With an evident determination to cut the crap and get down to business, it's a tight, brutal no-nonsense corridor shooter. Completely predictable, but fun all the same.

Completists will certainly enjoy the three Templars' Lairs bundled alongside The Bonfire of the Vanities, but being forced to buy the accompanying memory sequence to access them leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

It's clear from the thoughtful setting and the commitment to Buddhist myth and ritual underpinning the plot that genuine effort has gone into the game, but that doesn't show in the final product. Perhaps fittingly for a game based around scaling a peak, playing Cursed Mountain is more a matter of endurance than anything, despite its worthy intentions.

A few more of these and the big boys will be casting a few nervous glances in the direction of the download sector.

It's a safe if not spectacular middle episode to Ubisoft's mostly enjoyable yarn - one that neither sets up new mysteries or concludes any existing ones. It wraps things up with a sequence that suggests we're within reach of the season's denouement, with another shift in location to New York and a cliffhanger that promises a more dramatic conclusion.

But even with the 2600 stuff taken out of the equation, nine quid for the whole lot is reasonable value, and if you're only interested in certain titles, you can buy each one in 59p packs.

A well-designed, well-conceived game.

The package as a whole is still very much a rough diamond, but it's a definite improvement over its predecessor.

X manages to fail on almost every level.

As a live-service game, you can expect lots of tweaks and changes as the weeks morph into months, but having magpied so much from those kinds of games it's left with little identity of its own. Despite the promise of its campaign, its endearing cast and impressive voice work, Marvel's Avengers is an unoriginal and uninspired affair that falls sadly short of what it could have been - what it should have been.

With the RPG situation on PSP as overwhelmingly dire as it currently is, Anniversary stands out as one of the more enjoyable, its simplicity and charm forever keeping it gently compelling, in spite of the irritating throwbacks inherent to its age.

Pirates is a game of lots of little pieces that combine to form a patchy but largely coherent slice of pirate life. Could it stand to be a little more in-depth, a little less piecemeal in the way it hands out tasks? Certainly. But if you just want a solidly entertaining pirate game that you can dip in and out of, safe in the knowledge that there are hours of gameplay ahead with no paywalls, this is definitely worth downloading.

The good news: it's fun to play and nice to look at, and does a fine job of showing off what the PSP can do. The bad news: it's all over in the time it would take you to nip down Blockbusters, rent a copy of the movie and watch it. Skipping the credits.

It is impossible to shy away from the realisation that H&D as a franchise needs a bit of a pep up in several areas and is gradually being left behind in a genre it once dominated.

It isn't broken and it isn't soulless, but it is pretty shallow. It's cute and passably entertaining, but there's nothing here that compels you to return to the game, and it's quite clearly aimed towards the younger end of the market. MySims DS is EA's family-friendly take on an existing idea; the Wii version is the one that innovates.

Come on, SNK, stop churning out ports of stuff we've seen a million times, and give European fighter fans the game they really deserve.

Anyone with RTS sympathies will be able to wring some pleasure from it, but no-one's likely to enjoy it enough to recommend it to a mate, devote a fan-site to it, or have its logo tattooed in a private place.

If you're on a budget, or just don't have access to a DS, then this is a fine way to sample its abundant charms, provided you don't expect anything special in the presentation department.

Some will fall in love with its goofy adolescent humour and sink-or-swim gameplay. If you can wade through those early matches long enough to make peace with the controls, and find yourself in a match with like-minded players (or better yet, actual friends), it can be ridiculously good fun. It too often feels, however, that praise is due more to the game The Showdown Effect is trying to be rather than game it currently is.

Hokey, uneven and janky, Elex is nonetheless a compelling throwback to a time before open worlds became choose your own to-do lists.

SEGA fans, run don't walk to the shops, but be prepared to give Superstars a few hours before the gameplay starts hugging you as hard as the graphics and sound. Everyone else, dust off Virtua Tennis 3 for a more complete alternative.

The melee combat feels laboured, the boss fights repetitive and contrived, while the timed sequences largely frustrate to the point of desperate exasperation.

A relic of a bygone era that Capcom has done nothing to reinvent for modern audiences with this reissue. Yet beneath its off-putting anachronisms there is a worthwhile, menacing game - for those with the eyes to catch it.

Whether you're a Warhammer 40K aficionado or not, this is just the right kind of uncomplicated stress relief to distract you from the BBC News 24 ticker.

If you've always hankered after a handheld version of one of the best puzzlers there's ever been, then this is a serviceable port that does the job, but just be aware that you'll probably want to skip over the new modes very quickly.

It doesn't possess the same can't-put-it-down addictiveness as Friends of Mineral Town, the series' greatest portable success, but I have found myself coming back to it day after day, moving the story along at an unhurried pace. The setting and ambience are captivating and entirely unique, its presentation is undeniably excellent and the gradual exploration of the island is compelling.

Is it that surprising that Joy Ride Turbo seems a little confused? Not really, I guess.

Crazy Golf is hardly a revolution in handheld gaming, but sometimes all you want to do of a day is flick balls across pretend courses, if only to ward off the impending existential crisis.