There's the kernel of something really interesting in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Glimmers of a free-roaming kids adventure game with RPG overtones, based on actual folklore. Sadly, it only manages to be that game for an hour or so, before steadily becoming less interesting and more generic and annoying, culminating in an ending that is absolutely cruel considering the age of the intended player.

American Football fans looking for a cheap retro fix will probably squeeze 400 points worth of fun out of Cyberball before déjà vu sets in, but the absence of any real multiplayer challenge means any amusement comes with a built-in expiry date, one that arrives sooner than you'd like. It's no Speedball, that's for sure.

Despite doing its level best to offer impressive variety, slick 3D visuals, and a decent raft of challenging stages, it's a game that seems determined to irritate the player.

The multiplayer modes deserve some credit, as fans will no doubt get off on the prospect of playing Deathmatches and truncated Capture The Flag sessions while in the guise of 50 or Slim Shady, but the maps are unlikely to inspire anyone with real multiplayer experience.

Indeed, you could go so far as to say that it's old news, a little tedious, and there are countless other, better things around right now that improve on it in so many ways.

As simple and fun as Fruit Ninja evidently is, it feels like a Wario Ware game isolated for a single release.

The good news: it's fun to play and nice to look at, and does a fine job of showing off what the PSP can do. The bad news: it's all over in the time it would take you to nip down Blockbusters, rent a copy of the movie and watch it. Skipping the credits.

As comebacks go, Bounder's World never really gets out of first gear, and is a bit of a false start for Urbanscan's Gremlin reboot project. Maybe it's keeping the powder dry for Monty Mole.

We're sorry to heap such bile on a game that we actually like at times, but it's a bit like hearing a bad cover version of a song that you've grown to like that some people still maintain is rubbish. Our advice? Buy the PC version of Mafia.

It is, at best, a functional shooter that asks little of the player and offers the bare minimum in return.

A rank combat system, quirky camera and a lack of inspiration at the game's exploration/puzzle core make playing the game hard work.

The game isn't particularly satisfying or even all that interesting.

The broader fault is simply that by the time you've spent an hour in Potter's company, you'll have sussed out the rest of the game, leaving you with even less to look forward to than usual - because of course you know what's going to happen to everyone anyway. If you don't, you're better off reading the book.

Yuriko's heroic experiments in mass carnage do not entirely save this from being a rather underwhelming offering: she's just three large levels. The rest of the game might be dressed up in FMV spangles, but it's simply not produced to the high standards of the original game.

At times it's just too frustrating to be described as "fun", and being turned away, a stone's throw from the end of a level, by the Game Over screen just because you didn't understand precisely how to complete a fairly arbitrary objective is enough to saturate you with disbelief like an anvil landing on your face in the middle of a field.

As it is, Lucid flows along happily over its 55 levels, but playing for high scores alone may not be enough to tempt you into the zone.

The dictionary definition of the average hackandslasher. It's a brand well and truly stuck in a rut of its own making and deserves no more than average marks.

Unfortunately, Let's Golf 3D isn't one to get overly excited about, and in a market drowning in rival offerings, you won't have far to look to find a better one.

Aside from being just a tad too repetitive and too long, the platform levels are well-presented and plenty of fun.

Pandora could well lend itself to a great film, and would lend itself fabulously well to a good third-person action game. Unfortunately, despite providing two third-person action games here for the price of one, both of them are dull and forgettable.

Yet another middle of the road film license that survives by dint of being as average as they come.

The worst of the game's technical sins is performance, with appallingly low frame rates in our patched PS3 retail version when you brake suddenly or drift through many a corner.

If Shank was an animated short, I'd happily roll a fat one and sit hurgh-hurghing on the sofa at the dumb grisliness of it all. But as a game, it just feels pointless and irritating, and about as engaging as repeatedly attacking the sofa with your own face.

Metal Slug 4 is intense, immediate and fun in all the right ways, but it's disposable entertainment in every sense of the phrase. [Review of Metal Slug 4 only]

Anyone with RTS sympathies will be able to wring some pleasure from it, but no-one's likely to enjoy it enough to recommend it to a mate, devote a fan-site to it, or have its logo tattooed in a private place.

