difficulty that won't scare your mum.

Seriously, it's hard to justify Bakushow in a world where Pictochat exists for free, as every critic in the world will probably point out.

But you also suspect BioWare's on the right track, and until it pulls it off - and the initial noises about the sequel seem promising - Mass Effect offers us a singular universe of excitement and drama to lose ourselves in.

Generously stocked with puzzles and options, and with something to offer for players of all skill levels, Buku Sudoku is actually one of the strongest puzzle packages on Live Arcade and - somewhat to my surprise - comes highly recommended.

Trouble is, the arcade machine used Tempest-style spinners for control and the joypad is a poor substitute when playing the classic version.

The biggest question mark is whether a big enough online community will spring up around it to allow it to fulfill its potential. Sadly, with a fair amount of optimisation issues rearing their heads early on, Quake Wars looks destined to line-up with the also-rans in the online shooter stakes.

If you're the parent of a five year-old boy, you can sit them in front of Emergency Heroes and leave the room, confident it's less graphically violent than an episode of The Archers. Just be aware that for anyone over five, it's also less thrilling.

There are new Achievements, and lots of new things to tinker with, but not a lot of incentive to plod through the campaign missions again or start over ranking up your multiplayer stats.

It's certainly a decent enough block-dropping puzzler, even if most people probably would've preferred Tetris. Or a Virtual Console release for the SNES Dr Mario and Tetris compilation. Either way, 1000 Points feels a bit steep.

Personally, it feels a little unbalanced to me. I like adventure games because of the "adventure" aspect, the blend of a compelling story, immersive dialogue and logical deduction. This game favours the last element at the expense of the first two, and therefore left me somewhat unsatisfied.

Fans of the comic strip can feel free to add as many points to the score below as will make them happy, since they're the ones most likely to make the effort needed to get past the flaws, but for everyone else there's little here to justify the hefty price.

Right now, though, the game as it stands is a rough diamond - very good, bordering on great thanks to a regular stream of comprehensive patches from Funcom.

The combat's weak, the storyline's excruciating, it's technically deficient - Haze really is this year's most significant gaming disappointment.

SingStore and My SingStar are brilliant additions which significantly change the SingStar experience.

It's produced a superbly made peripheral and a piece of software that offers both entertainment and a sense of achievement. It's all very slick and lifestyle, with plenty of white everywhere, but there are the bold shapes, bright colours and moments of sheer charm you'd expect from Nintendo.

With the added bonus of Captain Your Country, and a host of welcome tweaks and additions, it's a Russian linesman away from being given 9/10, and only the inevitable absence of club teams and other FIFA-level content get in the way.

It's all about shooting faster and better, not discovering clever new routes, so unless you're the sort of person who actively enjoys playing the same small sections over and over, searching for new ways to eke out those extra few points, there's absolutely nothing here to warrant an 800-Point purchase.

There's nothing terribly wrong with all this in theory, but the game's shocking lack of polish makes even this rudimentary gameplay a real chore to get through.

Assault Heroes 2 is therefore basically more of the same, with some decent new bits but precious few fresh ideas.

Even the staunchest of Myst fans can't deny that this is a pretty poor port. Despite being faithful to the original in sound effects and atmosphere, its glitches and lack of new, DS-specific functions ultimately inhibit its worth.

It's worth buying if you can find it at a bargain price, and works as a decent alternative to Wii Fit for balance board owners. Just don't expect too much.

It's definitely a superior example of turn-based strategy, and certainly the best insect-based example of the genre. And, in a slightly tenuous attempt to tie the end of this review back in to our opening trivia, it's definitely more fun than counting to 10 quintillion.

Enjoyed in short delicious bursts, My Life as a King is one of the most impressive downloads offered on a current-generation console.

LostWinds is a great example of what can be achieved on WiiWare. By combining a few simple gesture-based controls within a tightly focused platform-puzzling framework, Frontier has created a mini-masterpiece at the first attempt.

TV Show King is a quiz game, and it features questions. That basic level of expectance is all it manages to meet, and it's horribly clear that this is simply a "make do" release, put out there to mop up an existing market with the minimum of effort.

There's definitely potential here to build something more robust, with multiple power-ups and numerous enemy types, but Defend Your Castle becomes a mindless slog far too quickly to warrant repeat plays.

Get past the "popping bubbles?" incredulity and the game does offer a decent amount of depth and no-frills gameplay, but I can't quite bring myself to see it as 700 Points' worth of fun.

When you've got a quiz where players don't even need to understand the question to win, you've got a quiz that doesn't really work all that well.

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.

