If nothing else, Age of Empires DS provides a title that will appeal to those Discovery Channel Dads who picked up the stylus for Brain Training, and proves that Nintendo's flip-top toy can supply grown-up depth as well as giddy frivolity.

It needed to kick your arse more, and give you something mechanical to lure you back, not just canned explosions. You'll enjoy playing it, but you're not actually being entertained.

Grandia III can be an enjoyable trip for the 30 to 40 hours it takes to complete, as each battle is a joy even in the most boring of dungeons.

Drakengard 2 just doesn't have the style or grace or education or expertise or power, to pull it off. Like The Flaming Lips trying their hands at Bohemian Rhapsody you really want the homage to work but, to be honest, it just doesn't.

While the companions may prove annoying at times, it's easy enough to resign yourself to their whining and manage the task in hand; for every platform blunder there are ten moments of huge satisfaction to look back on.

In a final note, which may just be where my head is at the moment, but there's something really disturbing sexual about the battering ram's swinging animation.

Rugby 06 finally offers the full range of Premiership, Celtic and Southern Hemisphere club teams, not to mention exhibition sides such as the Barbarians and New Zealand Maoris. That's, like, three times as many sides as "Rugby 2005."

It’s silly, strange and possibly psychotic, but it’s our silly, strange and possibly psychotic. You’ll criticise it, maybe even question its validity as a complete game, but you damned well won’t put it down before you’ve finished it. It’s marvellous.

The sheen that Alpha 3 gains by being thrown onto a handheld is just a fresh coat and it didn't take long for us to remember why we put down the hadokens after its original 1998 release.

Placed on a handheld, the gravitas of the shock scares is gone, and with unrealistic graphics and a cheese factor turned up to eleven, any feeling of genuine creepiness is lost. While it does keep all the flaws described here, the GameCube remake does at least offer beautiful graphics and some decent shocks.

I lean back in my chair and, in a moment of grim lucidity I realise: all of these games are already in a cardboard box in the shed.

It's possible you'll tire of Drill Dozer's slightly repetitive drill cycle, and there's less room for exploration and investigation than you'll find in something like Super Mario World, but given it's 15 years and about 48 million 2D platform games later, it's nice to find a developer who can still offer a fresh line of questioning - and a nice suit to wear while doing it.

Quite possibly, the best game I've played this year. While it's not for everyone, those who are willing to look past what they could consider childish graphics, and an obsession with housework that's nearly as strong as your mum's, will find a title with as much heart as there is fun wrapped up into a four-inch-tall bundle.

As brightly as it burns, it's an all-too-brief fix that doesn't leave you wanting more.

If it featured a character aimed at kids a few years older it would probably score higher, but a game that so woefully misunderstands its audience should only be purchased by those with precocious offspring or vast reserves of patience.

Beautiful music, cute visuals, and a peculiarly charming attitude make you want to like it. Recognising that it's aimed at younger players makes you want to forgive it. But it cannot be denied that this is a big ol' mess of nice ideas executed badly, with the most important ingredient completely missing.

When the offline experience is so rich, moaning about the fact that Simbin have capped multiplayer at sixteen is slightly uncharitable.

It's not big or boisterous, the characters don't squeak at you in comedy accents and you don't get to unlock Bowser or anything (at least I should hope not), and that's what high-end golf is often like: quietly dignified, a sport of concentration. The occasional lucky chip-in is satisfying, but the real pleasure comes from getting it right because you thought about it.

Sure, it's not going to win awards for its longevity, but its instant playability and rampantly addictive qualities make is damned near irresistible. A fitting update to an enduring classic.

In short, there isn't much reason to buy it - however much you love monkeys. And we love monkeys, which makes us even more cross.

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

As a pair, they offer far more pleasure than you could expect for the money, and are the perfect kind of games to while away an evening with, time you'd only spend watching 'Changing Rooms' or something.

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?

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.

What you end up with is thirty battles masquerading as a fairly rigid sports league, in which you can try each fight as many times as you like, using whatever weaponry you want.

Coupled with more exciting levels in the latter stages of the main mode, and the thrill of hitting triple-digit scores in Loopnastics, Wik is like a web-game that grew up.

This is a rare PSP game that's not a poor translation of a PS2 flop from four years ago, or a disappointingly crippled version for the handheld. It's a spot-on, virtually perfect miniature version of the PS2 smash.

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.

Should you want to, you can almost play Monopoly, Boggle, Yahtzee and Battleships on it. Just in a really tacky, and depressingly lonely way. And you might want to take advantage of the wireless multiplayer, but really that just makes you weird. Play proper board games if you're in the same room, for goodness sakes. It's a lazy mess, and you deserve better.

While fun once through, the broken online component and repetitive design means this'll soon be consigned to a dusty game shelf never to be played again.

There's a depth of enjoyment to Final Fantasy IV Advance - even pathos - that few other games can match.

Far too similar to games that are wonderful. So while it's not hideous or unplayable, it constantly reminds you of a far better game you could be playing instead.

Somewhere along the line there was a wholesale misunderstanding of what made Sands of Time good, and the result of the change in approach is a game that manages to be less likable in just about every single way.

