The best thing you can say about the game is that it's technically impressive, and the openworld structure is a good idea - but that's it. The game's central purpose seems to be to make dismemberment as easy to pull off as possible, but as soon as that novelty has worn off you're left with a hollow, repetitive experience which quickly loses its initial appeal.

For most of us, though, Opoona is a curiosity - it's charming, strange and often fun, but too shallow and stretched out to make for a genuinely engrossing RPG experience. [JPN Import]

Inevitably, the lack of meat on the bones is Dragon Sword's major failing, coupled with the fact that the combat descends into repetitive scribbling after a short while, lacking the kind of long-term depth that makes the game's parent offerings so revered.

Poorly translated and badly acted, there's little here to distract from the terrible gameplay.

The impenetrable story makes it a no-go for younger gamers who might be more willing to forgive its adolescent excesses. But for the twenty-six, twenty-eight, thirty-year-olds who it's aimed at, the game has little to offer beyond polished sentimentality.

While most will be more interested to see where EA LA takes the ideas they've played with here next, there's much more for a C&C fan to get excited about than imagining Natasha Henstridge is talking to them. Although that is pretty exciting.

Feels like a hastily put together stop gap before the series goes PS3.

It's one thing to churn out the same game ten years after it was made. It's another to churn out an inferior version and charge people full whack for it.

In spite of the fact that all you're doing is pressing a button three times, over and over again, it never gets boring. It would probably be too controversial to call it the best golf game, or the best PS3 game. But on both counts it's a remarkably close call. [JPN Import]

SEGA fans, run don't walk to the shops, but be prepared to give Superstars a few hours before the gameplay starts hugging you as hard as the graphics and sound. Everyone else, dust off Virtua Tennis 3 for a more complete alternative.

SEGA fans, run don't walk to the shops, but be prepared to give Superstars a few hours before the gameplay starts hugging you as hard as the graphics and sound. Everyone else, dust off Virtua Tennis 3 for a more complete alternative.

SEGA fans, run don't walk to the shops, but be prepared to give Superstars a few hours before the gameplay starts hugging you as hard as the graphics and sound. Everyone else, dust off Virtua Tennis 3 for a more complete alternative.

Overall, Vegas 2 feels like an incremental expansion, despite the success of the character-creation feature.

The most innovative football title we've come across in many years.

The Lost in Blue series is still the most compelling and realistically punishing take on the excitement and hardships of survival on a desert island that videogames have to offer, even if it still has much room to improve.

If you've already got Samurai Warriors 2, then I can't really see this slightly remixed version being worth the GBP 20 (EUR 25) asking price.

Go away, George of the Jungle, and die horribly in a fire.

I'm all for games that want you to reach the end, and encourage you to stay on board for the whole ride, but, assuming that the vast majority of people following the series are experienced point-and-click players, this is starting to feel patronising. When the actual core gameplay becomes an undemanding routine, that's a dangerous position for an episodic series which needs to keep players playing.

For all my reservations about the format, there's definitely an audience for this sort of thing out there and while 800 Points puts this in the upper price bracket for Live Arcade, it still makes it the cheapest brain game option around. In that regard at least, it gets the job done.

Bliss Island is about as uninspired as mini-game compilations get, with a flavourless selection of challenges and a half-hearted attempt at adding charm and character.

Condemned 2 deserves hearty praise for improving on everything it did first time around. The melee combat is brutally intense, the investigations play a bigger part, the visuals are top-notch, and the whole thing's wrapped up with engaging narrative.

It's in the multiplayer that Ring of Fates excels, and we have no problem with recommending it thoroughly to anyone who fancies some co-op action RPG fun with their friends.

PES 2008's entertaining match improvements, exhilarating action and solid additions mean it just about scrapes another 8, though at no point does it come even close to flirting with higher scores. It's fast, fluid, fun and physical, an improved, revamped version of PES 6 if you like.

It's competent, it's fun, it's certainly good - but unless the PS2 to PSP transfer stuff tugs your whistle, it's not easy to justify the upgrade.

You're probably as well-served going for FIFA '08 on DS than you are this. That said, this is a decent attempt at portable football on the DS that carries Pro Evo's name, though don't let it fool you into thinking it's anywhere near as majestic as other versions.

Just as enjoyable as the previous Buzz! titles - or just as tedious, if you're that way inclined. And that's assuming you're not expecting to be seriously tested if you're a real film fan.

It's hardly spacesuit gripping stuff. While there are promising facets to Lost Empire's simple yet expansive empire building, ultimately it feels unfinished and uninspiring, and more of a lost opportunity than anything else.

There's no doubting that this is the very best way to play either game outside of an arcade - mainly by virtue of the fantastic controls, and that you don't have to fork out for expensive extra hardware to play them.