R-Type Tactics lies among that enjoyable second tier of turn-based games currently occupied by the likes of Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command.

Boom Blox is brilliant alone, fantastic with friends, a superb addition to the puzzle genre and a game that will make you glad you own a Wii. Here's hoping it's only the first of its kind.

There are flaws, then, as there are with all these PS2 releases, but it's a promising enough start, and if this is a path SNK continues to walk we'll be there to meet it at the other end with cracked knuckles next time around.

And so rather than allowing you to feel like an armoured avenger, Iron Man's videogame outing merely offers the chance to lurch awkwardly around the sky like a drunken wasp while holding down a button to blow stuff up.

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.

Almost everything you do in Liberty City would be good enough to drive its own game, and the best parts would be good enough to outrun the competition, but the reason it works so well is that Rockstar has made a game that requires no patience to play. This, as much as its usual coherency and the best script in the series, is what makes GTA IV the best openworld game yet, and why it will take something miraculous to rob it of game of the year status.

While the story mode is relatively short and generous in opening up new areas fairly quickly, fishing these days is far better suited to mini-game distractions in bigger titles than something like this.

Ultimately, the sheer sensory pleasure of playing Mario Kart Wii - from the charming animations, to the bopping tunes, to the sugar-rush boosting, to the exquisite steering - far overcomes the few concerns we have about it. It still has to be docked a mark for the awkward structure and compromised multiplayer modes - but it's still unreservedly recommended to anyone for whom Mario Kart is a gaming cornerstone.

As bland as it looks, Lost Cities is a well-designed card game with more depth than most, but this version does little to justify the leap from deck to joypad.

It's bold, inspiring and bubbling over with dozens of ideas, any one of which would be cause for celebration in most games, but the over-reliance on a daunting sink-or-swim combat system that will leave many players gasping for breath ultimately counts against it. A truly brilliant game, it's just a shame that it couldn't ease off on the information overload and make that brilliance easier for everyone to appreciate.

It's not NBA Live, it's not NBA Street and it's not NBA 2K. And playing Chosen One you'll be reminded of this every couple of minutes.

A wrist-flicking rhythm game already has something stacked against it in keeping players engaged, but a bare bones gesture set doesn't give the gameplay much spark.

If you've already played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue/Red Rescue Team, the improved Wi-Fi functionality is the sole reason that it might be worth playing Explorers of Time/Darkness.

If you've already played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue/Red Rescue Team, the improved Wi-Fi functionality is the sole reason that it might be worth playing Explorers of Time/Darkness.

Broken Mirror certainly addresses all the major complaints directed towards Omega Dawn, although by giving the APC so many tactical advantages Incog may have created a monster.

This is a ludicrous amount of excellent fun to get for free, and in that price bracket, it automatically gains an extra point on the Out-Of-Ten-o-Meter.

As a whole the game feels undercooked, unpolished and ultimately unsatisfying.

The simple appeal of 3D tank combat is one that certainly has a place on a service like XBLA, but this awkward update gets stuck between misplaced reverence for the original and distracting concessions to modern gaming conventions.

That's Keane - a potentially enjoyable game, broken by terrible performances, and puzzles that make little sense.

Rome is another largely enjoyable offering from Paradox, and the fresh personnel management aspects add an interesting new twist to the series.

It's not quite brilliant, and we particularly mourn the apparently stillborn online racing, but there's more than enough here to justify the asking price, and exploring it all is a consistently pleasurable experience, which should have considerable appeal for GT's ardent supporters and satisfy the curiosity of the rapidly-growing PS3 installed base at the same time.

It's as well-designed as Zelda, as involving as Final Fantasy, and as beautiful as anything you've ever seen; it belongs with the best of the Zelda series at the very apex of its genre.

There's remarkably little puzzle-solving, and on the occasions when you do need to find a power-up to get through an area, you'll generally find it right next to it. The plodding pace of the game also makes combat incredibly dull, as you might expect.

Inevitably, it's the mini-games that really muff things up though.

Nemesis too is not without its rough patches, but still represents a return to form of sorts, another solid Sherlock adventure that showcases better understanding of character, narrative, structure and pace than most of its genre peers.

In Ikaruga there is no refuge, and there's honesty to this black and white approach that demands respect. But will that respect will turn to adoration? Well, that very much depends on how hard you'll work to make your own memories herein.

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

The overriding feeling is that Head On belongs on more powerful consoles. Without the added bells and whistles, its core racing mechanics and their shortcomings are bare, obvious, and will struggle in a genre that is stacked to the rafters on PSP.

