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.

A tiresome waste of a strong license, only the most blinkered fan will derive pleasure from this slog of an experience filled with wrong-headed design decisions intended to pad out a game that cannot sustain expansion.

What should have been a dramatic return to form for Sonic, as signalled by the hugely promising trailer videos from earlier this year and the bold decision to use the original Sonic the Hedgehog name, has turned out to be an absolute mess.

Barrel Blast is an abortive and uncannily anachronistic attempt at a character racer with impossible controls, dreadful, imbalanced AI and boring design. It's not even worth the hour of your time that it takes to get completely sick of it.

Players wanting an exciting, fast-paced, on-rails light gun shooter on the Wii are far better served by SEGA's Ghost Squad and House of the Dead: Overkill. The developer's failure to fully embrace the arcade approach ensures this game serves no-one, least of all its tired licence.

A fairly limited package that quickly runs out of ideas.

There's nothing devastatingly awful about this, it's just thoroughly outclassed by most of everything else on the market.

It's repetitive, disposable and artificially inflated. Most of all it's frustrating: frustrating because of the poor execution of a promising concept and because it's nowhere near the game that it could have been.

The only redeeming quality is the echo of ambition that can be faintly heard in the ruins of execution.

And so rather than allowing you to feel like an armoured avenger, Iron Man's videogame outing merely offers the chance to lurch awkwardly around the sky like a drunken wasp while holding down a button to blow stuff up.

If you're a fan of online multiplayer slaughter, then it's a safe bet that you've already got plenty of games that do the same thing as War World, and do it a lot better.

As a game, though, it's so cripplingly inane it makes me want to eat my own teeth and replace them with sweetcorn prongs.

By favouring tired run-and-gun scenarios over actual sniping gameplay, you're left with a technically inept entry in the most over-populated gaming genre around. Show some mercy, put one in the back of its head, and leave it for the vultures.

With the mood alternating between boredom and exasperation, Sanctum Of Slime is a spirit-crushing exercise that only a committed masochist could appreciate.

It's just a waste of time. Too clumsy to satisfy any action gaming urge, and too wrapped up in its own turgid mythology to realise it's getting things so badly wrong, releasing it right before the onslaught of massive winter releases is a decision more audacious than any design choices in the game itself.

Simply too generic in pretty much every way, a collection of ideas done hundreds of times before in other games, offering nothing new to excite or surprise the player. A wholly unremarkable and totally avoidable game.

SEGA might as well have released this as The Adventures of Fiery Boob Lady, and left their mothballed franchise with at least modicum of dignity.

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

But there are flashes of inspiration here, clues to the competence and ingenuity of the developer. Sadly these are drowned out by unnecessary bulk and repetition, resulting in an experience that's flabby and uninspiring regardless of your appreciation of its aims.

If you really, really want to play tennis with your Move controller, Racket Sports works well enough to fulfill that function. But think carefully about whether that experience is worth £25 (it isn't).

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.

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'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.

Cheerful, perfectly pitched and instantly addictive, Mr Driller is the sort of thing that makes you want to grab those tiresome moaners and say "Look! This is casual gaming! It's what games are all about! And it's brilliant!"

The more interesting large-scale fire fights and planning truck upgrades provide some reasons to stick with it, along with nostalgia for dear old Interstate 76. If only Targem had concentrated on lending the missions more of the depth I76's sported, the other faults would be far more forgivable.

Even the most ardent JRPG fan will baulk at the roughshod simplicity of the game's systems, restricting the game's audience to Japanophile anime fans who can overlook the experiences shortcomings as a videogame and approach it as a cultural curio. That is, a sexist, senseless and ultimately stupid cultural curio.

A shooter that earns its place alongside Rogue Warrior, Turning Point and Hour of Victory as one of the very worst games you could play. [Avoid]

But it’s not fun, and it’s certainly not worth the effort. The DS, as hopefully this constructive and helpful review will have shown, is the perfect medium for recreating management sims. Just not this time.

Watchmen Part 2 therefore manages the rather impressive feat of actually being a worse game than its bone-headed predecessor.

It doesn't help that the game goes from mildly challenging to ridiculously easy within the space of a few hours, and once you hit level 50 nothing in the game will pose any kind of threat.

Anything that was good about Dead Island has been crudely ripped out, and whatever remains has been served up in such a way that it simply isn't fun, even at the basic "look at me, I'm killing zombies" level.

The most striking thing about SOE2 is its tragic pointlessness. As a sequel in a franchise that is almost entirely unloved, in a world where there are countless games which do any part of this game better, it's sad to think that a group of people developed it, because then we'd have to blame them for putting out such a diabolical piece of cack.

It's an exercise in frustration and annoyance, and the payoffs aren't worth it - nothing you unlock makes this game any fun.

Bubsy's return is more than a little underwhelming.

Devotees may still play along, through fandom obligation if nothing else, but there's no spell that can change the fact that Harry Potter's videogame saga ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

Despite the lacking port, the game is one of the more enjoyable super-vintage titles to appear on XBLA and it's a testament to the core design that its fun hasn't dulled too dramatically in the past twenty-five years.

