You're probably looking at a good thirty to forty hours of gameplay before you start to touch on the high-level possibilities of X2.

Even throwing in all the other games on the Razing Storm disc you're not looking at more than an afternoon's worth of entertainment here, and that makes it poor value for money.

While there is some enjoyment to be had here, it is hard-won and rarely fulfilling. The imprecision of the combat and its lightweight feel combined with the ropey visuals conspire to date the game considerably.

With a predictable storyline, childishly designed puzzles and some simply awful graphics, there is very little to haul this game from the clutches of Pantsville!

It's not quite educational enough, nor entertaining enough. You'd be better off with a good history book, and a better strategy game.

In a way, by selling this series on history alone, Capcom is killing its chance of having a future.

It's simple, accessible and briefly entertaining.

As crisp and vibrant as the game looks, there's little to elevate this above far cheaper and more interesting games designed around the controls - rather than shoehorned into them.

The Staff of Kings certainly has all the ingredients for a cracking action-adventure, but somewhere along the line the team ended up making arguably the most forgettable Indiana Jones game to date.

Right now, the Samurai Shodown series is like a wandering ronin bereft of its former honour; with its sake-sodden stare and rusty katana, it doesn't stand a chance against the superlative Super Street Fighter IV or BlazBlue: Continuum Shift.

It’s a curious gaming experience, and strangely enjoyable, even if, like us, you haven’t got even the faintest interest in fishing.

Heatseeker feels like a step back, a simpler, uglier, dumber but friendlier jetfighter that plants you firmly in the role of the one man army. To put it another way, "Ace Combat" expects you to be upset at the scripted, drawn-out death of your wingman and Heatseeker lets you fly into the ground and bounce off with a bit of damage.

Despite all these valid complaints, we still have a lot of affection for what Vietcong's trying to achieve, but the sorry truth is the console version just doesn't deliver on the promise of the PC original.

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.

£29.99 is a lot to ask for a game that only offers a few hours of entertainment, and even less if you're too lazy or rubbish to unlock everything.

It has straightforward puzzles, cute rabbits, an unsual-for-its-kind multi-character dynamic, and lovely brassy music. I know I'd have loved this when I was a kid. For a while. Probably.

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is one of those games that seem content to just drone along, coasting on the ever-decreasing appeal of one gameplay element and gobbling up your free time with repetitive tasks and mindless exploration of a mostly empty space. It's not awful, but nor is it sufficiently different to any of the other Spider-Man games.

In the end, the game's dated feel is a double-edged sword. It might be odd to feel nostalgic for a time that's less than a decade ago, but Flower, Sun and Rain will make you feel exactly that.

At the most fundamental level there's nothing tragically wrong with the game, it just displays a lack of imagination that chafes against the legacy of a series that has never been short of ideas. For a game with that sort of pedigree, average simply isn't good enough.

a horribly clichéd plot and a fairly tedious single player mode, but it does have a nice online mode and asks you to rub your robot's crotch to make sure it's working properly.

It's really not that engaging a game in 2006 once you've got over the initial reaquaintence, and certainly not deserving of a standalone release on Live Arcade when there are so many more worthwhile games to download.

Were it not for the cretinous handling that leaves you bouncing all over the track, and dumb AI that usually lets you off the hook anyway, we might have really liked XGRA. As it stands, though, we blitzed through the game in a few hours, and frankly have no compulsion to go back to it.

Shadow the Hedgehog doesn't really do anything new, and doesn't really give the impression anyone's trying particularly hard.

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.

Unlike movies, it's rare that games are so bad they're good. The rubbish ones are usually so unplayable that they're not worth plodding through. X-Men: Destiny is the exception that gets just enough right to be fun, while being sloppy enough elsewhere to be good for a laugh. It's the best kind of disaster.

A little more faith in the player's ability to cope with deeper strategy and Heroes of Dragon Age would be a genuinely good game. Conversely, it would only take a few more turns of the micro-transaction screw for it to be intolerable. Strange as it sounds, this somewhat awkward middle ground actually represents huge progress for EA's freemium ambitions.

