The main linear quest path provides the bulk of Mage Knight, with little in the way of sub-quest trimmings, and the replay value is low despite the temptation of trying out new characters.

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.

If you like the sound of a game which feels a lot like playing an extremely early build of Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time on a broken television then go ahead and drop forty notes on this abomination.

Editing in game design is as important as it is in writing or filmmaking. Get to the point. Respect both the time and financial investment of your audience. Above all else, don't send me chasing after the goddamn lorry.

If you are looking for a multiplayer version of the classic board-game you're almost certainly better-off going to community sites like www.diplom.org and exploring some of the free Play-By-EMail options (bewilderingly Paradox have chosen not to include a PBEM or a hot-seat mode).

Broken Roads neglects its best ideas, padding out its runtime with fetch quests that leave you asking "why am I here?" for all the wrong reasons.

You begin to think that behind Bodycount there is perhaps the story of an heroic development team tasked with doing far too much with far too little, who have performed a minor miracle in simply shipping something that works. Well, works some of the time. It's an explanation. But the killer fact about Bodycount is that it's nowhere near good enough to compete in the FPS arena, and serves nobody - player, developer or publisher.

So once again, we have here a modern day Sonic game devoid of the elements which made olden days Sonic games so good - speed, simplicity, a decent control system, that sort of thing. Sonic Riders Zero Gravity is not hateful, just pointless. A complete waste of time, effort and the planet's resources.

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.

This is just a song pack, really - one that carries an RRP of GBP 29.99 (or GBP 39.99 if you need the guitar grip too). That's too much to ask for a sequel which barely does anything its predecessor didn't do, and doesn't even fix any of the problems with it.

Having Gary Oldman and Frodo do voiceovers doesn't make up for the fact this game looks and plays like something made five years ago.

All in all, it's hard to see how even the most ardent SpongeBob fan could get a lot out of this game, even with three friends and four controllers on hand. There's just not a big enough selection of games, fundamentally, and too many niggles.

It's a game that, like other examples of the genre, is utterly simplistic, and little more than a carefully engineered route down the reward pathway of the player's brain.

If you're looking for a slick, tactile contraption puzzler, then you're far better off looking to the mobile scene for the many superior (and cheaper) offerings. By comparison, Crazy Machines Elements is a step into a murky past best forgotten.

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.

It's worrying when the nicest thing you can say about a game is that the early sections manage to be boring in an interesting way, but it's true for Lost Planet 3. It's a game that manages to make third-person shooting feel like work - and one that makes work feel like something that more games should explore.

Too simple and childish for adults, and too one-note to convert the kids, Lego Horizon Adventures does little to recommend it to either existing Horizon fans or series newcomers.

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.

RF Online is like playing an endless game of slow-motion whack-a-rat, without the entertainment of the fairground surroundings.

This empty feeling you get from playing The Omega Strain will be etched all over your drained face within minutes - it's a depressingly bland experience, and frankly not one we'd advise anyone but the most committed online console gamer to even bother having a look at.

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.

Maximum Impact 2 feels so incredibly sloppy and dated that the only real benefit of its existence is highlighting just how great sister title "KOF XI" really is by comparison.

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.

While fun can be had here, it's from the mini-games and the experience rather than solid table designs - and that's a cardinal sin in pinball.

Pathetically short, entirely uneventful and clearly stuck together from existing assets, Awakened doesn't add anything to its parent game other than a punchline that makes it clear that Isaac's trials on Tau Volantis were ultimately a waste of his - and our - time.

It is an exercise in immense frustration and painful tedium. When it works, and this feels a stupid sentence at this point, it does manifest the correct semiotic indicators of first-person shooting. You are mowing down literally hundreds of baddies with big metal guns. But that's it. And it isn't all that much.

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.

Art of Murder is poorly paced, illogically structured and often downright laughable.