But more importantly, you do get to 'be' the Fantastic 4 and experiment with some really rather excellent superpowers, and the game isn't so bad that a serious fan couldn't overlook its flaws.

Betrayer is rougher around the edges than its stylish exterior may suggest, but it's never less than fascinating.

Graphically assured as it is, almost every other element of the 15-year-old series has been cut back, tampered with pointlessly or outright ruined. The series hasn't been good for a long time now, but this year is the first it's been actively bad. The wait for a great new WWE game continues.

Spaceforce can't be recommended despite some interesting ideas.

There's the kernel of something really interesting in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Glimmers of a free-roaming kids adventure game with RPG overtones, based on actual folklore. Sadly, it only manages to be that game for an hour or so, before steadily becoming less interesting and more generic and annoying, culminating in an ending that is absolutely cruel considering the age of the intended player.

While it's commendable that publishers are still localising these quintessentially weird and wonderful Japanese games, ironically, Trinity Universe's biggest problem might just be that it's not quite crazy enough.

Snapping out of your glazed-eye reverie to find you've added a few points to the high-score table. Well Gunpey-R's sort of like that. Not quite as good. But it's almost as good, and that's a pretty significant achievement after all.

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.

There's little alternative out there if you're hankering after some old-fashioned twitch gaming wrapped up in beautifully presented threads, but our advice is to make sure you've got some mates to play it with first, or it's likely to end up as one of those titles that you'll quickly tire of if you're on your lonesome.

A final point to raise is why Taito felt the need to demand that multi-player link mode would only work with 12 levels of the old version? It's hard enough to justify buying this ancient classic as it is, without removing the last temptation from the already hard pressed gamer.

Whereas the DS game could be defended for ignoring significant depth for the sake of accessibility, Cook Off's controls are simply too ropey for it to earn any flavour of respect, and leave its repetitive, flash-in-the-pan mini-games open to assault.

I can't help but admit I'm having a smashing time - quite literally - with Saints Row. Yes, the story is trite at times and yes, much of where that story takes you can feel a touch ridiculous, but it's to the team's credit that this deftly side-steps the issues of its predecessors and rarely feels gratuitous or malicious. The Saints Row reboot is self-aware and self-deprecating and if you're able to move past its prior reputation, there's a fast and furious shooter here that's worthy of your time.

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.

An artefact. It's completely anachronistic in today's world.

A soulless cash-in that has little to do with its license, and nor is it much fun in its own right. If you're lucky enough to not encounter any game-breaking bugs and if you have a friend or two to play with, then it can be pretty entertaining for a few hours. But that's a lot of "ifs" for so little payoff, since overlong levels and axe-sponge enemies inevitably whittle this dungeon crawl down into a slog.

The fact that I've had a good time with it even on half-melted servers demonstrates the strength of its emergent horror. Like the towering killer himself, Friday the 13th has come out of nowhere, and while it isn't invulnerable, it's more than capable of stealing your heart.

There's much to be said for games which simply polish an existing formula to a shine - but Loki, sadly, doesn't even quite accomplish that. It's solid, and it's competent, but unless you're absolutely crazy for point and click action RPGs, we find it hard to recommend a game on the basis of competence alone.

Medieval Moves' downfall is how repetitive it becomes. This is a game clearly designed for kids, yet the sheer exhausting monotony of bashing your way through each level is never rewarded with any meaningful pay-off, just more of the same against a different backdrop.

What you'll get out of N3 is the relentless pounding excitement that transcends the initial gripes.

The story may not be the most earth shattering we've heard, the voice acting (though delightfully it's British!) can be a touch jarring on occasion, and it's initially frustrating and rather basic and rough around the edges in some other respects, but nevertheless it grows into something that you can happily sit down and chip away at all evening without getting too worked up.

Slick but rather empty.

VB2's no featherweight then, whatever Ippo's boxing class, but it's certainly an acquired taste that proves satisfying if you give it time to beef up.

There's a strange kind of charm in the very concept of Babel Rising. The infidels may be building a tower, but Bulkypix has built a folly - and while I'm glad I don't have to play it any more, I'm at least a little bit happy that it exists.

As you alternate furiously between confusion and excitement, the explosive gaggle never lets up even for a moment. You'll launch a curtain of certain death, dash, homing missile strike, dash. Dash dash. Laser in the face. Die! WHY WON'T YOU DIE?

Getting to levels four and five, reaching 30,000 points in a co-op game and managing to deliver 15 frogs to the other side of the river on one life are tricky tasks that'll keep you going for a bit, but otherwise Frogger will probably take you less than an evening to exhaust.

The creativity and daring invention of the designers should be applauded in no uncertain terms. But by the end of the game, it's clear that the studio was unable to bring its patchwork quilt of mechanics together into a coherent whole.

Speed Kings is vaguely entertaining, and certainly there are worse racers, but with "Burnout 2" and "Midnight Club II" to compete with, it's as if Climax couldn't see the point.

Godfall offers obnoxiously stylish next-gen spectacle, but its appeal only runs skin deep.