It's extraordinarily well crafted and polished, as most Square Enix games are, and should deliver a good forty hours of entertainment for your money. Once you get past the kitsch trappings of the game, there's a surprising amount of intelligence underlying it all.

Experienced platform fans will recognise its tricks before they even hit, and they may feel mildly short-changed for it, even if I have a strong suspicion they'll be as happy playing it as I have been.

It lacks a single-player offering worthy of the name (and simply is not worth buying if you don't have Live), is mystifyingly missing most of the PC maps and has been ported to such a disappointingly low grade standard technically that we can't help but feel like it's a huge missed opportunity and a disservice to hardcore followers of the machine - the very people this game is intended to excite.

Hats off to Bizarre for a marvellous technical achievement, slapped wrists for meddling with the already perfect progression system and balancing and tarnishing what would have otherwise been a peerless single player experience and hearty congrats for an excellent online offering.

Simply put it borrows a hatful of ideas, implements them well but never truly wows you as a landmark gaming experience.

A flawed masterpiece. A game brimming with variety and a freshness lacking from most of the factory farmed franchise exercises that pass through our offices with crushing regularity.

In terms of shoot-'em-ups we can't recall a more enjoyable one, and any game that causes someone who's supposed to be holidaying from videogames to not only complete every single campaign and challenge mission, but go back and replay some of them as well has to go down as a one of the games of 2003.

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.

While it does its best to be an amalgam of all the best street racing games - and is certainly one of the best looking - it fails to haul itself onto the top of the podium by virtue of not enough variety, no new ideas and a few too many minor irritations that take the gloss off the final package.

One Of The Best GBA games of the year, Nintendo games on the GBA, and RPGs in existence. Simple, fun and rewarding, this is for everyone who ever ogled but never played the original Mario RPG, and everyone else besides.

With a few more levels, more varied objectives and less psychic guards it would be indispensable.

With more battle tracks, a few more actual racetracks and four-player Grand Prix mode - and let us not forget Internet play, for those of us who will never have all the equipment to make use that tantalising LAN mode - Double Dash would almost certainly qualify for the top score. As it is, at times it's a hair's breadth away, and you're doing yourself a massive disservice if you don't race out and buy this the second it's available.

The single-player is compelling and disappointing in equal measures in a seen-it-all-before-but-I'm-enjoying-it-anyway kind of fashion, but it's the multiplayer action that saves the day.

It is, apart from a few choice technical hiccups, a marvellous game...[It] leaves you feeling warm and happy every time you finish playing it, and in this medium there can be no greater triumph than that.

If you have a flagrant disregard for your sanity, your bank balance and enjoy the kind of masochistic self flagellation that true weirdos get up to in the privacy of their own home, then by all means pop down to your local gaming emporium and pick up Rise of the Machines and remind yourself how good all the other games in your collection are by comparison.

A formulaic, by the numbers FPS with zero innovation, demented AI and a crushing lack of inspiration.

Although it could be accused of taking a while to get going, Ratchet & Clank 2 leaves an indelible impression as a platformer full of variety and, above all else, options.

At full price it's hard to justify a purchase in our view as it's simply not all that essential or different from anything that's gone before, but if you ever fancy a quality party game that you can slip out when the time is right for some multiplayer action and see this game knocking around for a more realistic price then you won't be disappointed.

If you're looking for somewhere to start on turn-based strategy, there's no way this should join your collection before you've picked up Square Enix' significantly superior game. ["FFTA"]

But however good a game this may be, it's still left falling off the shoulders of a true giant, and even without online play and custom soundtrack options "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004" still hits the clubhouse well ahead of its rival.

What we're left with really is a Saturday morning cartoon retelling of the tale, with none of the memorable dialogue, very little actual exposition, too much brainless padding and key events reshaped to fit the brief.

You've probably done a lot of the things you'll do in Prince of Persia before, but never to this standard, and apart from the innovations, the consistency, the logic and the spell-binding presentation, what makes it so special is just how well made it is.

It lacks the style, glossy finish and gunslinging simplicity of Max, and particularly its unadventurous but hugely enjoyable sequel.

In my mind, said mixed bag, when emptied onto the table, would yield all manner of mostly shiny looking baubles, most of which have some redeeming features but very few of which are worth pursuing for longer than a couple of minutes.