By losing virtually everything that made the Settlers unique, Blue Byte has ended up with something that - somewhat predictably - that's the same as everything else, but not as good. From an original to the photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.

There's certainly a worthwhile game in here, teasingly close to the surface. Maybe in 12 months' time the TV show will be a big hit and the game will have been patched and updated into the experience it was clearly meant to be. If that's the case, it'll be a hard-earned and well-deserved victory. For now, proceed with caution.

A frustrating package. There's a wealth of gameplay, across the two discs, but very little variety.

Unlikely to be the killer app that gets people swapping their DS for a PSP. But if you're looking for a compilation of pub games, and a simple, quirky, turn-based strategy, you could definitely do worse.

It's hard to think of a reason why you'd part with good money for the limited extra entertainment offered by this DLC. There are two more downloadable packs on the way for Saints Row 2, but Volition has much to do to convince players to part with their cash next time.

A pretty game set in a compulsive universe which is sneakily derivative and, at its heart, stale, repetitive, average and lacking in any meaningful creativity.

There's an original story here, but it isn't very exciting, and it lacks the style and incessant comedy of its big screen brethren.

Playable over three levels of difficulty/irritation, Fishie Fishie is one of those games where it'll be about 20 minutes before you've had your fill and will want to hurt soft toys for their part in the conspiracy.

Overdose started life as a fan-made mod and it shows. While it's since gained official approval and funding, Counter-Strike this ain't.

It's easy to see Dr Luigi as a symptom of the current malaise affecting its home console business. It features a strange gimmick no one's really that interested in, it highlights an increasing reliance on past glories, and most will find it somewhat overpriced.

If you've got massive amounts of patience and skill you might enjoy this game, but we're talking the kind of patience and skill required to solve Rubik's cubes in the dark and balance marbles on tightropes.

It never feels more than throwaway fun. And while it never claimed to be anything to the contrary, its blatant copying of the Brain Training formula and the lack of innovation that results don't do it any favours.

The only thing I got out of Fire Warrior was motion sickness. It's starts off great, but soon degenerates into a tiresome chore of a game.

If it was ten solid levels of proper Star Fox space combat delivered with the same degree of glorious detail and a challenge that rose from the promising double boss-fight climax of the second section to the kind of crescendo Star Fox reached at its peak then they would fit like silk gloves.

Where KOTT2 does shed points and shed lots of them is its lack of distinctiveness and character. There really isn't one fresh idea or genuine surprise here. That's unforgivable.

I realise that it's financially unrealistic to expect a property as offbeat and niche as Hellboy to really benefit from ambitious game design, but that doesn't stop me from wishing that someone would let Blizzard loose on the character, for instance.

As such, amusing as it is in its own shallow way, Sacred 3 can only come as a mediocre disappointment to the hardy few who still consider themselves Sacred fans.

It uses outdated visuals with no changes, cobbles together levels which the GBA can handle in order to avoid problems, uses a lazy password system which is totally unwieldy, and continues to rely on a ten-year-old gameplay dynamic.

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.

From the outset, they've dulled the bold strokes of the Alan Wake concept in a desperation to ensure that everyone got the complete experience. Well, I got it. And I'm left pining for what could have been.

If you can get used to the nunchuk and remote as a surrogate wheel then the experience is passable, but nothing more.

It's not all bad, though. Unlike Papaya Studio's murderously terrible Ben 10 efforts, Vilgax Attacks and Cosmic Destruction, The Rise Of Hex opts for thoughtful-but-repetitive Shadow Complex-lite 2D platform-puzzling.

Contra is a fairly typical example of one of those games from the period that's too unforgiving to be truly enjoyable, and suffers from too many annoying design conventions that were taken for granted back then.

"SmackDown" retains the belt.

Somehow less than the sum of its parts, Fragile Dreams fails to match its ambition with its systems and imagination.

