In truth, I would have preferred to select events on the fly, change vehicles on a whim, and restart failed events when I choose, but nor is it a deal-breaker that these features have been omitted. Once you (reluctantly) adapt to the demands of the game, a massive amount of fun awaits.

In truth, I would have preferred to select events on the fly, change vehicles on a whim, and restart failed events when I choose, but nor is it a deal-breaker that these features have been omitted. Once you (reluctantly) adapt to the demands of the game, a massive amount of fun awaits.

In a fight between games as metaphor and games as entertainment, we need to feel like the winners. There are times in No More Heroes when we don't, but there are enough occasions when we do, and by the time you're the best assassin in town you'll either be glad that the destination was always worth it or arguing that it deserves another mark. Either way, you do at least win.

SS2008 is a pleasant place to spend an occasional evening, but ultimately there's not enough challenge and realism here to distract a seasoned simmer for long.

Endless Ocean is simple to the point of being quite dull, and certainly no masterpiece. But sometimes all a game needs to do is offer you something different, and it's an honest relief to play something that doesn't shout in your ear, set any time limits, or feature a single explosion; a game whose raison d'être is just beauty and peace.

An Advance Wars game that we had just as much, if not more fun playing than ever, but one that proves a bit too grimy and unfriendly for our bright and bouncy taste. Fortunately though, Dark Conflict remains hospitable in most of the areas that really matter to its fans and the people finally tempted to give it a go, and the result is probably the better of the two DS versions.

In the ship combat, the depth of the trading, the spectacle of mass PVP, and the fine period detail - (the lovely music, the animated colour of the towns, the crew scrambling over the rigging of your ship) - Pirates of the Burning Sea is a highly specialised, but highly seductive game. It's a hobbyist's paradise. Unfortunately, you'll need to be a hobbyist to put up with its many serious flaws.

The layout of the driver guide panel doesn't help matters.

It's sort of enjoyable because swishing a sword and firing a gun and seeing off billions of stupid enemies without having to think about it too much can be fun. Not fun for long, though, and not the kind of fun it's worth spending 30 or 40 quid on.

The biggest problem with the game is that it's simple but devoid of real depth. Without the challenge of precision-aiming, it becomes easy to blunder through levels without much planning and the experience is shallow and repetitive for it.

But when the game finds itself up against one cheaper, much better year-old rival and fails to make any in-roads, it's hard to justify sending you out to buy it.

The increased writing quality, cunning puzzles and Telltale's self-referential ability to know when the game is slipping into self-parody makes Moai Better Blues a marked improvement on the last one.

It deserved to be left dying in the gutter, begging for loose change, and is in no way a glorious representation of a fondly remembered era of classic arcade gaming. It's a clunky, somewhat charming period piece that's interesting for five minutes if you have childhood associations with it, but, for everyone else, it isn't even worth going beyond the free trial version.

In time the control system becomes second nature and weaving in and out of the moving mazes created by the gargantuan enemies around you feels like more of a dance than a chore.

The problem really is that, even online, the only incentive to carry on braving Circle of Doom's tedious environments and simplistic action is to obtain a high-powered character, or a monstrous weapon. Except once you've done that, it renders the game even more tedious and simplistic as you one-hit-kill your way around the same stultifying environments that you've been grinding through.

There are no injuries, field goals, audibles, safeties, penalties; it's just pick a play and then pick up and play, with as few things to think about as possible. We expected that, but it turns out it's also the main reason that NFL Tour is rubbish: American football needs these things. It needs a bit of complexity and nuance. Without it, it's only ever slightly entertaining.

The mark below is an average of the 10 for the script/animation and the 1 for the game design. If you need more Birdman, you'll suffer to get to the superb stories.

So once again, we have here a modern day Sonic game devoid of the elements which made olden days Sonic games so good - speed, simplicity, a decent control system, that sort of thing. Sonic Riders Zero Gravity is not hateful, just pointless. A complete waste of time, effort and the planet's resources.

It never feels more than throwaway fun. And while it never claimed to be anything to the contrary, its blatant copying of the Brain Training formula and the lack of innovation that results don't do it any favours.

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.

There are loads of gameplay modes for your money - including online multiplayer for up to eight players, specific puzzle-style challenges, and a classic survival mode where you have to nosh as many balls (wahey etc) as you can before you gobble your own tail (wahey etc).

It's got charm to spare and - if you don't mind wrestling with controls that occasionally leave you gritting your teeth - this is a groovy little romp.

As a relatively cheap mechanism for bringing you back to what is still fundamentally an excellent game, Operation: Omega Dawn is as good an excuse as any to get back into Warhawk's superb online multiplayer.

All minor gripes aside though, SWOS remains a triumph of playability over tedium and proves the franchise is still a strong contender for the greatest football game of all time.

As you move your craft around the playfield with either the analogue controller or the d-pad, precision of movement goes out of the window with your craft over-shooting the mark, often resulting in a loss of one of your limited lives.

A short run-time and some middling levels used to pad out each of Nightopia's dream environments probably did the most to wear down my goodwill toward it, but there was nothing fatally dispiriting about the experience and ultimately it has more to fuel the player's affection than not, like skyscrapers bursting into balloons.

Just like the PSP version, the inability to choose which characters to take into battle in single-player rather limits the potential of its fifteen missions.

It lacks cohesion, and ultimately frustrates too intensely and too often to keep your satisfaction at the right levels.