In retrospect, I think Nuts is a game specifically tailored for the plodders, but also the catastrophists. It's for people who shuffle through life methodically, but have minds forever spiralling outwards with plans of possible chaos and misfortune. People who watch squirrels and are maybe a little jealous of their obvious agency, of the glittering clarity of the world in which squirrels seem to operate. Nuts, at times, is a real trip. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Drill Spirits may not use the DS's new features to conduct a symphony orchestra whilst penning sonnets and bringing democracy to Cuba, but when the underlying game is this gripping we refuse to sit around using its relative lack of invention as a stick to beat it with.

It's really only the sprint mode that is new to this version, with everything else much the same as it was on the GBA.

It's about getting behind the rhetoric and gaining a meaningful understanding of the many dreadful things we're doing to our home.

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.

While it's a competent integration of popular license into popular design, the constituent parts don't perform to the best of their ability, and the result is inessential and often bland, even though it's easy to sit and play contentedly for several hours.

One of those weird little video games that stalks around in your memory far longer than you might expect it to.

Nicholson Electroplating doesn't have time for that slow-burn organic process. It attempts a brute-force attack on greatness and comes up short.

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.

While Dead Money justifies its 800 Microsoft Point price tag in terms of quantity, the quality isn't quite there.

As a conversion of an acclaimed handheld game, Dark Mirror is a touch sloppy. It doesn't feel like much effort has been made to optimise the game for the PS2, either in looks or gameplay, and the omission of online play and crispy-fried taser fun will only annoy fans expecting a full conversion. And yet...I still kind of like it.

So this is pretty much the same game again, with a few new missions and multiplayer maps, a couple of new mechanics and a new faction. After a year and a half. If this is the best the world has to throw at me, I might just retire again.

The tasteful, minimalist aquatic theme of Art Style: Aquite appears designed to offset what is actually a rather tedious sorting game.

It soon dawns that Pariah is your archetypal regular, by the numbers sci-fi shooter and doesn't appear to aspire to be anything more.

You can't do much better for challenging air-combat shooters on the Xbox, just as long as you bear in mind how teeth-grindingly steep that challenge is.

As it is now, LEGO Universe starts as a pleasant distraction but promptly ferries you straight into a fierce, ludicrous grind that leads nowhere. That's one brick wall I could do without.

But perhaps the greatest value of this pack is the packaging itself. Owning a physical copy of Super Mario All-Stars on Wii allows these games to sit proudly on your shelf, a statement to everyone who enters your home and sees it.

Quotation forthcoming.

For the price of Monopoly for Wii (RRP GBP 29.99), you could buy real Monopoly. Twice. Or you could just buy no Monopoly at all and spend the money on something more likely to inspire amity and harmony, like a book by Hitler.

You can smash through Terminator 2D: No Fate's story mode in less that the runtime of the movie, but that doesn't stop this side-scrolling action platformer from being a perfectly presented tribute to 90s nostalgia.

Me? I would grudgingly buy it, despite feeling that I was being charged too much for too little. I guess that makes me part of the problem.

That, then, is the real triumph here; an RTS game that allows you the ability to do very complex things but doesn't have an interface which it'll take weeks to learn.

The levels are based around the old fashioned ‘portal’ system, so the need to load in every level is blatantly apparent – and in no way comparable to the impressive ‘no load’ system that Naughty Dog so skilfully pioneered.

In terms of substance and style, the man himself delivers. But with just one or two surprises along the way, this could have been spectacular.

Mixing repetitive, imprecise combat with annoying characters and a landslide of nonsensical, proper noun-stuffed lore, Immortals of Aveum is almost so bad it's good. If only.

Once on-track, few F1 games have managed to be as encouraging when it comes to pushing yourself to attack corners and better your lap time, and fewer still have proved as much fun. This may not be the revolution the Formula 1 sub-genre has been waiting for, but you're not likely to find many Wii owners complaining.

If a few joints can be tightened, a few rough edges filed down, Ironclad Tactics could hum along nicely. For now, however, I wouldn't recommend you climb aboard this one. It's a rickety ride.

Sluggish pacing and stripped-back character interactions dull the charm, but there are still scares to be found.

The Layer of Fear devs deliver some effective horror with a side of smart ideas, though it's not without its faults.

Although this doesn't exactly break the mould, figuring out Da Vinci's secrets is generally a pleasurable stroll through a variety of well-crafted and largely logical puzzles and mini-games. The lack of psychotic monks and professors of symbology is an added bonus.

Despite the criticisms, Team 17 has still managed to pull off an impressive evolution of a much-loved series. The core game has remained barely unchanged, but the 3D engine introduces a lot of unexpected elements to get used to, both good and bad.

