It's an often clumsy and over-ambitious enterprise, one that can wow you with a pirouette and then slip over on a banana skin in the same mission, but the pleasures it does offer are enhanced by the knowledge that it's still the only game offering them.

Jewel Quest is about planning ahead rather than reacting; the pace is deliberate rather than manic. It's Chess next to Zoo Keeper's Operation.

With tactile controls, Shadow Runner would be an excellent, original platform puzzler, but it doesn't quite come off on touch-screen devices. Nice try, though.

EA can quite fairly claim to have again delivered the best football game ever made. But every year the developers seem to have less of an idea what that means.

Abe Lincoln Must Die is by no means a 'bad' episode, but it feels like the series is stuck in something of a rut already. I just hope it's not too late for the talented people at the studio to get it firmly back on track for the last two episodes and end this bold episodic experiment in style.

Northern Strike is a polished offering, a lot more than the token handful of stuff draped around the glinting trophy of new unlocks it could have been.

Primordia is delightful, smart and packed with personality, but it also comes to a close just as you're ready to explore more of its engrossing world.

Red Faction is the very definition of a solid 7/10 - a game that should have been better, but offers more than enough to warrant a purchase during the quiet months.

As it stands now, it's a fun time-waster for retro game and horror fans. With a little more balance and polish, however, it could be something quite special.

The series has always ridden in the wake of its own spectacle, but after years of unfocused deviation, we finally have an evolution that demonstrates clear progress. It's the best 3D game in the series by a long way, and that's because it embraces the 2D heritage which always made Mortal Kombat its own kind of game.

It's approximately 47 times more appealing than it looks.

It's a game that does things a little differently from its peers, and has the rare distinction of being a game that stands out in its own right. But the very fact that it's an action game with a strategic bent also makes it quite tough to appreciate at first.

It extends the series in intelligent and welcome ways.

Developments to the battle system ensure that this is the most enjoyable Kingdom Hearts title in terms of its raw systems, but the storytelling and structure fail to delight in the same way.

It's certainly a decent enough block-dropping puzzler, even if most people probably would've preferred Tetris. Or a Virtual Console release for the SNES Dr Mario and Tetris compilation. Either way, 1000 Points feels a bit steep.

But while this multiplayer mode is one of the game's most successful additions, it's curious that a series known for rejecting convention seems to be embracing the 'bigger, better, more' mentality here.

With its joyfully evil brand of warm humour enlivening every encounter, it's a game that makes you feel good about being bad. And with slick controls and a satisfying blend of action and strategy, it's a game that's never less than enjoyable to play. But while it provides superior controls and less frustration than Overlord II, it regrettably falls down by failing to offer enough of a concerted challenge.

I can't see anyone who enjoyed Oblivion enough to get through the main quest <I>not</I> buying this. There's lashings of new fighting and exploring, and it's more gorgeous than ever before.

It's one thing staying true to the beloved gameplay that we all still cherish, but that heady whiff of nostalgia only gets you so far - especially when the limiting episodic structure itself makes the actual puzzle solving such a horribly basic part of the game.

Don't buy this expecting an epic RPG, and consider keeping someone under the age of 12 at hand to help you justify the twee nature of the game as a whole. But there's something here which is notably absent in any number of lushly produced and scintillatingly scripted games: a real sense of fun and discovery.

With so many games promising the Earth and only serving up dirt, it's reassuring to know that good old-fashioned balls-out action, when produced with such care and skill, is still as reliable and thrilling as it should be.

Anybody with an actual Sims fetish will love it to bits. Granted it can be fiddly and confusing to start with (why hide so much of the critical new stuff in the depths of the catalogue?), but once you're up and running there's a definite attraction to it.

It's only masquerading as its own game - really, coming straight to this without having played its predecessors will be frustrating and bewildering, and the inability to play as Space Marines, Orks et al online a real slap in the face.

If however, you're after a management game that's highly accessible, requires only a modicum of tactical tinkering, allows you to buy the players that you really want and enables you to enjoy instant success and thrilling match highlights, then you should certainly consider opting for CM2008.

A World of Keflings feels more like an enhanced remake rather than a true sequel, and anyone who played through the original will quickly get déjà vu from the identical journey from basic houses up to an ornate game-winning castle.

As a single-player experience, Age of Booty is frustrating and poorly balanced. Take it online, however, and you've got something that's almost worth the 800-Point asking price.

With an excellent atmosphere, diverse set of characters, intriguing storyline and endless unlockables it's the sort of game that's essential for comic book obsessives, and great fun for everyone else.

It's never as tense as its console sibling, and it suffers from a few frustrating flaws, but the core sneak 'em up gameplay - evading enemies and cameras, silencing alarms, collecting data and using your spy tools - is well represented.