An exercise in extracting value from its players rather than providing it, the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is what happens when this industry is at its worst.

Unless you already have an emotional attachment to the Star Trek universe, and feel a cheeky little frisson down there at the prospect of pretending to be Kirk, there's no reason at all to put up with the unresponsive controls, shallow gameplay and absolutely infuriating inability to save during an hour-long mission.

After a jovial couple of hours in its company the scales will fall, and what had just seemed an unpretentious, unassumingly enjoyable videogame becomes a kind of existential nightmare of averageness that it's impossible to play for a minute longer. Monster 4x4: World Circuit is the definition of the lowest common denominator.

As it is, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy is best sampled as a rental for Wii owners looking for a multiplayer party game that'll last a night or two.

Despite its initially promising duality concept, tactical shooter Spectre Divide is held back by a hesitance to take further creative risks. The results are underwhelming.

Many of the vast list of things we object to in Fracture equal the low standard set by the likes of "Turok" and "Haze," and that if you managed to survive those games without burning down the shop that sold them to you, this will suffice for a weekend's distraction.

An exceptionally generic platformer shaped around quick trial and error design and limp enemies, and built around a tired looking cel-shaded engine that does little justice to the visuals of the arcade original.

The quintessential movie tie-in, a self-fulfilling prophecy of functional banality. On the surface it's brash, busy and superficially attractive, but underneath it's hollow, blatantly padded and more than a little monotonous. It's never much fun, but nor is it wonky enough to be terrible. It's simply there, a forgettable distraction.

The Chinese Room has managed to make something from a box of inherited parts, but this action RPG feels hollow and functional, and is only redeemed by some stellar performances from the characters and cast.

A serviceable, sometimes-engaging official Star Trek version of Stellaris that makes sense for generic space war fans, but flounders when it comes to narrative logic and Trekkie authenticity.

It's a short and rather insipid slog that simply doesn't have the charm or ambition to compensate for its wonkier aspects.

Beneath Arcania's often outstanding art direction and technical achievement lies a dry spreadsheet of must-have RPG elements, none of which is sufficiently developed to compel and all of which fail to balance against one another.

There's no passion or care in Urban Trial Freestyle's construction, no sense of playfulness of fun. It's a game that does the bare minimum required to look like another game, and once the resemblance is close enough, it leaves it at that, with all the rough edges still on display.

After plugging away at The Drowning for a few days and pumping money into its ravenous maw, it becomes clear that this is a transaction machine first, a headline-grabbing control scheme second and an actual game a distant third.

Ubisoft's long-in-the-works pirate adventure boasts a beautiful world and bombastic ship-to-ship combat, but it sinks amid boring busywork and tedious traversal.

Another safe, derivative, formulaic movie tie-in that's lacking in the graphical department and is way too easy for all but the youngest gamers out there.

But when you find yourself constantly messing up routine jump manoeuvres because of vindictive collision detection, the whole thing becomes aggravating - a war of attrition against poorly designed controls.

Wrecked offers a tissue-thin single-player mode, poor frame-rate and camera, bland track design and clumsy online multiplayer, all for a premium price with expensive community-splitting day-one DLC.

There is so little replay potential here, so little urge to top high scores or perfect shoddy make-do attempts, that completing each task feels more of a relief than an achievement.

It's fun for half an hour, but that's an awfully expensive 30 minutes. Don't buy RIDE unless you want to be taken for one.

It's not a badly made game. With the exception of the camera, everything works. It looks all right. It's not the worst videogame we've ever played, and it's certainly not the worst movie tie-in. But it's entirely lacking in imagination and innovation. There's nothing that hasn't been done before and no incentive to keep playing.

Hammers of Fate adds a lot of material for HoMM5. But to warrant a better mark, it would have to actually deal with the basic weaknesses of the game. As it is, despite the Caravan's efforts to streamline one aspect, it just doesn't.

So, while Hydrophobia breaks new water, it treads old ground. The systems beneath the ebb and flow of its technical accomplishment are archaic and, without exception, lack finesse.

To produce a technically sloppy title is one thing, but the game is horribly flawed from conception to execution in a way we haven't seen since, ulp, Driv3r. Marred by a remarkably vacuous combat system, the pathetic driving and undercooked flying elements merely underline what a thoroughly wasted opportunity this was.

If Mercenaries Vs was a basic online extra on a full-fledged mobile Resident Evil, you might forgive it, but as a standalone release it has no redeeming qualities. Come on Capcom, you can do better than this.

Shameless money grubbing.

This is a superhero game that actually makes you hate the superhero you're playing as for their rubbish attacking skills, poor movement and general refusal to do what they're told.

A dreary, badly made game which offers no real closure to the series and bears no relevance to either Blair Witch film. A waste of your pennies, despite the reasonable price tag.