For the most part, it's overly complicated, and dominated by things designed to stop it being fluid and exciting.

It's always tempting to be lenient where indie developers are concerned, and if nothing else Afterfall: Insanity makes for an eye-catching calling card for Intoxicate's graphical skills, but as a game in its own right it's as middle of the road as they come.

We really should expect better treatment for titles of this calibre. Nothing better sums up the sheer laziness of it all than a glaring typo scrolling past in the new credits.

But as much as I'm certain I should be warning you off this bizarre, broken thing, I can't quite bring myself to do it. Clearly, if they'd localised it properly, fixed the numerous bugs, and made it in an engine that remembers John Major as Prime Minister, the score would go up significantly.

Everything works pretty much as it should - the controls and camera rarely freak out and leave you confused and defenceless - but it's just utterly uninspired and devoid of life.

Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 does feature an impressive roster of fighters and range of options, and the fighting system works well. Plus you get to do flying. But there's nothing much new here apart from the online mode, and that's rubbish.

A short, disappointing downhill slide through clumsy and frustrating renditions of more modern, characterless stages. Drooping from joyous classic to dissatisfying mediocrity in just a few hours of gameplay, Generations on the 3DS provides a surprisingly handy microcosm of Sonic's decline over the years. Not the best anniversary present, then.

Sure, as we've mentioned a few times, the quality of the writing, the voices and the humour are absolutely spot-on, but rather than disguise the mediocre game within, this excellence merely serves to amplify the crushing disappointment of the one dimensional gameplay, and we're left wanting much, much more than this half arsed effort.

As a game, Silent Hunter 5 fails because the bugs and UI render it a chore. As a simulation, it fails because the bugs and UI render it ridiculous and incomplete. As a product, it's just overwhelming disrespectful to this long running series' fans. And finally, as one of the first games to receive Ubisoft's new copy protection, it's an embarrassment.

I'm keenly aware that Twisted Metal has "an audience", and I'm not belittling the people who like it. Heck, I remember a time I found it enjoyable belting around loosing off missiles. But it's such a disposable form of entertainment.

If you're a die hard Splinter Cell fan, you might learn to live with the shonky control system and poor quality graphics. It's not as if the game is completely unplayable, after all. However, it's not varied or involving enough for our tastes, and the ratio of frustration to enjoyment is far too high.

Worst of all, it's missing any multiplayer option, as fighting along with a friend might have added a little bit more enjoyment. Obligatory mini-games don't really make up for it, making this a brawler that's more a nod to easily pleased fans than an essential purchase.

By any objective measurement, this a poor attempt at adding a new sequence to an excellent game which already boasted a generous amount of content. Had it added more explorational elements, or another secret location to discover, it would have been worth the effort - but to simply stitch together forgettable melee encounters and chases with new cut-scenes is some distance from being enough.

Super Pokémon Rumble is, at best, a simple and straightforward addition to the Pokémon saga, but in no way a match for its main series brethren.

Next to ageing titles like Frontlines and European Assault, it feels soulless, hastily cobbled together and depressingly formulaic.

It's a straight port, with a few minor alterations, and in this day and age it just can't stand up to the competition.

If you've missed out on a decade of new ideas and developments, or you really need to blow away the greying cobwebs of a dozen gritty shooters, then Crash is four or five hours of enjoyable, low intensity fun - the colourful, ill-fitting Hear'Say pullover of the platform stable. But with so many better alternatives on offer, it's not an experience we'd recommend.

Ship Simulator 2006 doesn't have the feature-set to compete with sims like MSFS and MSTS, but it's a solid start. The developers are already talking about the next instalment and making encouraging noises about wave modelling, long voyages, and multiplayer (not included at present). Unless you've got salt in your blood, I'd recommend sitting on the dock of the bay until SS2007 arrives.

It's all just a bit sad really, and while devoted Jackson fans will find more reason than most to gloss over the practical shortcomings of the game, they run the risk of being left even sadder.

