A few extra credits at your discretion are no bad thing when you want to sample the delights that latter levels might bring, so in this case I'm happy to agree with SNK's decision to leave credit allocation to the prudence of the punter.

A strange backwards step, one that manages to retain some of what made the original great while getting lost in its own peculiar sense of drama and never adding enough worthwhile of its own. What should have been the return of a racing great instead feels like another curious offshoot, leaving Dirt now clearly Codemasters' premier brand.

This is a beautiful game. It scared me. It moved me. Most of all, it made me stop what I was doing and think. [Recommended]

With a tiny bit more polish Rebelstar Tactical Command could be not only one of the best games on the GBA but one of the best games released this year.

It took me around ten hours to complete, and while I was never on the edge of my seat, I was charmed for most of that time, sticking with it until I'd picked up the last gamerpoints. If your gaming palate favours such gentle fare, A Kingdom for Keflings is a lovely way to spend the day.

If you're looking for an ATV game that offers solid arcade-style gameplay, a wide range of events and decent offline multiplayer options, Offroad Fury 3 does the job.

When the core gameplay is so obviously hamstrung by fundamental design issues, there's no real incentive to get stuck into the meat of the game, and thus the chances of being able to enjoy the two-player link mode disappear into the ether.

Under the hood, Namco's designers have upgraded the series' engine and mechanics in effective and interesting ways, making this the strongest Ace Combat in a decade.

Why it truly sings, I think, is because the game has created such a perfectly irritating place: a place where photocopiers won't fit through doorways and wi-fi routers miss huge swathes of the office. Good Job weaponises your frustrations with the real world, and the glory here, of course, is that you can do things about it all. You can fire photocopiers through walls and push docile colleagues around on their chairs until they have the signal their devices require.

Samurai Gunn is a game about little else, really: you spawn, you fight, you fall, and then you spawn again - and fall again...This is hectic and hilarious and exhausting, in other words, and it's also very clever with its focus.

This tale of two brothers marks a more intimate and accomplished return for a studio keen to tackle tough issues with honest characters. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's stratospherically mad. At the point where I emerged out of a narrow corridor into what turned out to be a vast stadium and a gyrating dance master exploded from the sea in an outfit that would make Lady Gaga proud, I almost collapsed with joy. If that sounds like you, this could the best thing you buy this year.

If you love the film it's impossible not to like this game, despite its faults. That would be like hating a puppy just because it's got a wonky leg. This might not be the best videogame ever made but it's one of the better movie tie-ins out there, and it's the closest to being a Ghostbuster most of us will ever get.

This is a high-quality game by anyone's standards, but that doesn't change the fact that I spent a good deal of my time playing it feeling blasphemously bored.

Massively multiplayer games are all evolving things, and we're very, very keen to watch Tabula Rasa's evolution. The initial launch is incredibly promising, more than anything else.

Dead Rising 3 is the weakest in the series, then...Just beware, once you get over the pleasure of the first few combo weapons, Dead Rising 3 is just a solid zombie brawler set in an open world, not the strange game of tender heart that used to be so funny and surprising.

If you're a Star Wars fan wondering where the magic went, look no further.

It's not the easiest game for newcomers to approach (the tutorial's dreadful), but even stealth virgins will see the light after an hour or so in the dark, and probably ought to add another mark to the score. Make ours a double.

Far from being "crippled by unintuitive controls", the reality is that it's beautifully intuitive, and just about shades Virtua Tennis 2009 on Wii by simply having a more satisfying feel to it.

At 800 Microsoft Points which equates to a couple of Big Mac meals and a side of chilli cheese tops, it definitely offers the kind of quality that some say is lacking at the moment at a more than reasonable price. However, do be warned that the game gets insanely difficult half way through and although the multiplayer modes are fun, it's fleeting.

A game which is good, but not great, and certainly not up to the standard of Nintendo's best 2D platformers.

What's most disappointing about the whole thing, though, isn't so much the lack of me-too deathmatch variants, but that LucasArts didn't bother to allow players to play the campaign mode co-operatively as Red Storm achieved so successfully in the likes of Ghost Recon 2, Rainbow Six 3 and Black Arrow... As it is Republic Commando deserves huge respect for managing to be the best Star Wars shooter ever.

The simple pleasure of holding out against the enemy in an area that looks a little bit like Pat Sharpe's Funhouse, meanwhile, cannot be understated.

For all its exterior charm, Park Patrol is a game built largely on repetition and slow steps.

Dead Space 3 is a contradiction. Gorgeous but scruffy; tightly packed yet stretched too thin; often frustrating, frequently thrilling and bursting at the seams with stuff, not all of which fits comfortably inside the boundaries the series has set for itself. It's certainly not a great game, except perhaps as a poster child for the kitchen-sink development mentality of a console generation in its twilight months.

It's brave, and manic, and fun to play, and that's everything it needs to be.

A competent, atmospheric adventure and truly a new direction for the characters, but at this length it simply isn’t worth the £35, let alone the cost of the console.

Alice in Wonderland is surreal, dreamlike, well-crafted and very beautiful.