Worst of all is that exploring Wonderland is, in practice, about as full of wonder as watching paint dry. Paint the colour of blood and dreams, but paint nonetheless.

Humans Must Answer comes from a place of honest passion and enthusiasm for the shmup, but feels torn between recreating the feeling of hammering coins into a cabinet in 1987 and doing things differently just for the sake of being different. The two never find an equilibrium, leaving the game's best ideas underdeveloped and its mistakes awkwardly exposed.

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.

But the trouble is, as soon as you remove the novelty death sequences it's actually the dictionary definition of the average third-person shooter.

Love is perplexing, challenging, and confusing. Thus, the cold, calculating puzzles should complement the emotional relationship parable. Hazelden wants it to work. We want it to work. But the sad truth is that in this instance the two simply don't have enough in common. Sometimes love just isn't enough.

Playable within its faulty parameters, yet at the same time, something we've seen a million times before, and in many ways better. Roll on the next one, please.

It doesn't have the sheer polish or design coherence of something like this month's other Rise-TS, Rise of Legends, but there's lots to like. Until you remember the campaign mode again at which point you just find yourself wishing the developers to go bust, until you remember they have and you start feeling bad again.

A thoroughly generic game with overly simplified beat-'em-up mechanics, extremely repetitive gameplay, and a crushing lack of variety.

There's a solid, clever, comprehensive fitness game buried away in here that's fighting to get out. And I hope EA can at least issue a patch that resolves some of these problems.

The new elements fail to meet expectations, but the bash-and-grind basics haven't changed at all.

On a console that's hardly lacking in excellent on-rails shooters - Darkside Chronicles and the soon-to-be-released Sin and Punishment 2 among them - and interesting, lovely-looking downloadable games, 530 Eco Shooter has no place.

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.

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.

If only there were a few more moves to learn, and a bit more imagination than room after room of contrived fight sequences against hordes of identikit enemies.

Overall, if you're still searching for the definitive Namco collection, this isn't it.

While the Budokai series may not have enjoyed the universal appeal of more traditional brawlers, it did at least give the games their own unique identity. In sacrificing that, Super Dragon Ball Z becomes just another paint-by-numbers 3D fighter, sitting alongside the likes of "Battle Arena Toshinden" and "Star Gladiator" in the ranks of the also-rans.

Spyro 2’s major and quite glaring shortcoming – boredom. There’s plenty to do here, but none of it really makes you want to carry on the story through to its end because none of it is particularly fun.

There's a lot that Still Life does well, but in the same way adventure games were doing things well ten years ago. There is therefore no excuse for it to not manage other basic, fundamental elements when rehashing these decade-old ideas.

There are foundations here for something really quite special, but in its current state the game is nowhere close to delivering on its promises.

My best memories of playing Worms with my friends were all about things backfiring hilariously, victory through blind luck, and big explosions, and the DS can't seem to show enough or process enough to deliver these things.

There isn't the tiniest nugget of novelty here. If the big engagements had been engaging then that wouldn't necessarily have been a problem. Because the battles are bothersome, the unoriginality is as lethal as a cannonball to the cranium.

It's fun for as long as it lasts.

The Wii Remote and Nunchuk work perfectly fine on their own - especially considering the Wii Zapper is both less accurate and less comfortable.

Civilization Revolution 2 does some things well and others poorly. Its relative simplicity within the series will deter many Civilization fans, but this same distillation will make it more palatable to players who want a quicker and pacier game.

There are no glaring technical problems, or insurmountable design cock-ups, just a rather dull platformer with a central creative gimmick that's too clumsy to be liberating, poorly incorporated into the action and often bizarrely sidelined by the game's structure.

There's no brains, no muscle, no fibre beneath Ryse's extravagantly engineered good looks - this game rings loud but hollow.

With 12 tracks, each of which can be raced in reverse, it's a relatively small package that, other than its licence, is lacking in any sort of interesting game design to mark it out. With a budget price tag it's an inoffensive proposition but, don't expect to return to it when your battery runs out.

If you fancy the idea of an RPG-lite Brothers Grimm tribute act, then go right ahead. But if you can tolerate more than half an hour without wanting to eat your own earwax, you'll be doing better than I.

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.