It's very good at what it does, but it doesn't offer anything new.

Eventually, the mire of frustrations, constant reloading, harsh difficulty level, bugs and generally poor design wears you down. Rabid strategists will appreciate the game's saving grace, the combat system, and may find themselves more tolerant. Good luck to them. They'll need it.

Here's hoping they'll do better with the sequel, if there is one, and produce a game with real charm, inventive level designs and plenty of fast-paced action - the game Tokobot should have been, in other words.

I'm playing this version through with, if you can't tell, my girlfriend, and the aspect of simply playing the game with others, either on the same cart, of across Wi-Fi, is a whole new experience, one absolutely fraught with joy, laughter and loveliness.

It's charmingly designed from the ground up to be as fun and accessible as possible, yet despite its astonishing simplicity, it still managed to hold our interest well beyond our expectations.

It takes a measured approach to combat, pitches the atmosphere at the same eery, mysterious level that we loved about the first game, and wraps it all up with one of the more flexible control systems imaginable (quick point though, Ubi: why can't I invert the look up/down?) that make it possible to enjoy the kind of trap laden environments that would make Lara's eyes bleed at the prospect.

If you've been desperate for an RPG and would willingly drown yourself in a sea of Final Fantasies then it might be a little on the simplistic side.

Quotation forthcoming. [Mar 2006]

It's gorgeous. It's cute. It's surprisingly deep. It's deeply satisfying. And it's oh so hilariously funny.

As a package it's excellent to have two timeless games to dip back into whenever you feel like it, but there's still the niggling feeling that Nintendo's pricing strategy for such things is bordering on insane.

Offering encouragement and useful tips, as well as warnings about common exercise mistakes and pitfalls, the on-screen trainers are a fantastic resource.

There's the Mario Kart-esque attacks. An immediately obviously very stupid idea. And they're so poorly integrated that they destroy everything in their path.

But what ultimately takes some of the gloss off Bejeweled 2 isn't so much the overly harsh conditions required to earn achievements or unlock the extras, but the limitations of the control pad itself. Unlike the original PC version, or Zoo Keeper on the DS, you can't be as instant and intuitive when you're moving a cursor around the screen.

One of the best buys on Xbox Live Arcade, even comes with a copy of the PGR2-vintage Geometry Wars (complete with its own leaderboards), and - for the cynics - offers one of the most decisive demo versions, too.

But if you're in the mood for one of the more cerebral, calming puzzle experiences around, you could do a whole lot worse than fire Hexic up when you're between games - if only to trounce the high scores of your buddies.

All round, Mutant Storm Reloaded is the kind of sympathetic update that reminds us exactly why gamers gets so foamed up about supposedly outdated concepts. Sometimes things just work, and always will.

It probably won't occupy you for more than a few evenings of play, but you'll enjoy them.

A hugely addictive addition to the Live Arcade scene, but very much a completist's game for the lone puzzler.

Effective, brutal and full of hard-as nails military posture, it's a decent expansion pack to one of the best games of the year.

But while laudable in many senses, ultimately King Kong is as Carl Denham - fascinatingly single-minded and full of wonder, but ultimately shallow, and too caught up in its initial achievement to really think the rest of it through.

When the game starts giving you the opportunity to play as Kong, it's like Spinal Tap dropped by Ubisoft's studios and cranked it up to eleven.

That Quake 4 is merely a glossy, standard, by-the-numbers trudge through past glories is an irresponsible way to treat such a revered franchise; to then cock up the conversion to the 360 subsequently and then charge extra for the privilege is bordering on scandalous.

Double Trouble is still undeniably a lot of fun - clever ideas, decent puzzles, and so on - but rather like the name, which seems to be struggling to fit the standard jokey Game Name: DS format, the end result isn't quite good enough.

Bulletproof reads revelations from the Bible of production but knows almost no game. It's superficially slick, with its bling'd up 50 Cent avatar and glitzy rap, but really it's a third-person shooter that stumbles well under the benchmarks set for the PS2.

There's more excellent-game here than there is tedious-game, but even when you get past the opening stages it still takes a little while to settle down.

When you've battled through all 14 single player levels, played it on co-op and worked your way through some solid multiplayer action, you won’t feel like you've played a next generation title; heck, you won't even feel like you've played the best shooter out this Christmas.

Of the shooters available on the 360 at launch, Call of Duty 2 is easily the most accessible and consistently entertaining single player offering, but if online is your thing you're better off considering what Rare has to offer ["Perfect Dark Zero"].

Dogz isn't just a poor man's "Nintendogs" - it's a fundamentally rubbish game, regardless of the competition. Put simply, there's just not enough to do, and it's so repetitive that it's hard to see how even very young children could be entertained for more than half an hour or so.

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.

No matter how good it is - and in Skirmish mode, it really is pretty good - it's a bit saddening. The future never seemed so far away.

It's a sign that next generation gaming may offer a wonderful audio visual experience, but it needs to be a tad more ambitious in the game design stakes.

A really solid rendition of what made those early Tony Hawk games great, but on your faithful friend, the DS. It's smart and sassy, and it looks far better than you could possibly expect.