It's not thunderously bad, but it is offensively plain, and there are some really daft design decisions lurking among the ridges of this DVD.

A terrible mess.

Mediocre, unimpressive and uninspired. The handling and physics are competent, but the missions are dull and the presentation is shoddy. The most fun to be had is in laughing at the voiceovers.

There is a place for more substantial 3D games like this on the platform but Street Trace: NYC provides nothing to recommend itself over the slew of more tightly focussed and expressed rivals on the platform.

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.

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.

This is one of the biggest disappointments of the system, and the year.

If you can look past the lack of polish and horrible graphics, there's a compelling and unique take on cover-based shooters here, along with an interesting lesson on how games deal with plot. It's a rewarding little game, if you can hack it.

Even the best endeavour seems futile in the face of a clunky control system and a lack of strong visual feedback. To call it a relaxing piece of leisure software doesn't excuse it, either.

With a frustrating yet easy single-player mode that can be exhausted in less than an hour, it falls to multiplayer to improve the score - and it's true that playing with other people does liven things up a tad.

Were your movements less plodding, the weapons a bit meatier, the enemies even basically tactical, the story and dialogue more than perfunctory, the environments remotely imaginative, or the co-operative mode online-enabled, Terminator Salvation would still be far too rough around the edges, far too short, and far too cynical to withstand much critical inspection, but as it is, it's rubbish on virtually every count.

Monster Jam is a terrible racing game, and a laughable attempt at recreating the hefty impact of monster trucks to boot. With zero challenge and aggravating control, I don't think "MotorStorm 2" has much to worry about.

New Rally-X is fun for about ten minutes, but that's all, and for the price that's just not enough.

The original Ape Escape was charming and innovative, but this entry is as basic as motion gaming gets. What really hurts is that there's no reason why Ape Escape couldn't have been the game to take the waggle genre to the next level, if only it had a bit more passion behind it.

Oh, Haemimont. You've broken my heart...Omerta: City of Gangsters is patchy and clunky, but it's also dull and frustrating.

Right from first touch, it's clear that Republic Heroes hasn't undergone nearly enough of this sort of testing, and the uninspired foundations are further compromised as they are built upon. As a result, this is a product that will make children frustrated and unhappy, the very opposite of that to which Star Wars should aspire.

With humour too dumb to even be offensive and one-note gameplay blighted by clumsy design, it's really only possible to cede Yaiba a couple of plus points: wading into zombies with a katana is moderately amusing even in this shonky form, and some of the jokes might raise a smile if you've recently suffered a head injury.

Even the staunchest of Myst fans can't deny that this is a pretty poor port. Despite being faithful to the original in sound effects and atmosphere, its glitches and lack of new, DS-specific functions ultimately inhibit its worth.

It deserved to be left dying in the gutter, begging for loose change, and is in no way a glorious representation of a fondly remembered era of classic arcade gaming. It's a clunky, somewhat charming period piece that's interesting for five minutes if you have childhood associations with it, but, for everyone else, it isn't even worth going beyond the free trial version.

Right from first touch, it's clear that Republic Heroes hasn't undergone nearly enough of this sort of testing, and the uninspired foundations are further compromised as they are built upon. As a result, this is a product that will make children frustrated and unhappy, the very opposite of that to which Star Wars should aspire.

Bliss Island is about as uninspired as mini-game compilations get, with a flavourless selection of challenges and a half-hearted attempt at adding charm and character.

Don't be fooled. Rollercoaster Tycoon World is Dismaland without the irony, a machine designed to fleece your pockets and offer the bare minimum in return.[Avoid]

Naughty Bear sold itself to a lot of customers by pretending to be adult, gritty and brutal. In fact, it's childish, facile and more pointless than manning the phone-lines for the Rob Green retirement fund. Avoid at all costs, or at least wait until it's inevitably slashed in price if you're really desperate for some sledgehammer humour and cheap Gamerscore.

The gameplay in Undercover: Dual Motives consists entirely of finding a thing, using it to do a thing, then having a conversation with someone who tells you you need to find another thing, and going to find the thing. There is no sense of suspense or mystery whatsoever.

I realise first person shooters are getting shorter these days, but, come on. Did Saber Interactive really imagine that releasing a movie tie-in that you can sleepwalk through inside an hour was going to be acceptable?

If you can look past the lack of polish and horrible graphics, there's a compelling and unique take on cover-based shooters here, along with an interesting lesson on how games deal with plot. It's a rewarding little game, if you can hack it.

With the mood alternating between boredom and exasperation, Sanctum Of Slime is a spirit-crushing exercise that only a committed masochist could appreciate.

Star Trek becomes a rare movie game that rises above its peers and delivers something genuinely fun. It's only ever a partial success though, too bogged down by timid design and technical rough edges to really be the game that Trek deserves.

As we perch on the cusp of a bold new console generation there's simply no justification for games this anaemic and sloppy, especially at full price. Even in its best moments, The Sopranos is dull, shallow and repetitive - a game already five years past its sell-by date.

Just consider the gorgeous and stunning packages of Resident Evil, Maximo, Devil May Cry or Killer 7. How are we supposed to accept this unpleasant lump of gristle in comparison?