But however much positive energy we lavish on FIFA all the areas that EA beats Konami on - bar online - are simply gloss. In a straight tussle between the games, we just don't enjoy playing FIFA as much as we do "PES3," and, for most of you, that's what matters.

But however much positive energy we lavish on FIFA all the areas that EA beats Konami on - bar online - are simply gloss. In a straight tussle between the games, we just don't enjoy playing FIFA as much as we do "PES3," and, for most of you, that's what matters.

It's a surprisingly deep, involving and intense hackandslash experience that belies its apparent simplicity.

The end results may be somewhat shallow for most serious gamers' liking, but it's a quirky, fun, amusing, and heart-warming addition to the PS2.

It's everything a videogame should be; innovative, compelling, challenging, long-lasting. And spiked with controversy and a wonderful wit, it's also something that so few videogames can ever be - cool.

But however much positive energy we lavish on FIFA all the areas that EA beats Konami on - bar online - are simply gloss. In a straight tussle between the games, we just don't enjoy playing FIFA as much as we do "PES3," and, for most of you, that's what matters.

But however much positive energy we lavish on FIFA all the areas that EA beats Konami on - bar online - are simply gloss. In a straight tussle between the games, we just don't enjoy playing FIFA as much as we do PES3, and, for most of you, that's what matters.

This year's "The Getaway" - it's not GTA and it will frustrate for some on that basis, but it's a respectable enough game in its own right as long as you don't "play it the wrong way", which will lead you down a path of frustration and pad-smashing fury.

It's a game with real heart that fans of Japanese RPGs can't fail to fall in love with. It's also the best turn-based title on the Game Boy Advance since the original "Advance Wars."

Where I fell out with CoD was the fact that however many cool things I could think of, it was all too easy to peel away the layers of glitz and gloss and come up with frustratingly long list of inconsistencies, flaws and slightly irksome design decisions that remind you that there's plenty of work to be done before the definitive World War II shooter gets made.

Despite the crushing averageness that SWAT displays in the visuals and the by the numbers level design, it's a strange experience to reflect on how much we enjoyed it.

The intricate layering of tasks and guard puzzles merely proves frustrating, and with the lack of anything beyond the game's eight lengthy single-player levels, which you probably won't feel much like completing, it's a game that looks good in theory but falls flat in execution.

Despite the crushing averageness that SWAT displays in the visuals and the by the numbers level design, it's a strange experience to reflect on how much we enjoyed it.

The intricate layering of tasks and guard puzzles merely proves frustrating, and with the lack of anything beyond the game's eight lengthy single-player levels, which you probably won't feel much like completing, it's a game that looks good in theory but falls flat in execution.

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.

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.

Not essential by any means then, and it's probably not worth much more than a weekend's rental, but Kill.switch definitely proves that even a depressing list of rent-a-mechanic gaming clichés can keep us happy when administered in the right amounts.

When the core gameplay is so obviously hamstrung by fundamental design issues, there's no real incentive to get stuck into the meat of the game, and thus the chances of being able to enjoy the two-player link mode disappear into the ether.

Setting my disappointment over its distance from the original Prince of Persia design aside, The Sands of Time on the Game Boy Advance is a rather accomplished and quite extensive platform-puzzler, with some fabulous level design and genuinely considered presentation.

A great tennis sim. It's certainly less fun than "Virtua Tennis" (especially the career mode) and it's damn frustrating at times, but it's still the best representation of strawberries and cream we've ever seen.

Microsoft's biggest mistake with Amped 2 was not in shunning its chief competitor's vivacious aerial antics, but in failing to mimic its ease of control and combo structure - areas where the "less is more" idiom could most do with application.

The intricate layering of tasks and guard puzzles merely proves frustrating, and with the lack of anything beyond the game's eight lengthy single-player levels, which you probably won't feel much like completing, it's a game that looks good in theory but falls flat in execution.

The marginal improvement on display here is happily eclipsed by rival extreme sports titles which do take steps to reinvent themselves, and partly because there are four other Tony Hawk games out there and they all do much the same thing.

A superb blend of traditional and wrestling-specific fight mechanics, and there's so much variety here that it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say you could play this one from now until the next SmackDown without getting bored or running out of things to do.

