A punch, kick and throw marathon that bears more resemblance to early 90s side scrolling beat ‘em ups from Capcom than a 21st Century action adventure on a next generation console.

A sloppily-handled misfire that ruins the original's reputation.

Spyro would score a 5 were it to work properly - smack bang in the middle of middlyness, doing nothing well, and utterly without imagination (for goodness sakes, travelling back and forth between two versions of reality - where did they get that idea from?!).

It's always tempting to be lenient where indie developers are concerned, and if nothing else Afterfall: Insanity makes for an eye-catching calling card for Intoxicate's graphical skills, but as a game in its own right it's as middle of the road as they come.

A surprisingly generous and deep life sim from the mind of Swery, but a frustratingly creaky one too.

The repetition of the exploration, the game world, and the unsatisfying combat leaves Galerians: Ash failing to engage at any point.

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's certainly not terrible, but then there's absolutely nothing special or interesting about it either.

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.

Ford Street Racing's biggest crime is to be an ambitionless entry in a genre already overstocked with faster, cooler titles.

B-Boy has limited itself, partly by playing on Sony hardware and partly by gameplay that's not inclusive enough; it's so stylish it's for poseurs not players. Not into hip hop culture? No reason to pick this up, no matter how pretty and slick the dancing is.

Unless you're astonishingly tolerant of technical and interface problems, and totally addicted to dull hack-and-slash RPG combat, don't buy this game. Forsooth.

Half-arsed dross.

If you've already got Samurai Warriors 2, then I can't really see this slightly remixed version being worth the GBP 20 (EUR 25) asking price.

It's impossible to recommend to anyone beyond its existing fan base.

If you're a die hard Splinter Cell fan, you might learn to live with the shonky control system and poor quality graphics. It's not as if the game is completely unplayable, after all. However, it's not varied or involving enough for our tastes, and the ratio of frustration to enjoyment is far too high.

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

You wouldn't think it possible, but cartoon games have an even worse track record than film adaptations. South Park, Futurama, The Simpsons - all have debased themselves thoroughly when making the leap from telly to joypad. And yet even by those low standards, Family Guy is a pretty desperate experience.

When Soldier of Fortune Payback isn't being generic and shallow, its being utterly crap and thus does nothing to mitigate its gleeful and deliberate xenophobia.

The comic book presentation is enthusiastically funny, the freeform action concept is commendable and the technology itself, when it works, is promising.

With just a smidgen more subtlety it might have worked, but the cod 1950s B-movie horror shtick is rammed home in CAPITAL LETTERS and SHOUTY VOICES at EVERY OPPORTUNITY to the point where you just want to tell Digital Reality to just PLEASE SHUT UP.

Another boarding game! And yes, it's just like Sonic Free Riders! Except Sonic and the stupid albatross have been replaced by a weird green wolf thing and an annoying surfer dude monkey. And the tracks aren't as good. And the power-ups are duller. And it looks horrible.

It's just a shame the presentation is so rubbish. The characters are horrible to look at and the environments are ugly. At least the games are quite good fun, in a limited sort of way, and the selection isn't bad.

Unlike movies, it's rare that games are so bad they're good. The rubbish ones are usually so unplayable that they're not worth plodding through. X-Men: Destiny is the exception that gets just enough right to be fun, while being sloppy enough elsewhere to be good for a laugh. It's the best kind of disaster.

It's not so broken it's completely unplayable, but it's not even basic enough to warrant trying to satisfy an hour's curiosity.

So that's 400 Microsoft Points (£3.40 / €4.80) for a mission that certainly wouldn't make it into the game's ten best quests, and two other additions that are essentially little more than variations on ideas from Fable II.

There's not much to like about SWAT: Target Liberty. The squad-based mechanic is imbalanced. The levelling-up and weapon selection systems don't have significant effects on how things play out. The plot is silly, the cut-scenes are rubbish and everything's so small it makes your eyes hurt.

With its classical soundtrack and pastel shades, Potpourri is certainly pleasant and undemanding gamers may find its soporific style quite charming. As a game demanding 800 of your valuable Wii Points, however, it's a rather slim offering.