A lazy and predictable slog through 20-year-old game design, stultifying 'action' and glaring, ridiculous omissions. There's no defending it on the grounds of being a kids' game, since most astute children will likely find this turgid, unengaging blast every bit as tedious and repetitive as their adult counterparts.

What we have here is the shell of Bullfrog's pioneering strategy game, hollowed out and filled up with what is essentially a beat-for-beat clone of Clash of Clans. Every function, every mechanism, every online feature has been tried and tested already by Supercell's money machine and EA is following behind, drooling like a Pavlovian dog. That's what stings the most: not that Dungeon Keeper has gone free-to-play, but that it's done so in such soulless fashion.

There's no excuse to the get the basics this wrong and there's no reason why slicing your way through a wall of enemies shouldn't be fun. Yet there's nothing that's fun here, only a monotonous bloody grind that copies everything from its peers except their polish.

Ultimately, all Funky Punch has going for it is the price. It's certainly cheaper than Tekken, but it's also a pale shadow of virtually all its genre peers. If you value frugality over actual value for money, then by all means give this a spin.

Regardless of it being very hard to picture how its tedious, clumsy mechanics could possibly evolve into something fluid and entertaining, any game that puts you through a good 15 or 20 hours of overwhelming despair to get to even a chance of something worthwhile - which the server-wide near-silence suggests actually isn't, and certainly won't be until if and when there are enough players to populate large-scale tussles - is a failure.

This is a poorly thought out, drab racer that might have been considered passable on mobiles but on dedicated games machines we deserve better. Don't buy this. Don't let anyone else buy this. Don't let the games industry know it's okay for them to port mobile phone games to superior hardware without upgrading them in any way.

A wonky also-ran.

It may be fun and it may make you sweat, but as an interactive fitness companion it's a feeble, infuriating effort that lacks the stamina to compete.

If Churchill had died, we might all be speaking German, but at least we wouldn't have to put up with nonsense like this.

As interesting an idea as Sky Diving is, sadly the concept fails to deliver thanks to clunky motion sensing.

Whoever, wherever, whatever you are, there is absolutely zero reason to own this atrocious excuse for a video game.

Neither a triumph of design nor storytelling and stymied by poor execution, Wayward Manor is a rough proposition. But there's something worthwhile here, even if it's the unusual power fantasy of being able to haunt an aristocratic family from the safety of the rafters.

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.

To make matter worse, the race will stop dead at certain points to forcibly initiate a mini-game in the guise of one of Dastardly and Muttley's futile foils.

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.

Aside from championship you get standard quick race, split-screen and time trial options, and Drift Combo, an incongruous, aggressively arcadey and frankly unplayable mode that challenges you to string long sequences of slides together.

The ideas aren't all bad and on paper this must have sounded like a rich and promising game. However, the game far overreaches itself and the coding, visuals and execution of those ideas is comprehensively unpolished.

The games are irritating and forgettable, the scoring system is bizarre, the play modes make no sense and the constantly shrill urban-cartoon-hipster presentation feels like some ninja chav just injected a pint of boiling hot Red Bull into your eyeballs.

Frankly terrible considering the rich potential the Wii controller offers for games of this ilk.

As a relic to amuse your friends with it serves a purpose, but you could probably achieve the same result by visiting YouTube.

From this point it's clear that in terms of being a shooter, 007 Legends is dismal - but in terms of being an actual James Bond game, it's a genuine insult.

The art style, character models and environments had the shonkiness of a shareware title at the time, so seeing them run in high definition is hardly going to help. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

A wonky also-ran.

So, yes, there's definitely a decent game lurking somewhere in Iron Man, but we haven't seen it yet. This one isn't a disaster, but it can be a rather bleak experience.

The graphics are horrible, and made even worse by that hellish "smoothing" filter. Your powered-up hero has a bulky weightlifter's body with a tiny comedy head on top, while enemy designs are lumpy and ugly.

As the Story Mode can be cleared in a couple of hours you're left to find fun in one of the game's simple multiplayer modes (download play or Wi-Fi) but these do little to enliven the repetitive and staccato move, stop, point, shoot, flow of play leaving a meagre and shallow title that's difficult to recommend.

Charging 800 points for this when the aforementioned Castlevania: SotN comes at the same price is taking the proverbial. Steer well clear of this one.

Inevitably, it's the mini-games that really muff things up though.

What's most frustrating is that with more enemies, more graceful control and a more compelling structure, there's no reason why a retro-styled Adventure Time roguelike couldn't have been an absolute treat and a game worthy of the show.

505 Game Street has been commercially smart to jump aboard the Brain Training bandwagon quickly, but it has made a huge mistake in throwing a faceless copycat effort out there. Hopefully people will not be remotely fooled - we're certainly not.

Usually, spin-off games can fall back on their inherited audience of existing fans, but with a pointless story that adds nothing to a tale already completed, it's hard to see how even the most devoted follower could get more than an evening of mild amusement from such a scrawny experience.

It's yet another example of a distinctly average "extreme sports" game that lacks the polish and creativity of the real-life sportsmen it's trying to emulate-slash-harness.