It would be easy to score this game as plain mediocre. After all, it essentially works, displays a misguided and seemingly half-hearted attempt at innovation, looks pleasant enough, passes the time and will likely meet the low expectations of its surprisingly large fanbase. But should such calculating mediocrity be continually excused?

For the poor, deprived Cube owners out there that have been thus far denied the chance to strut their stuff in front of their TV, this is easily the best Dancing Stage title on any platform.

To be presented with this utterly misguided and ill-conceived attempt to reinvent one of the best strategy-RPG series of the last two decades seems criminal and unfair. It’s a mammoth level grind, bringing together some of the action-RPG genre’s very worst conventions while leaving out some of the best.

The real disappointment, aside from the painful hand-holding of the main storyline, is the glint of true potential the game's main mechanic shows at times.

For me, though, Your Doodles Are Bugged strayed perilously close to feeling like work.

With more tricks, more variety in the Solo section, and most of all without restricting your access to the bloody tricks you paid for, this could have been surprisingly successful. As it is, it's surprisingly not awful, but very limited.

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.

On paper, this is just the kind of iOS tie-in fans often ask for: it's faithful to the source material, filled with familiar systems and details, and it's even made a decent attempt at matching the graphical style of the main game. It's Deus Ex in cross-section, but although so many of the right pieces are in place, the energy and skill that usually brings the whole thing to life is missing.

Supermassive's Dark Pictures anthology gets off to a promising start, but this first nautical instalment winds up a little too promptly.

Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is actually a very good simple basketball game, but the simplistic AI and chaos factor often prevent that from shining through.

Chrome isn't a dreadful game, really. It's just so deeply, incredibly average in every aspect of its gameplay that our enthusiasm for it went limp the very moment we bumped off our first enemy grunt.

Super Stardust Portable is still an exemplary Western shooter, but for fans of the PlayStation 3 original, there is little here to inspire repeat purchase, the convenience of portability offset by the hardware's other limitations.

It's cute and clever, then, but still more than a little clunky.

Controller novelty value can't disguise its one-trick limitations or the vanilla production values, and there's no doubt that it should have been released at a budget price. One to rent, then.

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.

A winningly nasty turn-based cult sim with beautiful monochrome art and surgical orchestral audio. [Recommended]

What the game lacks in ambition and depth, though, it makes up for in the ageless pleasure and pain of a finely-balanced multiplayer battle. The ability to dip in and out for a quick, engaging match is a compelling proposition on a handheld. But after seven long years, it's a shame there aren't bigger ideas to rally around.

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.

When Aeon Flux isn't busy being average, it's tied up in its own gibberish, or nudging you towards your next confrontation with awkward controls. It has almost none of the excitement we play video games for and as such, is time lost and tears in the eyes of anyone foolish enough to waste their money.

The 90s classic has never looked better, but beneath the makeover it can creak.

The game's peppered through with the sort of idiosyncratic humour that marks so many of Nippon Ichi's games, but here the jokes often come at the expense of clarity, with Badman more eager to poke fun at some crusty JRPG convention than to properly explain his game's own subversions.

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.

While it's a fine tribute to Panzer General's mechanics, it actually ends up feeling a little dumber and more obtuse than the venerable vintage it pays respect to. It sings its tune well and it will entertain fans of the original but, unlike the generals whose battles it represents, it fails to either innovate or inspire.

If Abyss Odyssey stumbles, it at least does so while attempting a genuinely thrilling, high-wire juggling act of game design rather than simply milking obvious and proven gameplay features. For all its missteps, it remains utterly unique, absolutely gorgeous and delightfully eccentric.

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.

After driving around the three cities, picking up fare after fare and learning your best routes and so on, there's really very little the game can offer you that "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "Vice City" doesn't do far better with its throwaway Taxi missions.

If it had just been a bit more focused, perhaps sticking with the pleasing interchange of third-person exploring and first-person on-rails shooting, it would have succeeded. But the frenzy of different genres is only confusing, not letting any one element shine.

It may not have the production values of Final Fantasy III, but Magical Starsign combines a superb and intriguing battle system with a genuinely fresh look at how to control this kind of game on the DS.

The award for best/only recent IndyCar sim that manages to be strangely absorbing while faithfully reproducing the sport, albeit in an aesthetically displeasing way, goes to... IndyCar Series!

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.

As generic as a platformer can be. It's a game in the tradition of the original "Jak & Daxter," but comparing the two is like holding a light to the abyss.