Yes, it's bland, pick up and play fun that's simple to get into, but if you did ever find yourself picking it up for five minutes you'd probably have already seen all there is to it in that time.

NBA Live 07 does the basics, but when the competition, namely Take 2's NBA 2K7, does everything so much better (and we do mean everything), there's no reason at all why you should be wondering which title to pick up.

The core combat is still as rigid and throwaway as the Mortal Kombat series has ever been and bereft of the kitsch appeal of the earlier games, Armageddon is pretty much as forgettable as brawlers come these days.

Die-hard followers of drift racing and modification will applaud the unforgiving accuracy of the game engine but, given the importance they tend to place on shiny shiny good looks, they're also the people most likely to be turned off by the scrappy presentation.

The camera is also a little problematic. With no right analogue stick, you'll have to periodically squeeze the left shoulder button to see what's directly in front of your hero.

Duck Amuck is a title that does its utmost to show (a lot like Rub Rabbits) what the DS can do with all its gimmicks, but it fails to live up to its qualities on the game side.

Taken on it own, Scribblenauts Unlimited is dull, simplistic, and devoid of challenge. What begins as an unbridled experiment in omnipotence swiftly devolves into a lackadaisical chore. It's still rife with warmth, humour and creativity, and the Wii U's TV support transforms the solitary snickering of previous Scribblenauts into a party game that's especially well suited to the young or inebriated.

There will surely be a great skateboarding game for the Wii, perhaps with the next iteration of the balance board, but this isn't it.

It's a guess-the-drawing parlour game for all intents and purposes, though, and there's always a nagging feeling in the back of your mind that there's far better things to do on a DS than this. As long as the likes of Professor Layton or Picross exist, it's easily overlooked.

It feels off-kilter. There's surface polish, but the more you look, the less deep understanding of the genre is present.

If you're a fan of Conflict and/or shooters in general, you're likely to find Denied Ops shallow and dull. The two-man control system doesn't work properly. The visuals are ugly. The script is sub-Armageddon. Yes, it's easy to pick up and play. But if you're after an experience with real challenge and depth, you won't want to.

It's a beautiful, thoughtful curiosity. But somewhere in getting at the essence of strategy gaming, Eufloria has become a sketch, a distraction, a showcase, and a toy: it's an experience that you'll enjoy, rather than a coherent and satisfying game.

Inconsistent, wearisome gameplay.

Overall, London 2012 is a lot better than I expected on a presentational level and in its best-realised events. But the lazy repetition of dull mechanics throughout the poorer activities (gymnastics, diving) means there's as many bores as scores.

Indeed, if you can get your eyes past the epilepsy-inducing menus, and your head round the aneurism-inducing unions, there is a decent game struggling to break free of its gratuitously obfuscated difficulty curve. [JPN Import]

If you've never played a first-person shooter before, you'll probably be in love - this is as archetypal a corridor-shooter as has ever been made, and there's a reason why it works. But for anyone who's been running down corridors with shotguns for most of their adult life, this is so uninspired that you worry for the spark of Monolith's soul. You guys made "No One Lives Forever," remember? You're smart. You're better than this.

It's tolerable enough and will certainly last you a long time, but it seems a shame that what used to be one of EA's better, more reserved racing games has become quite so loud, desperate and mediocre in an attempt to distinguish itself, and that what it does get right in this year's iteration is almost completely divorced from the track where so many of its contemporaries excel.

Despite all of the positives, the game underneath, for all its features and ideas, remains a broken one, thus continuing the Mana series legacy of being a series that tries its hand at new things to get noticed but fails to match up to the brilliance of its forefather.

The mere running around, pointing the crosshair, shooting... it's all just drained of life. Not even the option of mercenary sidekicks makes much difference, they just happen to be the chaps you can't shoot. And they die without consequence. Poor fellas.

The problem seems to be that everyone involved was aiming low, and it's not a game that ever speaks of large-scale effort or imagination; the graphics are recycled, the monkey voices are largely the same throughout, and the script is humourless, journeyman stuff that wouldn't make it onto CBeebies. There's no enthusiasm.

Much like its robot host, it's a bare bones facsimile of something with a lot more soul. Samba de Amigo may cost four times as much but even in its slightly disappointing Wii incarnation, it's still four times as much fun as well.

