There's no denying Asobo's achievement in building such a daring, beautiful landscape on such a vast scale, but the core of any good racing game is falling in love with its vehicles, the things you can do with them, and the places you can take them, and by that measure FUEL is distinctly average.

While The After Years is a treat for fans in concept and execution, it’s a slap in the face from a commercial standpoint.

At best, it's a functional third-person platformer that sometimes acts like a shooter. At worst, it's an astonishing collection of poor design decisions, half-hearted implementation and mindless narrative clutter that will only lead to buyer's remorse in all who decide to give it a try.

There is more charm to inFamous than Cole's face and voice suggest, but basking in the glow of the end credits, there are also a lot of painful memories to recall; of too many missions that funnel you into shooting galleries, of difficulty spikes and enemy-spamming, and of staring at the upgrades page rather glumly, aware that for the most part you're only being invited to make things strike harder or across a broader range.

Cross Edge feels like a gift aimed squarely at the hardcore JRPG crowd. Its best features are its rewardingly complex battle system and its clean and equally nostalgic 2D presentation. But these virtues will make it about as appealing as pulling teeth to anyone who doesn't know the difference between Makai Kingdom and Odin Sphere.

But the main question I keep asking myself about Undisputed is how could it better replicate the UFC experience onto the pad and screen? Apart from the ability to attempt illegal moves like a downward elbow strike or rabbit punch whilst the referee's vision is obscured, I can't really think of any.

There hasn't been too much mucking about with the brilliant gameplay mechanics and superb physics that made the original Boom Blox so much fun.

Were your movements less plodding, the weapons a bit meatier, the enemies even basically tactical, the story and dialogue more than perfunctory, the environments remotely imaginative, or the co-operative mode online-enabled, Terminator Salvation would still be far too rough around the edges, far too short, and far too cynical to withstand much critical inspection, but as it is, it's rubbish on virtually every count.

Were your movements less plodding, the weapons a bit meatier, the enemies even basically tactical, the story and dialogue more than perfunctory, the environments remotely imaginative, or the co-operative mode online-enabled, Terminator Salvation would still be far too rough around the edges, far too short, and far too cynical to withstand much critical inspection, but as it is, it's rubbish on virtually every count.

So for now, while there's plenty of scope for performance enhancements, Active's the best there is. I'm still running. But, unlike the weeks after Wii Fit arrived, I'm also still playing.

Suffice to say, there's a lot going on in Warrior Epic. But at this early stage - effectively, still a public open beta - it still feels rough, and a long way from fulfilling its potential.

Bionic Commando succeeds in resurrecting a good idea lost to the Capcom archives, and giving it a new lease of life, but it falls foul of a few old standards in the process.

If you're not a fan Punch-Out!! is still worth trying, but with caution. It's approachable at first but a hard taskmaster later on, an endurance test for your nerves and temper. You know, like videogames used to be. Well, you asked for it. And Nintendo is only too happy to plant it right between your eyes.

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

It isn't perfect. It's not the sort of game that future generations will gather to celebrate, linking hands and singing sad songs of fond remembrance. It is, however, clever, boisterous, faintly silly and relatively cheap.

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.

While See the Future certainly lengthens the Fable II experience, it does little to expand it.

Had Ascaron reigned in the content a little, and polished a smaller game to a higher standard, the score below would have been at least a couple of marks higher.

Enchanted Folk is to Animal Crossing what the first Saints Row was to GTA; it's a competent, entertaining knock-off, but it's still a knock-off.

The whole package is smoother and shinier than Nuno Bettencourt's hair. It's not a bargain, and it's not the best game you'll play this year, but it's probably the best game you'll ever play with the word "Extreme" in the title.

A mixed success. In terms of its childlike spectacle, Klonoa is quite brilliant, offering a number of memorable set-pieces and an unforgettable, wistful ambience throughout. But its challenges, while obvious, are often fiddly to overcome, and the sense of deep achievement that comes from completing one of Super Mario's tasks is here replaced by mere relief that it's over.

A masterful combination of serious strategy and cartoonish delights - and by adding mini-games, survival modes and a shop, PopCap is practically rubbing it in. The result is as fresh and accessible as Super Mario, and as refined and considered as Left 4 Dead, wading into another established genre and polishing the central ideas in a way that will make it a hard act to follow.

An essential upgrade to Fallout 3 that any committed fan will want to grab immediately. If you've held out buying any DLC for the game so far, we'd advise you start with this before getting the others, because the process of acquiring new perks and skills will enrich the game no end.

If you never caught the original, then this is almost a must-have. It's stuffed with charm and clever ideas like the score-maxing hint sections displayed upon level-completion. In fact, this is classic platforming with the added bonus of individuality and innovation.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine may be unapologetically violent, but it's also unapologetically repetitive, and it's the one apology that needs to be made.

A frustrating gaming experience.

For every moment where the game deviates from predictable platform tropes, there are dozens more when it's really nothing more than a very nicely assembled and presented riff on what other games were pioneering. Banjo-Tooie, then. Not one of the all-time greats, but when you take off the rose-tinted glasses the result is still enough to make it a standout on Live Arcade.

A really great game, but emphatically not one for everybody. Thank goodness for trial versions.