Cheerful, perfectly pitched and instantly addictive, Mr Driller is the sort of thing that makes you want to grab those tiresome moaners and say "Look! This is casual gaming! It's what games are all about! And it's brilliant!"

The problem isn't that TiQal is a casual game, but that it's a lazy casual game. A game so mired in existing formula that it has nothing to offer beyond bland distraction.

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.

For all the control innovations that come tantalisingly close to solving the riddle of joypad RTS play, Universe at War is constantly blighted by unforgivable slowdown that, at its worst, all but breaks the game.

Obscure II also deserves credit for the slick way it handles co-op play - a feature that's still completely unique and exclusive to this series...But if you're only after the cream of the crop, then be aware that this isn't likely to be one for your Most Wanted list.

The best thing you can say about the game is that it's technically impressive, and the openworld structure is a good idea - but that's it. The game's central purpose seems to be to make dismemberment as easy to pull off as possible, but as soon as that novelty has worn off you're left with a hollow, repetitive experience which quickly loses its initial appeal.

For most of us, though, Opoona is a curiosity - it's charming, strange and often fun, but too shallow and stretched out to make for a genuinely engrossing RPG experience. [JPN Import]

Inevitably, the lack of meat on the bones is Dragon Sword's major failing, coupled with the fact that the combat descends into repetitive scribbling after a short while, lacking the kind of long-term depth that makes the game's parent offerings so revered.

Poorly translated and badly acted, there's little here to distract from the terrible gameplay.

The impenetrable story makes it a no-go for younger gamers who might be more willing to forgive its adolescent excesses. But for the twenty-six, twenty-eight, thirty-year-olds who it's aimed at, the game has little to offer beyond polished sentimentality.

While most will be more interested to see where EA LA takes the ideas they've played with here next, there's much more for a C&C fan to get excited about than imagining Natasha Henstridge is talking to them. Although that is pretty exciting.

Feels like a hastily put together stop gap before the series goes PS3.

It's one thing to churn out the same game ten years after it was made. It's another to churn out an inferior version and charge people full whack for it.

In spite of the fact that all you're doing is pressing a button three times, over and over again, it never gets boring. It would probably be too controversial to call it the best golf game, or the best PS3 game. But on both counts it's a remarkably close call. [JPN Import]

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.

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.

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.

Overall, Vegas 2 feels like an incremental expansion, despite the success of the character-creation feature.

The most innovative football title we've come across in many years.

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.

If you've already got Samurai Warriors 2, then I can't really see this slightly remixed version being worth the GBP 20 (EUR 25) asking price.

Go away, George of the Jungle, and die horribly in a fire.

I'm all for games that want you to reach the end, and encourage you to stay on board for the whole ride, but, assuming that the vast majority of people following the series are experienced point-and-click players, this is starting to feel patronising. When the actual core gameplay becomes an undemanding routine, that's a dangerous position for an episodic series which needs to keep players playing.

For all my reservations about the format, there's definitely an audience for this sort of thing out there and while 800 Points puts this in the upper price bracket for Live Arcade, it still makes it the cheapest brain game option around. In that regard at least, it gets the job done.

Bliss Island is about as uninspired as mini-game compilations get, with a flavourless selection of challenges and a half-hearted attempt at adding charm and character.

Condemned 2 deserves hearty praise for improving on everything it did first time around. The melee combat is brutally intense, the investigations play a bigger part, the visuals are top-notch, and the whole thing's wrapped up with engaging narrative.

It's in the multiplayer that Ring of Fates excels, and we have no problem with recommending it thoroughly to anyone who fancies some co-op action RPG fun with their friends.

PES 2008's entertaining match improvements, exhilarating action and solid additions mean it just about scrapes another 8, though at no point does it come even close to flirting with higher scores. It's fast, fluid, fun and physical, an improved, revamped version of PES 6 if you like.

It's competent, it's fun, it's certainly good - but unless the PS2 to PSP transfer stuff tugs your whistle, it's not easy to justify the upgrade.

You're probably as well-served going for FIFA '08 on DS than you are this. That said, this is a decent attempt at portable football on the DS that carries Pro Evo's name, though don't let it fool you into thinking it's anywhere near as majestic as other versions.

Just as enjoyable as the previous Buzz! titles - or just as tedious, if you're that way inclined. And that's assuming you're not expecting to be seriously tested if you're a real film fan.

It's hardly spacesuit gripping stuff. While there are promising facets to Lost Empire's simple yet expansive empire building, ultimately it feels unfinished and uninspiring, and more of a lost opportunity than anything else.

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.

It's still better than a lot of the rubbish out there but it's nowhere near as good as the other games in the series, and you can pick those up second-hand for less than a fiver each.