Somehow less than the sum of its parts, Fragile Dreams fails to match its ambition with its systems and imagination.

For the most part, it's overly complicated, and dominated by things designed to stop it being fluid and exciting.

It's always tempting to be lenient where indie developers are concerned, and if nothing else Afterfall: Insanity makes for an eye-catching calling card for Intoxicate's graphical skills, but as a game in its own right it's as middle of the road as they come.

We really should expect better treatment for titles of this calibre. Nothing better sums up the sheer laziness of it all than a glaring typo scrolling past in the new credits.

But as much as I'm certain I should be warning you off this bizarre, broken thing, I can't quite bring myself to do it. Clearly, if they'd localised it properly, fixed the numerous bugs, and made it in an engine that remembers John Major as Prime Minister, the score would go up significantly.

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.

Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 does feature an impressive roster of fighters and range of options, and the fighting system works well. Plus you get to do flying. But there's nothing much new here apart from the online mode, and that's rubbish.

A short, disappointing downhill slide through clumsy and frustrating renditions of more modern, characterless stages. Drooping from joyous classic to dissatisfying mediocrity in just a few hours of gameplay, Generations on the 3DS provides a surprisingly handy microcosm of Sonic's decline over the years. Not the best anniversary present, then.

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.

As a game, Silent Hunter 5 fails because the bugs and UI render it a chore. As a simulation, it fails because the bugs and UI render it ridiculous and incomplete. As a product, it's just overwhelming disrespectful to this long running series' fans. And finally, as one of the first games to receive Ubisoft's new copy protection, it's an embarrassment.

I'm keenly aware that Twisted Metal has "an audience", and I'm not belittling the people who like it. Heck, I remember a time I found it enjoyable belting around loosing off missiles. But it's such a disposable form of entertainment.

If you're a die hard Splinter Cell fan, you might learn to live with the shonky control system and poor quality graphics. It's not as if the game is completely unplayable, after all. However, it's not varied or involving enough for our tastes, and the ratio of frustration to enjoyment is far too high.

Worst of all, it's missing any multiplayer option, as fighting along with a friend might have added a little bit more enjoyment. Obligatory mini-games don't really make up for it, making this a brawler that's more a nod to easily pleased fans than an essential purchase.

By any objective measurement, this a poor attempt at adding a new sequence to an excellent game which already boasted a generous amount of content. Had it added more explorational elements, or another secret location to discover, it would have been worth the effort - but to simply stitch together forgettable melee encounters and chases with new cut-scenes is some distance from being enough.

Super Pokémon Rumble is, at best, a simple and straightforward addition to the Pokémon saga, but in no way a match for its main series brethren.

Next to ageing titles like Frontlines and European Assault, it feels soulless, hastily cobbled together and depressingly formulaic.

It's a straight port, with a few minor alterations, and in this day and age it just can't stand up to the competition.

If you've missed out on a decade of new ideas and developments, or you really need to blow away the greying cobwebs of a dozen gritty shooters, then Crash is four or five hours of enjoyable, low intensity fun - the colourful, ill-fitting Hear'Say pullover of the platform stable. But with so many better alternatives on offer, it's not an experience we'd recommend.

Ship Simulator 2006 doesn't have the feature-set to compete with sims like MSFS and MSTS, but it's a solid start. The developers are already talking about the next instalment and making encouraging noises about wave modelling, long voyages, and multiplayer (not included at present). Unless you've got salt in your blood, I'd recommend sitting on the dock of the bay until SS2007 arrives.

It's all just a bit sad really, and while devoted Jackson fans will find more reason than most to gloss over the practical shortcomings of the game, they run the risk of being left even sadder.

The control system isn't much fun, and feels unfinished and somewhat unloved - but it is certainly possible to get to grips with it and to eke some enjoyment out of the superbly designed levels of the game.

It's just that dominos on a console doesn't have the same allure as card games, and there's very little here to justify an 800 point purchase.

But when the game finds itself up against one cheaper, much better year-old rival and fails to make any in-roads, it's hard to justify sending you out to buy it.

In a genre as densely (and impressively) populated as the platform game on DS, a short, prickly adventure that makes tokenistic use of the stylus strikes us as a bit disappointing.

There's nothing sadder than a great idea wasted, but it's no longer enough to simply come up with a concept and let it do the heavy lifting for the entire length of a game.

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.

That [50] down there is starting to look a bit mean isn't it? It would be if EE2 wasn't buggier than a shrew's breakfast and outgunned by a better, cheaper, alternative.

BioWare has had a year to get Omega right. It didn't.