It's consistently satisfying over long periods, fulfilling its usual role of dominating a willing crowd's evening into the early hours, and now allowing you to sustain that after everyone's gone home using the Internet.

The fine-tuned excellence of Army of Two's co-op gunplay will easily sustain you through one run through this gutsy, broadly enjoyable game. But the desire to revisit it is weak, and for game that's designed with social online play in mind that's a big problem. Any level of the current co-op king, "Halo 3," has more spectacle and incident packed into it than the entirety of Army of Two.

The fine-tuned excellence of Army of Two's co-op gunplay will easily sustain you through one run through this gutsy, broadly enjoyable game. But the desire to revisit it is weak, and for game that's designed with social online play in mind that's a big problem. Any level of the current co-op king, "Halo 3," has more spectacle and incident packed into it than the entirety of Army of Two.

It's a crude and unappealing game, marred by at least three design decisions (the scrolling, the time-limited weapons, the long-winded upgrade system) that immediately make the gameplay a grind rather than a blast.

For all its faithfulness, though, it's not quite a full God of War game. It relies on short, sharp, repetitive combat encounters over and above exploration and puzzles, and there are far fewer enemies to fight or massive, screen-filling bosses to worry about. It feels lightweight next to the originals.

For dedicated PC strategy nerds it might seem a little lightweight in comparison to what the desktop platform currently has to offer but, for accessible, deep, pocket-sized empire-building this is a game hard to fault.

Had the crash problems not made it into the retail code, we might have scored it higher, but Rockstar's programmers are in detention this week sorting it out, so hopefully within a few days of your reading this we won't feel like beating them up behind the bike-sheds as we do now. The fact we're so happy to be playing Bully again in spite of this ought to speak for itself.

It's far removed from everything else on the system, and still just as mischievous and entertaining as it was a year ago. The dialogue is full of life, the missions make you laugh out loud and the whole thing is infused with wayward, playful charm.

Soulstorm is a stopgap game. It really feels like the last breath of the series. And that's a real shame.

The games are neither entertaining nor plentiful enough to keep you playing for long. That applies to the multiplayer as well as solo mode.

It's a genuine shame. The game is well-presented and polished, the control system works nicely, and the progression lays the groundwork for a really enjoyable experience - but the team decided to come over all Zen minimalism when it came to the games themselves.

Its willfully old-school design and clunky combat belong in a bygone era, and for the optimistic price-tag Konami has slapped on the game we've every right to expect more. Only the most hardcore of fans will have time for this; the rest of us should wait for Homecoming.

A sloppily-handled misfire that ruins the original's reputation.

With the majestic and genuinely eye-popping Ikaruga waiting in the wings, you can happily keep saving your 800 Points without missing out on anything special.

If Churchill had died, we might all be speaking German, but at least we wouldn't have to put up with nonsense like this.

It had the incredibly difficult job of creating a new character in the Lost world with an interesting enough side-story, able to exist without disrupting the timeline or feeling like an aberration, and able to expose fans to at least a handful of things with which they would be satisfied, even eager, to tinker. There's no question it achieves that.

While Patapon has got the same quirky sense of style and visual charm as its predecessor ("LocoRoco"), it doesn't offer the same easy breezy gameplay. Instead, it offers an imposing amount of depth and a considerable amount of micromanagement. Which isn't necessarily a criticism - it's just that forewarned is forearmed.

A worthwhile addition to any Sims fan's expansion collection.

It's a shame that SEGA opted for a simple port rather than properly updating the series, but this is still a fine game - if extremely niche in its appeal.

On the plus side, there is single-card download play for wireless "fun" with up to four players. On the down side, if we really want to tell up to four friends that we despise them and never wish to suffer their company ever again, we can think of more direct ways to do so.

Despite the single-player mode's inability to engage on a narrative level and the fact that you're supremely powerful for most of that side of it, Frontlines is a pleasant addition to the legion of shooters crowding the 360's line-up, largely thanks to its multiplayer.

Big Willy Unleashed is toss. The controls make playing the game feel like trying to do the washing-up with a pair of chopsticks, using clogs instead of rubber gloves. It looks revolting. The script is appalling.

Purely on the basis that it's a wonderful concept executed with no small amount of wit and style, N+ comes highly recommended - at least to those with a taste for such punishing gameplay.

The Club is brilliantly immediate, logical and rewarding in ways that the "PGR" games always were and are, and it does for the third-person shooter what no one else has even bothered trying to do: moving it closer to the 2D shoot-'em-ups of old in a manner that appeals anew.

It's a game best recommended to non-RPG fans, those who want a short, light adventure that eschews grinding (until the final area at least) and detailed stat-management for bright character and brevity. But even on these terms, the recommendation is at best a very gentle one.

It's filled to the brim with brilliant ideas, and then barely uses them.

Absolutely up there with the best of the series so far. It's as good as the game has ever been.

It's dull, it's lacklustre, and it entirely betrays the series' name by having no perceptible sense of speed.