While the simple structure makes it compulsive, it also leaves it unsophisticated.

It's a stupid idea, and one that pretty much breaks Midnight Bowling. It's too silly to work as a bowling sim, but it's also too open to unfair play to work as a fun multiplayer game.

The fort-versus-fort gameplay definitely doesn't gel with the Worms dynamic. Instead it robs a once-proud series of almost everything that made it so memorable, and the result is a game that tires as much as it feels tired.

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.

It has neither the charm, nor the innovation, nor the wicked guns, and therefore ultimately feels like a bit of a chore.

Thanks to a quite absurd damage system, you can find yourself downed in three or four hits, usually meted out with all the precision of a Friday night drunk in Basildon.

If you've got a DS, plus Pearl or Diamond, and you've got a sizable collection of Pokémon that you'd like to see rendered in 3D on the TV, then Battle Revolution might be worth the asking price. Even then, you'd have to be a pretty hardcore Pokémon fan.

Harmony of Despair isn't a failure of concept but a failure of ambition, one that leaves Koji Igarashi still waiting for his next great discovery.

At best, it delivers one of those non-threatening interactive playgrounds that parents can feel safe letting their young 'uns explore, and on that level it's job done. For the rest of us looking/hoping/praying for a decent driving game based on the latest Pixar movie, you're best advised to ignore its No.1 status and steer clear of this road accident.

It looks cute, it has a couple of nice ideas, but it's just not fun.

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.

The game becomes a painfully slow and suffocating linear trudge through every single cabin on the train - for the fifth time - in an effort to find everyone and get hold of their passports for investigation purposes, while asking all nineteen passengers and crew practically the exact same set of twenty odd questions.

This kind of release does the publisher no favours at all. If content is king, then Super Monkey Ball 3D is very much the Prince Andrew of the 3DS launch.

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.

Missing the elegance of FromSoftware, Lords of the Fallen is let down by Soulslike clichés and performance woes.

If a game is going to force you to play like an a**hole, it should have a stronger reason for doing so than 'You're a ninja, duh.' Ninja Gaiden 3 has none.

Absolutely horrible execution.

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).

If it featured a character aimed at kids a few years older it would probably score higher, but a game that so woefully misunderstands its audience should only be purchased by those with precocious offspring or vast reserves of patience.

After driving around the three cities, picking up fare after fare and learning your best routes and so on, there's really very little the game can offer you that "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "Vice City" doesn't do far better with its throwaway Taxi missions.

A formulaic, by the numbers FPS with zero innovation, demented AI and a crushing lack of inspiration.

Eventually, the mire of frustrations, constant reloading, harsh difficulty level, bugs and generally poor design wears you down. Rabid strategists will appreciate the game's saving grace, the combat system, and may find themselves more tolerant. Good luck to them. They'll need it.

Empire Earth 3 simply tries too hard to be popular. In doing so, it strips out everything that made it good in the first place and forgets to replace it with something equally worthwhile.

As far as Nintendo seems to be concerned, at least until the first DS outing, Pokémon begins and ends with the Game Boy. Pokémon XD is tedious and restrictive. The message is clear: if you want Pokémon, crack open a GBA.

A great idea lost under the weight of tiresome game mechanics.

We've also come to take EA's high presentation values and their sports titles' accessibility for granted, and Rugby 2004 has neither. In essence, it feels like a cynical attempt to steal cash from dazzled armchair Wilkinsons, and we're yanking a point off for that alone.

What balance there is in Tactical Intervention is precarious at best. Mechanics have been piled on mechanics - ideas the game's creator always envisaged adding to his first game before Counter-Strike was firmly thrust into the hands of its community.

There's remarkably little puzzle-solving, and on the occasions when you do need to find a power-up to get through an area, you'll generally find it right next to it. The plodding pace of the game also makes combat incredibly dull, as you might expect.