For once, it's nice to find a retro revival that does true justice to an old classic, and for only 800 points you can't even moan about the price. Credit where it's due: Rush N' Attack: Ex Patriot surpasses every expectation we could have had of it.

It's a slightly old-school adventure with a vibe reminiscent of Castlevania (especially the PlayStation 2 sequels). But while those games under-delivered on a compelling world with a consistent structure, Pandora's Tower will draw you in and make you care.

Like the equally awesome Dark Nebula, Gears pitches the challenge perfectly, and gives you that one-more-go feeling without also instilling the need to lie down in a darkened room afterwards. When developers make games this good, it's only right and proper to reward them with cold, hard cash.

With sharp writing paired with a charming if amateurish cast, Puzzle Agent's appeal is rough-hewn, but improbably cohesive. Were it not so instantly likeable, you might not care so much about the fairly standard logic puzzles.

The controls are silky smooth, the visual style is adorable, and it doesn't involve shooting men in the face. All this for less than the price of a Spectrum game.

Far from cribbing Overboard's homework, Expelled! is a tighter, more focused detective story that really makes the most of its replayable timeloop structure.

It's an absurd bargain. With online multiplayer, it would be a miniature classic. As it is, it's recommended for PS3 owners, all but essential if you have a Vita - and for lovers of RC cars or top-down racing, it's a rare treat.

An intense, heart-rattling experience that gets more rewarding the more time you invest in learning the nuances. With incredible attention to detail, technical achievements are more than mere eye candy and a deeper, more rewarding fighting system than ever before, it's an essential purchase for boxing fans and fighting game aficionados.

The line between heroic acts of rescue, and hapless mass murder is wafer thin, and so begins a mini-obsession with blowing up little chunks of rock against the clock.

Vanillaware's beautiful art brings to life a staggeringly deep strategy RPG where building units is just as fun as orchestrating battles.

Vengeance offers one great map, two really good maps, one decent map and more Zombies stuff for the players who still understand what Zombies is about. That's enough to call it a win, but it'll be interesting to see if the formula holds once Ghosts is out.

A game clearly put together with care and passion, built around a core of delightful feedback and quite simply fun at a very deep and instinctive level. It still feels great. There's just a sense that there remains a bolder and more ambitious, game lurking just under the surface and only occasionally showing itself.

The online play is a very welcome addition (although not really the full monty), the campaign is enormous and there's no doubt at all that in isolation the game is a solid, enjoyable experience with immense longevity, but some may correctly observe that this is the game "CMR3" should have been in the first place.

£6.99 is unbelievably good value for a near-perfect refinement of what many of us want from a football management game. It has more or less all the leagues you could conceivably wish for, a simple, uncluttered interface, all the transfer and strategic depth you need, and just enough media, player, staff and board interaction.

Coolson's Artisanal Chocolate Alphabet is a beautifully crafted, fun to play game. It's perfect for anyone who enjoys wordplay, has fastidious organisational tendencies or was disappointed to discover that high-paying jobs in publishing do not magically apparate after three years spent reading one Thomas Hardy novel and watching Loose Women.

Race Pro is a great driving experience, striking a rare balance between the immediate enjoyment of an arcade racer and the deeper, more nuanced long-term satisfaction of a hardcore sim.

This is the most joyfully daft fun imaginable, bursting with in-jokes and hilarious set-pieces. [JPN Import]

It's odd and slightly throwaway, much like Attack of the Friday Monsters itself, yet it also captures the inquisitive naivety of childhood, and of a world where young imaginations blossom to fill the long hours of hot summer afternoons.

A hugely interesting game, as fascinating as it is frequently frustrating, as engaging as it is eccentric and, for those who are hooked by its quirky charms, it will provide one of the most inspired approaches to the JRPG seen in a decade.

Some people have nightmares about taking out their zombie wife with a sniper rifle. Me? I'm spinning through 3D space at high speed fretting about getting shapes to fit through narrow gaps. Horses for courses.

Sure, it's not going to win awards for its longevity, but its instant playability and rampantly addictive qualities make is damned near irresistible. A fitting update to an enduring classic.

While Company of Heroes 2 sometimes makes you feel like you're fighting the game as well as the enemy, if you take time to understand the systems at work beneath the carnage and pick and choose your battles wisely, you will ultimately be rewarded by a deep and enjoyable RTS.

Perhaps the best thing about Serious Sam though is just how pristine it is. It’s a very, very polished game.

Most importantly, it's got that utterly absorbing hypnotic je ne sais quois that all the best games have, and it's that which will keep you coming back for more and more, checking out all the characters and all the play modes, and devoting an unhealthy amount of time in the quest for dominating other players, both online and off.

It's one of the freshest, most original and genuinely funny games to hit the DS since a certain lawyer raised his first objection.

With its nugget-sized level design, intuitive mechanics and impressively lavish production values, Perfect Cell is one of those perfect on-the-road games to savour one tasty chunk at a time.

Closure may stop short of delivering the sort of swashbuckling adventure one might hope for from a journey through this shadowy netherworld, but it remains thoroughly enjoyable puzzle game that twists your brain in all sorts of maddening directions while keeping the answers just out of reach.

It's crazy how much effort has gone into the foundations of this tiny piece of Technicolor idiocy.