The control system isn't much fun, and feels unfinished and somewhat unloved - but it is certainly possible to get to grips with it and to eke some enjoyment out of the superbly designed levels of the game.

It's just that dominos on a console doesn't have the same allure as card games, and there's very little here to justify an 800 point purchase.

But when the game finds itself up against one cheaper, much better year-old rival and fails to make any in-roads, it's hard to justify sending you out to buy it.

In a genre as densely (and impressively) populated as the platform game on DS, a short, prickly adventure that makes tokenistic use of the stylus strikes us as a bit disappointing.

There's nothing sadder than a great idea wasted, but it's no longer enough to simply come up with a concept and let it do the heavy lifting for the entire length of a game.

Battles are fun and fairly compulsive but this is a game we've played many times over, usually presented better, executed more beautifully and intertwined with a far superior story.

That [50] down there is starting to look a bit mean isn't it? It would be if EE2 wasn't buggier than a shrew's breakfast and outgunned by a better, cheaper, alternative.

BioWare has had a year to get Omega right. It didn't.

Speed Kings is vaguely entertaining, and certainly there are worse racers, but with "Burnout 2" and "Midnight Club II" to compete with, it's as if Climax couldn't see the point.

It's too easy, too isolated from other players, and too buggy.

Medieval Moves' downfall is how repetitive it becomes. This is a game clearly designed for kids, yet the sheer exhausting monotony of bashing your way through each level is never rewarded with any meaningful pay-off, just more of the same against a different backdrop.

It's GUN on a handheld platform, but it doesn't work quite as well as it does on consoles.

Little more than a seriously undercooked run-of-the-mill shooter that labours along with poor AI, botched squad handling and undemanding combat. With a desperately unfinished feel about it, Midway has ended up rushing a mediocre game onto the shelves at precisely the point when there's an embarrassment of riches for shooter fans.

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.

We get this perfunctory morsel, where the narrative treads water as the action goes in circles. With his final act looming, Shepard deserved better.

One of the best expansions for The Sims, but as the latest in a series of six it's about as exciting as news of another "Friday the 13th" sequel.

A generation ago this would've been held up as a fine game, but it's been radically usurped in almost any area you care to mention, and in this day and age just slapping a licence on the front of the pack isn't enough to make it anywhere near interesting.

Mostly, the game disappoints because it fails to pass the Brand Name Test. Would we still care if it wasn't James Bond? Almost certainly not.

If you can divorce yourself from the fact you're playing an agony simulator, you would at least hope to extract some enjoyment out of the 'puzzle' nature of the game. But the humdrum truth is that there's not a great deal of challenge within Torture Bunny either - just a whole heap of trial and error and an element of luck.

Some aspects are incredibly polished and fun, but others are terrifically broken, and while there's a real sense that it could have earned a lot more than a five, overall it doesn't.

There are much better retro compilations available - not least the first two incarnations of Midway Arcade Treasures, which both feature some all-time classics.

Plot-wise, this is an unnecessarily confusing experience.

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.

Drakengard 3 isn't a very good game, then, but it's an interesting kind of failure, and as such is impossible to completely dismiss.

The problem really is that, even online, the only incentive to carry on braving Circle of Doom's tedious environments and simplistic action is to obtain a high-powered character, or a monstrous weapon. Except once you've done that, it renders the game even more tedious and simplistic as you one-hit-kill your way around the same stultifying environments that you've been grinding through.

There are about five games out of the 20 that we'd ever want to spend time with again, and another half-dozen modern day fillers that have been usurped massively since, while the rest are just truly awful reminders of why things are better just the way they are.

Insipid character and course design married with inherently repetitive gameplay, obsessive collecting and an array of horrible touchscreen features make this feel like a waste of time. It's got plenty of content, and is a perfectly serviceable, occasionally competitive kart racer, but there's not much distinguishing about it.

Dark Void's extremely short campaign - with no motivation for replay and no multiplayer options - is more like a portfolio of half-baked concepts hurriedly crammed into an uninspired package for ease of presentation, more show-reel than show-stopper.