This generation is drowning in impossibly good racing games. If you want something technical, you've got DiRT, if you want something easygoing, you've got SEGA Rally, if you want something cool, you've got PGR4, if you want Nascar 08, you've got problems.

Lifeless Planet is bold and memorable and oddly sweet in the earnestness of its message and its preoccupations. It's a truly efficient payload. Fire it up and be transported.

It's easy to pick up and play, has generally tip-top production values, has a moreish appeal and only a couple of bits where parents might have to help out the little ones. Sadly, grown-ups needn't feel like they're missing out, for as much as it contains most of the ingredients that should make it interesting to everyone, Monster House quickly becomes too repetitive and shallow to deliver on its early promise.

Ultima's character has been corrupted and trammelled into a grotesque parody of itself in Ultima Forever. This game is a desecration.

If you're used to the sensibilities of modern gaming, I can imagine this being a massive let-down thanks to its unforgiving nature and lacklustre audio-visuals. See past the limitations and embrace the challenge and you may well enjoy what's on offer here.

The Lost in Blue series is still the most compelling and realistically punishing take on the excitement and hardships of survival on a desert island that videogames have to offer, even if it still has much room to improve.

If you've already played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue/Red Rescue Team, the improved Wi-Fi functionality is the sole reason that it might be worth playing Explorers of Time/Darkness.

It's just a little annoying to know that SCEE and Team 17 are holding back on us, that this game could have been so much more.

If you can live with all the problems, irritations and lack of inspiring gameplay, there’s actually a reasonably big game locked away. Real, hardcore Tolkien nuts, who live and breath the man’s work, may get something out of this.

Even the main characters - the ones voiced over in cut-scenes - have an annoying American accent that just shatters the whole illusion, and they sound like they're talking to you through a king hangover mixed with a few pints of disinterest.

Sight Training is no fun. There's not enough to do and what there is to do is tedious. It's hard to believe it improves your visual abilities any more than eating carrots makes you see in the dark.

If you have any love for the manga, feel free to add the final scar to the tally. For everyone else, this is just an old-school brawler that's partial to shouting ATATATATATATA. Because you're already dead.

Fascinating and frustrating by turn, there's just enough to make you cling to the hope that one day the development team will actually find him. For now, I'd love the big, glossy, elephant folio art book of the Epic Mickey series, but I can probably do without the games themselves.

Sadly, as far as Sims clones go, it's actually one of the best... but you'd probably be better off going for one of its better expansion packs than spending money on this. It's just a little too slight a proposition for a full game.

A little more faith in the player's ability to cope with deeper strategy and Heroes of Dragon Age would be a genuinely good game. Conversely, it would only take a few more turns of the micro-transaction screw for it to be intolerable. Strange as it sounds, this somewhat awkward middle ground actually represents huge progress for EA's freemium ambitions.

Its shortcomings far outweigh its merits, but what merits they are - Disaster Report 4 is silly, humane and utterly charming.

Absolutely up there with the best of the series so far. It's as good as the game has ever been.

The game isn't particularly satisfying or even all that interesting.

I can't pretend that Soul Suspect is a particularly great game, but I do know that it's the sort of game I'll still remember - and remember fondly - in five years' time, which is more than can be said for most of its glossier rivals.

This is nineties videogame cliché; an unrelenting gangbang of tired mechanics presented in mostly derivative clothing. The script, dialogue and voice acting grasp for irony but only manage weak cliché.

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.

The cinematic cut-scenes are poorly voiced, the characters unconvincing, and the plot is so-so at best.

With simple, intuitive controls making combat and exploration a pleasure, what starts off as a fairly routine blade-swishing blizzard soon settles into a more interesting groove. With secret-packed levels offering countless opportunities to poke around, it's a formula that's familiar but satisfying.

NBA Live 07 does the basics, but when the competition, namely Take 2's NBA 2K7, does everything so much better (and we do mean everything), there's no reason at all why you should be wondering which title to pick up.

The core process of gathering up pellets and delivering them to the goal simply isn't as fun as it should be. For a game built upon this crucial cornerstone, no matter how many ideas are added on top of it, the whole construction remains unstable and, soon enough, un-enjoyable.

Die-hard followers of drift racing and modification will applaud the unforgiving accuracy of the game engine but, given the importance they tend to place on shiny shiny good looks, they're also the people most likely to be turned off by the scrappy presentation.

Painfully average.

With just six short chapters to wade through, Saw is never in any danger of outstaying its welcome, despite its flaws, and that's probably just as well. Its puzzle-centric design is satisfying for a while, but the game's reliance on the same stock challenges wears thin, as does the hilariously broken combat.