A total dud. There is nothing here that I wouldn't rather do with my PC thanks to a combination of poor feature quality, crap interface, storage limitations, stunted functionality and - let's bring something else into the equation - an hilariously optimistic price.

A severely flawed game. Yet somewhere - hidden underneath a terrible combat system, weird AI and an untrustworthy camera - there lies the frail skeleton of a good stealth game.

Although we're very impressed with the superb quality of the things which the game does well, the multitude of things it doesn't even attempt do smack of a missed opportunity.

It's not bad because it's unplayable. It's bad because everything it sets out to do feels 15 years old, or frustrating and repetitive.

It takes all that was good about the original, improves every element, successfully adds new features and delivers a well-rounded game that will demand more from you than perhaps any other title you'll play this year.

If you fancy some utterly ridiculous, relentless twitch gaming action, full of drama, evil henchmen and a posse of minions to pump full of lead, then Time Crisis 3 stands as an essential purchase.

It's by no means groundbreaking or remotely innovative, and you might get fed up with some rather samey single-player mission objectives, but it's all delivered with a charm and style that will win over your heart and ultimately offers a satisfying multiplayer facet that helps round off the package nicely.

One of the most refreshing, fun and downright brilliant games I've played this year.

Just buy the sodding game - it's one of the best of the year.

It's just so massively detailed, so thoroughly improved and so gloriously playable that we have to recommend it. We haven't even touched on the multiplayer aspect, which we'll be doing in our PS2 Online review very soon, but to be honest it wouldn't have to be good - the rest of the game is enough on its own.

Gone is the marriage of lush, detailed and hugely compelling space combat missions to key moments in the film trilogy, replaced by poorly put together ground-based approximations of the old style, and a series of gimmick-driven vehicle missions that barely even summon up an initial "wow" factor.

Firefly has offered a level editor with the game, allowing players to compile their own campaigns or swap them over the net, but I can't see this breathing much life into a title that exhausts its appeal so quickly. Nevertheless, it's undoubtedly one for the management fetishists.

Make no mistake that it is going to give you absolute hell, yet beyond the initial frustration at your apparent gaming impotence, attempting to penetrate its steely exterior becomes a bizarre pleasure that offers a triumphant sense of achievement.

Curse Naughty Dog for creating what is - at times - an almost unplayably hard game, but if you can dig deep into your well of persistence and climb this mountain of a game, you'll get a great view of the most involving, rewarding and momentous platform game ever created.

It's likely to be deemed too similar to the original to attract too many converts, but it's short, it's sweet, and it's been put together with so much style it frankly embarrasses the ham-fisted efforts of most other developers.

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

There are endless beat-'em-ups, platformers and third-person action adventures that do everything Crouching Tiger does infinitely better, and manage to make it fun while they're at it.

For those expecting massive advancements or a radical departure from the original, this will come as a disappointment. A more honest, realistic assessment would be to treat this as a mission pack, and for those who do just want more of the same, you'll come away a satisfied customer.

For those expecting massive advancements or a radical departure from the original, this will come as a disappointment. A more honest, realistic assessment would be to treat this as a mission pack, and for those who do just want more of the same, you'll come away a satisfied customer.

For those expecting massive advancements or a radical departure from the original, this will come as a disappointment. A more honest, realistic assessment would be to treat this as a mission pack, and for those who do just want more of the same, you'll come away a satisfied customer.

It's a timeless piece of quality gaming that, with the exception of its visual element, would probably work on any format, past or present.

It's not too hard, it has a certain charm, it lets you take things on in your own way (as a commander or a commando), and it isn't afraid of pushing the old-fashioned arcade challenge of getting through a level without hitting F6 every ten seconds.

Although the controls could do with tweaking and the multiplayer doesn't hold much excitement, it's still fundamentally entertaining. It's an odd concoction, built around an idea we'd love to see developed further than it is here, but thanks to some genius AI, enjoyable level design, simple objectives and underlying black humour, it works.

I'm going to cheat, and simply provide a score for the multiplayer element of the game...and bearing in mind that this game probably won't run shockingly well without major tweaking, because it's one of the most demanding games in terms of system specs that we've ever seen.