All Zombies Must Die takes a timeworn premise that should be fun and cathartic and seemingly goes out of its way to make it repetitive, fiddly and annoying. If you have a trio of friends close to hand, the co-op aspect might just be enough to rescue it from the depths of mediocrity, but if you're planning on playing solo you'd be far better served by trying one of the dozens of other zombie blasters on the market.

Assault Horizon Legacy is mediocre, but what's worse is you feel it never even aimed for the stars in the first place.

Removing features from a sequel and replacing them with nothing of note is certainly an flamboyantly avant garde way to approach a franchise soon to enter its tenth year, but it doesn't exactly do wonders for your value for money.

Slip Rumble Roses XX inside a copy of SmackDown if you must buy it, just don't go expecting any innovations other than a big tickling stick, blushing faces, a gigantic Xbox Live porn archive and the wobbliest boobs yet seen in a video game.

For anyone who isn't desperately in love with FFVII; though - in other words, if you've never written erotic gay fanfiction about Cloud and Sephiroth, drawn fanart of Tifa engaged in a bestial act with Red XIII, or considered changing your name to Vincent Valentine - it's impossible to recommend Dirge of Cerberus as anything other than a curiosity.

Weighing in at a hefty 20-25 hours in length, Dead Head Fred outstays its welcome and never really elevates above being a fun yet ultimately frustrating platform-cum-action adventure game.

Ah... sub-"Jak & Daxter."

It's competent. Solid. Inoffensive. Somewhere down the line, DnS Development got mired in the details and neglected to inject the spark necessary to make the run-and-gun fun.

There's been a backlash brewing for some time against the bombastic direction military shooters have taken, but it would be wrong to assume that Medal of Honor: Warfighter is simply the game unlucky enough to bear its brunt. The truth is far simpler and more depressing: it's just not that good.

As an extension of "The Sims" as a franchise it categorically fails to engage, and even just squeaks through on a technical level. No amount of glitz is going to cover that up. It's not bad, per se, but there's no way anyone with a heavy, eclectic interest in videogames should be spending £40 on this.

There's a strange kind of charm in the very concept of Babel Rising. The infidels may be building a tower, but Bulkypix has built a folly - and while I'm glad I don't have to play it any more, I'm at least a little bit happy that it exists.

Wii Music isn't very entertaining and it's not very educational. There aren't enough goals for it to work as a game, and there's not enough musicality for it to work as a toy. It's not clear what it is or who it's for. One thing's for sure: it's not worth forty quid.

Even the distinction between car classes fails to develop the gameplay, and within the first half an hour you feel like you've seen pretty much everything the game has to offer. It might scream 'excitement' at the top of its tiny lungs, then, but Need For Speed: Nitro's initially endearing zest quickly degenerates into repetitive strain.

With repetitive, largely uninspired corridor combat, and boring, linear and samey mission design, the least you'd hope is that there would be some supplementary side quests to extend the lifespan - but not so.

The presentation feels generic, with washed-out grainy visuals and a tepid hip-hop soundtrack, while the fighting never really finds its balance.

It's never going to be a game I'd recommend though, purely because fundamental elements like control and camera are so frustratingly unpolished.

But the biggest problem that Battle For Naboo suffers from is that it is just too short. There are fifteen missions, but they only take five or ten minutes each to complete, and only a few offer any real challenge.

If you're old, knock two points off. This game will leave you feeling hollow, miserable and longing for the days when it all MEANT something. If you're a small child add two points. Or, if you really REALLY like talking cars, six.

The addition of more traditional 'gamey' elements is a complete failure, and Dreamfall lacks the crossover appeal found in something like Fahrenheit, with its self-contained story.

It's all a bit too wholesome, and I'd sooner be singing along to The Sound of Music if I had a choice. Start waving your jazz hands in the air in protest and demand a proper Singstar Musicals package instead.

Quotation forthcoming. [Mar 2006]

It's not being corny and schlocky on purpose, which means that for all its faults Rambo honestly taps into the spirit of 1980s action cinema more deeply than you might expect - not in spite of its rough edges, but because of them.

For the most part it's just OK, the sort of game you'll add to your LoveFilm rental list, forget about until it turns up, then forget again as soon as the disc is back in the postbox.