The simple upgrade system makes you bigger, more resilient and faster, but there's only so long its simple, twisting, turning formula can keep you amused before the urge to move on kicks in. Mercifully, the price is right, but don't expect much more than a quick fix.

Taken as a rousing aerial shooter, it's easy to recommend - and sadly rather too easy to complete. There's a ton of content, at least, and it's all presented in a whiz-bang style that draws you in with heart-pounding action without belittling the history behind the explosions. It's just a shame that for such a venerable simulator series, it's the more serious game modes where Birds of Prey feels most compromised by its hardware.

In the end, you'll likely forgive Ubisoft's game its shortcomings on the strength of its energy, obvious good will, and deep sense of craft.

It's an acquired taste, though, despite its popular ingredients.

It's worth a look if you're short of a good portable adventure, but it's not quite smashing.

It's a staggering achievement that makes it difficult to imagine a better handheld God of War today. And yet, as with the stories upon which it's based, this is a game with nothing new to say, a myth told many times before and, in some cases, told better.

Speaking of which - you're unlikely to get more than a handful of campaigns in before your interest in AZS begins to wane, but that should be more than enough to get your money's worth.

While it does its best to be an amalgam of all the best street racing games - and is certainly one of the best looking - it fails to haul itself onto the top of the podium by virtue of not enough variety, no new ideas and a few too many minor irritations that take the gloss off the final package.

To me, Nostalgia mode feels like Pix the Cat at its best. Unlike the main mode it's played out on a single screen with no combo considerations, but unlike the forgettable Laboratory mode there's still a time concern. The thing that really makes it work, though, is the puzzle design, which is wonderfully inventive.

The Takeover is a wild and slightly insane take on fighting, with truly original characters hurling abuse and fists at each other like a scrap at a special school.

Ultimately as pointless as it is lovable.

For those who are investing scores of hours into the game every week, the Stimulus Package will live up to its name, revitalising the game once again by providing new scope to learn, master and dominate.

It could and should achieve so much more - but frankly it achieves enough by making a specialist subject matter and a specialist genre as fun and accessible as it does.

Falls down slightly not because it's not entertaining, not because it lacks content, not because it doesn't play well, but because its scope is too narrow to include everyone.

SHIFT is a solid basis to start building a motor sport series on. It's got all the features you expect, it looks fantastic, and the track action is exciting, if fraught.

It won't change your world, but Avalanche Software - veterans of several Rugrats games as well as the forgettable 25 To Life - have delivered a game that is perfectly attuned to the capabilities and sensibilities of its tween audience, and filled it up with solid gameplay that assists or challenges them at just the right times.

Sure, it's repetitive; sure it's not doing anything massively new, but what it does provide is an exceptionally polished genre offering that fans of the series and kart games in general can get a lot out of.

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.

War of the Vikings, much like its predecessor, is a rough diamond. It's limited, but also unique. It's scruffy, but also capable of surprising beauty. It's frustrating, but also incredibly fun. On balance, it's a game I admire more than I like, but I'm glad it exists and can see why, at least for the niche audience that clicks with its offbeat rhythm, it's already a beloved cult favourite.

This year's "The Getaway" - it's not GTA and it will frustrate for some on that basis, but it's a respectable enough game in its own right as long as you don't "play it the wrong way", which will lead you down a path of frustration and pad-smashing fury.

This is one of those puzzle games you'll play solid for three or four days, rashly declare as being the "Best Puzzle Game Ever" (your friends, wisely, will say that you should wait for a few weeks), but then leave to fester on your PS3's hard drive for some months before you can be bothered to visit it again. [JPN Import]

If they continue to be this thrilling, this visceral, this bombastically brilliant, then more of the same is absolutely spot on. Sign me up.

Might & Magic 10: Legacy feels like a pleasant throwback to dungeon crawls of decades past, but its limited scope and combat-heavy focus might put off those pining for the freedom afforded by the more recent Elder Scrolls games, or the wordy character interaction of a Dragon Age.

If there's a problem with the whole set-up, it's that the mysterious business of creating truly punchy feedback has eluded the developers. The feel of a rebound's not bad by any means, but the sense of genuine connection that could have rendered this an instant classic is missing, and the game can occasionally feel a little sleepy as a result.

Despite its successes and mild inventions, Gunslinger can't quite manage to struggle free of the general sense of ennui surrounding the corridor shooter in 2013.

Although pleasingly wrapped in all the right legends, there's nothing here that fully chains us to the PC. It's too repetitious, too derivative and too fiddly to exult, especially when there's so much more artful PC RPG fodder that I haven't yet defeated.

Rather like Half-Life’s "Blue Shift" expansion, Spearhead is over in barely three hours... It’s only because Spearhead chimes in at 20 quid or thereabouts that we don’t rip it apart – as it is, it’s rather like buying a DVD of your favourite war flick.

With 100 levels, and some cunning design that tests your brain as much as your reflexes, the only persistent issue with Breakquest is the initially annoyance of the sluggish stick control. Get past that, and you've got a solid pick-up-and-play game.