Provides just about enough to be worthy of the price of entry if you're an Age of Mythology fan. The new single-player campaign is slickly presented and a lot of fun, while the addition of the new race and the Titans themselves should give a fair bit of extra longevity to the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Later levels tend to get merely more irritating rather than more enjoyable, and the many fans of the Oddworld series would have been better served with handheld versions of "Abe's Oddysee" and "Abe's Exoddus," rather than this frankly overpriced, lame effort.

A classy package with plenty going for it to satisfy those with kleptomaniac/sado-masochistic leanings.

A fairly meaningless but devilishly addictive platform game that isn't afraid of, ulp, hatching a few new ideas amongst the rank and file and giving you options.

Technically it's better than either of the previous two, which means it's better than any other golf game we've played...For those of us with Tiger pedigree though, the lack of online play and niggling flaws overshadow an otherwise generous update.

At times, yes, it does feel as though most of this stuff should be available on the website along with the rest of the free extras, but the impact the pack has on your creations can't be ignored and, for the Sim City obsessed, they're actually quite essential.

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.

What "Allied Assault" and "Frontline" had that "Spearhead" and "Breakthrough" seem less concerned with is the feeling of a battle raging all around you... Breakthrough's trek to Italy almost feels isolated and distant.

There's much work to be done before LucasArts can boast it has created the ultimate Star Wars FPS. Sure, it's the best one yet, but with some often laughable AI and creaking tech underpinning it, the flaws are there for all to see.

It won't frustrate you too much, but likewise it won't inspire you either. It's a straight up hackandslash that anyone with friends to play it with will probably enjoy, falling somewhere between Gauntlet's button-mashing traditions and Dark Alliance's intelligence and fun.

We've also come to take EA's high presentation values and their sports titles' accessibility for granted, and Rugby 2004 has neither. In essence, it feels like a cynical attempt to steal cash from dazzled armchair Wilkinsons, and we're yanking a point off for that alone.

The key problem is that just about all the good things about it are lifted straight from the original Homeworld, and there's really not a lot in the "enhancements" to this sequel which distinguish themselves above the first game.

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.

Hardcore? Don't be fooled, chaps. Maybe, somewhere, deep within the bowels of the hardcore gamer there's a desire to play endless, sprawling, repetitive games which offer no motivation to continue, but really, if you're looking for a hardcore RPG status symbol, then pick up Breath of Fire II or Golden Sun - or buy Zelda, because that's a real-time RPG done right.

The pointlessly respawning (and stubborn) enemies quickly become a tedious pain in the arse, the combat mechanics feel redundant, limited and stuck in the past, and the whole locked door/find key/backtrack game design feels utterly stale too.

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.

For those few short hours the title doesn't really involve much more than collecting, leaping and basic problem solving. The plot doesn't interfere much, and as such the time travel element that could have been used to good effect is cast aside as just another excuse for all Banjo's hard work.

While it's fair to level some criticism at the lack of tutelage, and the combat is a bit divisive and unforgiving to begin with, you can't really blame the developer for Savage's biggest problem - the way it's played online. Given the right people and the right attitude, this is one of the finest multiplayer games of the year so far.

Although persistence is rewarded with a host of unlockable cars, weapons, interviews and the like, it's doubtful whether you'll have the desire to get drawn into the experience as obsessively as the developer requires you to.

Although P.N.03 is plainly flawed, with a little perseverance the gameplay still shines through as something relatively new and engaging.

If a dictionary definition of "just-another-go" gameplay is ever to be written, this game will have to be featured as an example; and if a list of the best handheld games ever made is written, we'd expect to see this very near the top.

The pack does inject some honestly good, fun and creative features into what is still one of our favourite multiplayer games to date. It alters it to the point that it feels like a slightly different game, and it's a commendable effort by DICE to refresh and revive the BF1942 experience.

Although its strength lies in depth, longevity and gameplay rather than in artistry and atmosphere, it still deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with ICO in the rankings of "the best games you've never played".

Republic would quite probably work excellently as a well-implemented "spreadsheet" style game; the 3D element is worse than pointless, and just gets in the way of the gameplay.

If you're pining for something with charm, accessibility, instant playability, hidden depths, and above all else fun, then for twenty quid you can't go far wrong with Bombastic. Sure, it's the kind of game that could've been made ten years ago, and is as basic as games get these days, but that's exactly what appealed to us.

For the vast majority of the gaming world, this is quite easily the best 3D beat 'em up ever made.