While the story mode is relatively short and generous in opening up new areas fairly quickly, fishing these days is far better suited to mini-game distractions in bigger titles than something like this.

An incoherent and clumsy compilation, one driven more by brand synergy than any creative imperative.

The abundance of surreal moments make for game that's fun to tell others about, but dull to play.

The real disappointment, aside from the painful hand-holding of the main storyline, is the glint of true potential the game's main mechanic shows at times.

A terminally average hackandslasher.

It's all about shooting faster and better, not discovering clever new routes, so unless you're the sort of person who actively enjoys playing the same small sections over and over, searching for new ways to eke out those extra few points, there's absolutely nothing here to warrant an 800-Point purchase.

Drop in a handful of bugs (including one proper braincooker, whereby the game refused to let my character pick up an explosive charge required to destroy an objective until I appeased it by flinging myself off a cliff), and you've got something I can't imagine someone choosing to play over any of this generation's excellent shooters. The bar's too high and it's still rising, way above Breach's reach.

With its classical soundtrack and pastel shades, Potpourri is certainly pleasant and undemanding gamers may find its soporific style quite charming. As a game demanding 800 of your valuable Wii Points, however, it's a rather slim offering.

Folklore turns out to be one part boring adventure game, one part underdeveloped collect-em up, and one part standard dungeon crawl. The only aspect of the game that rises above the mundane is its technical polish and the vibrant creativity with which its imaginary worlds have been created - the vivid luminescence of the Fairy World, or the scratchy, Ian Miller-esque authenticity of the War World for example. [JPN Import]

Those with less animated imaginations, less patience, and lower tolerances of fusty graphics and long turn resolution times should probably stick with Civ and Total War.

On paper, this is just the kind of iOS tie-in fans often ask for: it's faithful to the source material, filled with familiar systems and details, and it's even made a decent attempt at matching the graphical style of the main game. It's Deus Ex in cross-section, but although so many of the right pieces are in place, the energy and skill that usually brings the whole thing to life is missing.

As a single-player experience, Unreal 2 is undoubtedly one of the more forgettable shooters on the Xbox; joining the likes of "Jedi Academy" and "Soldier of Fortune 2" in that club of below par PC ports that have been unceremoniously dumped on owners of this capable machine.

A cheerful, happy little game - it's got some lovely ideas in places and doesn't take itself too seriously - but it was far more at home on the PSP than it is on a home console, and it has gained pretty much nothing in the transition to the PS2.

Even proper strumming seems to be measured inconsistently, breaking otherwise-perfect sequences and potentially losing you points or even getting you booed off if your performance dips below a certain threshold, forcing you to replay the entire song.

What we can't get past is how ordinary the combat feels, the distinct lack of tension throughout, the constant repetition and one-track lack of variety. And as much as the multiplayer is better, you're still hamstrung by uninspired combat, not to mention the game's all-round lack of technical impressiveness.

Come not for the enticing Game of Thrones name, certainly not for the ugly graphics, clunky interface (as appears to be Cyanide's habit of late) and soulless writing, but instead, perhaps, for what genuinely is an ambitious new take on real-time strategising. With verve and wit and gloss, Genesis could have been the start of something fascinatingly, enthrallingly cruel: as it is, it's a song of needless branding and sad compromise.

The Novelist suffers because we are essentially examining a family that doesn't care for us or know about us and we don't really feel an emotional attachment to them.

Graphically bland, the game still manages to create some tension through its rudimentary presentation with some clever pacing.

If you fancy a spot of no-frills arcade dogfighting this will keep you entertained for a while, and there's also a LAN/Internet multiplayer (offering free-for-all and teamplay modes).

That it's over in a few short hours (whatever your abilities) and that everything's very contrived and undemanding is, in fact, rather the point.

If you have the sort of disposable income that allows you to spend thirty quid on a short-lived and rather bland diversion, or if you have an intensely adolescent fondness for flames, skulls and chains, then I dare say you'll find Ghost Rider to be 'not that bad'. And it's not.

Shallow and repetitive, Costume Quest 2's winsome appearance and occasional wit never quite obscure the busywork at its core.

The absolutely tiny amount of adventure content, and the fact that the puzzles simply won't be any challenge to a child of reading age, makes it impossible to give this game a particularly good score.

Centipede and Millipede are the sort of simple, repetitive, no frills shooters you can get more than enough fun out of by playing the free trial version of, so we should be grateful to Microsoft for allowing people to find out why they probably shouldn't bother with this one.

As generic as a platformer can be. It's a game in the tradition of the original "Jak & Daxter," but comparing the two is like holding a light to the abyss.

I love Fallout 3. I love it to an almost indecent extent. It was far and away my game of 2008, and doesn't look like being knocked out of my personal top spot for a good while yet. But when you sift out its role-play, the ammo-box inspection and the exploration and draft in a fleet of health and ammo regeneration points to compensate... well, affairs just feel shallow and somewhat naked.

But at least this game does have potential, unlike Iron Man and Thor, and if you can make your peace with its clunkier aspects then it's a passably enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

With just six short chapters to wade through, Saw is never in any danger of outstaying its welcome, despite its flaws, and that's probably just as well. Its puzzle-centric design is satisfying for a while, but the game's reliance on the same stock challenges wears thin, as does the hilariously broken combat.