It's like playing "PGR2" on a system that can do it justice.

However, at its marked-down price it does offer a low-risk introduction to the series for anyone who's not yet experienced the undeniably satisfying feeling of cleaving a path through an entire army of foot soldiers.

The setting lends itself perfectly to the premise, yet ultimately the overly forgiving combat system makes the game too damned easy.

It'll soak up plenty of your time, but it's a real trudge, and rarely presents anything new or exciting - you've experienced most of the good by the time you've qualified for the PGA Tour itself, and indeed most of us will have experienced it all by, er, well, had experienced it all by 2003.

To describe what EA has produced here as dreadful would be to do a terrible disservice to things that merely inspire dread.

Of RPGs with overblown production values, galaxy-wide spider-web narratives, protagonists of indistinct sex and abundantly irritating characterisation, Final Fantasy is still King and this chartered framework does absolutely nothing to impinge its power.

Amped 3 certainly isn't awful, and will keep you entertained for a long time if you can get past the hideous presentation and get used to its stop-starty nature, but the most recent SSX was enormous too, and treated the sorts of tasks that Amped considers its core as a second string to its traditional racing and tricking.

Unlike a lot of arcade racing games we've played over the years, Most Wanted is one of the few games that's destined to provide a lasting challenge, despite the inherent repetition at its core.

It is an exercise in immense frustration and painful tedium. When it works, and this feels a stupid sentence at this point, it does manifest the correct semiotic indicators of first-person shooting. You are mowing down literally hundreds of baddies with big metal guns. But that's it. And it isn't all that much.

So, the most beautiful world in a game? Perhaps. To look at it’s cohesive, well-formed, has some of the best, most inventive enemy designs ever conceived, and the shimmering draw distance constantly beckons you into it’s hazy good-looking promise.

It has neither the charm, nor the innovation, nor the wicked guns, and therefore ultimately feels like a bit of a chore.

A game best-enjoyed in short sharp bursts. That way you can appreciate the views, have some fun creating an offensive strategy on paper before briefly hammering it out on the field.

If you fancy the beautiful Christmas garlands or a customisable snowman or a Christmas tree... well, why not just head over to the Sims 2 site and download them. They've been up there for a year, after all. No, I'm not joking.

As much as I might admire the precise way everything's been put together, and enjoy compulsively dispatching Zone after Zone, I still can't abide the way it builds you up and then runs you straight into someone's swinging baseball bat without warning.

As a single-player experience, even in its slightly compromised state, it's easily one of the most intensely enjoyable console shooters there's ever been.

True Crime is a game looking to score the ultimate dope hit of Grand Theft Auto genius, and it has the contacts to make such a score, but fails to use them.

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

With its varied mission objectives, well designed co-operative gameplay and highly impressive graphics, it's a joy to play - most of the time.

The beauty of Mario Kart DS is that it's really, genuinely practical to play with other people, wirelessly or online.

If the SmackDown! series doesn’t start making proper innovations instead of these minor cosmetic tweaks year after year, there’s every chance we’ll get a little bored of it. For now, though, SmackDown! is still as good as wrestling games can get.

Bolder souls, as interested in commerce as they are in combat, can buy with much greater confidence.

There's a lot of game in Crash Tag Team Racing, but there isn't a lot of good game. And since there isn't really a lot of kart-racing game either, on a system that seems to have more pure racing games than any other in recent memory, it's hard to think of a good reason to tag it any other way.

A remarkably solid and substantial game. Certainly no one should be ashamed of owning it or giving it as a gift this yuletide.

SOCOM PSP is a simple, varied, and well put together game that works very well on Sony's handheld.

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.

Standing back from the relatively minor niggles and the impatient desire for Tecmo to push on with the series in a slightly more forward-looking direction, it's still a labour of love playing a title that leaves you lying awake at night pondering on every palpitating detail.

While in terms of accuracy to the world it's the least accurate LoTR licence yet, in other areas it's terribly close to the books. It's slow-paced. It's a little unwieldy. It's hardly glamorous. However, it's also something which wraps you up in its own world for hours at a time.

It may test your levels of forgiveness, and stretch the boundaries of your patience, but if you want a game that delivers something close to the unforgiving challenge, tension and confusion of real warfare, then give it a try.

You'll enjoy the gunplay, you'll probably be numbed by the slo-mo gunplay repetition, and then see it through anyway because it's all quite undemanding fun with a decent story. On horseback. Just don't expect Gun to change the world. It really is just "True Crime in the Wild West."

There's a mess of nerves that throb confusedly beneath its borrowed face. It looks about right, certainly, but you'll need more than immunosuppressants to stop your face exploding in outrage half the time.

The combat may lack depth in skill terms - certainly you wouldn't compare it to something like Ninja Gaiden in terms of technique - but in the end Neo's the perfect embodiment of stuff you want to and now can do in a game. It's just the Path that's the problem.

Rare said that the game was basically completed on past systems anyway, then touched up, and that's incredibly obvious.

It's a king among peripheral games, using most people's underlying fascination with the hidden art of axe-wielding as a foil for delivering one of the best beatmatching games I've seen.