On the face of it, Alien Breed Evolution offers everything that fans of the 16-bit incarnations could wish for, with strong production values and focused design contributing to a sympathetic update that stays true to the source material. But sadly, a flawed approach to co-op play and an inherent lack of variety ultimately count against it.

Going hardcore again feels like a narrow interpretation of what made this part of the game good.

Sega seems to find it hard enough to make a decent Sonic game these days, and then it goes and publishes something like Sonic Dash - which with a little more polish could be great, but is instead rushed and spoiled by greed.

Enjoyably traditional, if a little tatty in places, this is a shooting game that still stands apart from all others.

After playing the three levels of this, all the beans in Tesco wouldn't make me play it again. There's not room in this sandbox for two. Or one for that matter. Goodbye gods, hello atheism.

Had Starfire focussed on just a couple of elements rather than trying to be all things to all players, had it made the quests more varied, the progression more enticing, this could have been the start of something really special. As it stands, it's the epitome of a game trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, sadly mastering little.

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.

If you're a huge fan of the mobile game, by all means pay the extra, but everyone else should be mindful of the competition before slapping their money down.

Above all, Murasaki Baby encourages experimentation and in doing so manages to recall some of the daunting wonder of early childhood. However, unlike those hazy childhood years, it remains fixed in your mind long after it's done.

Enchanted Folk is to Animal Crossing what the first Saints Row was to GTA; it's a competent, entertaining knock-off, but it's still a knock-off.

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.

Pokémon's first ever expansion offers sunny vibes and another, more open world, but is still lacking the substance to do much with it.

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

Its willfully old-school design and clunky combat belong in a bygone era, and for the optimistic price-tag Konami has slapped on the game we've every right to expect more. Only the most hardcore of fans will have time for this; the rest of us should wait for Homecoming.

It gives you well over a hundred weapons to try out, masses of difficulty levels, and explosions so big that you'll worry they may crack the front of your television. Earth Defence Force 2017 isn't a complex cocktail. It's a Molotov cocktail.

A game that requires a degree of patience and tolerance before it truly clicks. If you have the required resolve, there's plenty to admire.

Amidst the unremitting chaos, there's something fractured to admire in Trouble Witches Neo, especially if you can drag a friend into some co-operative mayhem. At least download the trial, but maybe get into the spirit first by putting on some Elton John shades, wearing a pink wig and wolfing down a big bag of Haribo.

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

Arcane busywork leaves little room for genuine pleasure in this fascinating and frustrating genre oddity.

It's shamelessly derivative, gloriously over-the-top and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Most of all, it's brilliant fun.

Even after two years, this is still my favourite Harvest Moon game in the whole world ever. Whether you're a fan or a newcomer, Magical Melody is captivating, mixing the best aspects of every game that came before to create the biggest, most involving, most addictive and most challenging entry in this loveliest and most unique of series.

Dead Space comparisons are impossible to avoid - but while The Callisto Protocol's missing some of the depth and tension, it makes up for it with production value and bloody-minded fun. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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.

High Voltage deserves credit for its technology, for its commitment to multiplayer, and for tuning a perfect set of FPS controls on a console that was begging for them. Its efforts shame everyone but Metroid developer Retro who's gone before, and certainly do prove that you can do a great FPS on the Wii. It's just that The Conduit - slender, derivative, mechanical and uninspired - isn't it.

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.

There was rich promise here, but High Voltage has dropped the ball with its sloppy approach to the combat.

Hell, it's fun. But for a really short time.

The expansion is aimed squarely at the high-level ground-based combat players, and is a solid addition of content for them. That only this one group of players is catered to fully though only serves to alienate those left behind and devalues the offering overall.

By comparison, Donkey Konga 2's a bit too... (ah hell, why not?) humdrum.

There are moments as you roar around the tracks when NASCAR 09 is vastly more entertaining than you'd expect. Sadly these brief thrills are almost always muted by the typically sensible EA Sports corporate sheen, which ultimately reduces the game to another technically minded racer of limited scope rather than the over-the-top metal-shredding redneck rumble of the real thing.

A mild downhill racer with too many glitches, and beyond the grinding, nothing to do with its licence. The Wiimote controls don't ruin it, despite the madness of the button use, but they don't add anything a regular analogue stick couldn't have made easier.

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.

If BloodRayne: Betrayal gives Uwe Boll an excuse to make another movie, its appearance might not be such a good thing, But if you can get over such matters, this is a satisfying and brutal return to the old school.

There's nothing to dislike about it. It's well-rounded and harmless in every respect, but there's no real challenge to anyone remotely used to playing games or over the age of 10.

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.

To call this a bad game would be grossly unfair, but it's a truly unexceptional one. For a series like Shinobi, that is dishonour enough.