Etrian Odyssey succeeds in making some aged and usually uncomfortable RPG conventions feel fresh, thoughtful and engaging and is thoroughly recommended to DS owners with even a passing interest in the genre.

It doesn't possess the same can't-put-it-down addictiveness as Friends of Mineral Town, the series' greatest portable success, but I have found myself coming back to it day after day, moving the story along at an unhurried pace. The setting and ambience are captivating and entirely unique, its presentation is undeniably excellent and the gradual exploration of the island is compelling.

Yet another middle of the road film license that survives by dint of being as average as they come.

So while nothing substantial has been added to the SpellForce cauldron, the sequel's focus on smaller battles and quality questing has been refined, and the end result is a palatable expansion pack. With dragons.

It's difficult to overly criticise Calling All Cars! because it's cheap, looks and feels good (native 1080p at mostly 60fps does make a difference) and in multiplayer mode you definitely get a decent return from the impulse purchase price tag. It's just hard to avoid the sensation that some select gameplay tweaks, a couple of extra maps and a wider range of weapons could've made Calling All Cars! a minor classic as opposed to a promising but ultimately disposable game best sampled in small doses.

A very short, and very dull, brawler. Double Dragon does include some nice "extras" - configurable controls, and some arcade flyers, which should be worth an extra point, but throws the point away with quite possibly the worst (unstoppable) menu music I have ever heard in my entire life.

In its better moments it's a guilty pleasure, in its worst it's embarrassingly retrograde. By being consistently fairly slick with it, it easily avoids skimming the lowest depths, but really it's the kind of game we've all long since grown out of. Or so I like to tell myself, anyway.

It's just that it hasn't really addressed the chief failing of Parallel Lines, which is that, as polished, and competent as it is, it still feels a bit like a soulless GTA clone.

There are enough flaws in it to stop recommending it to anyone but real X-com fans - who, it seems, are busy trying to mod it into something closer to their desires.

An essential purchase for anyone interested in war simulation or tired of the contrived drama that fills mainstream military shooters.

Yes, you'll find sleeker interfaces and more engaging gunfights in titles such as "Silent Storm," "Faces of War," and "Jagged Alliance 2," but none of those games come with anything half as involved or absorbing as Afterlight's amazing strategic layer.

And if the button-mashing, combat-heavy missions aren't underwhelming enough, or the under-use of web swinging doesn't deliver enough disappointment, then the often-iffy technical side of the game rounds off a less-than-stellar package.

Perhaps the biggest flaw though is that the controls never stop being cumbersome. With several important information screens requiring more than one button to be held to be seen (never mind a strange and convoluted "emoticon" system for multiplayer matches).

While the lack of absolute control has the unfortunate effect of making Super Rub'a'Dub a repetitious annoyance when you reach its hardest levels, there's more than enough fun overall to warrant the game's GBP 3.49 introductory price tag.

Centipede and Millipede are the sort of simple, repetitive, no frills shooters you can get more than enough fun out of by playing the free trial version of, so we should be grateful to Microsoft for allowing people to find out why they probably shouldn't bother with this one.

While the narrow theme inevitably limits replayability, longevity, and appeal, I've found the challenge of pulling off a peace deal at the toughest difficulty level keeps drawing me back for an hour or two's play every so often. Call me soft, but I want to taste those hopeful tears again.

Combine this ruthless beating with the ugly stick with the essential lack of variety inherent in these arcade air combat games and you have a title only really worth considering once it's in the bargain bins.

Heatseeker feels like a step back, a simpler, uglier, dumber but friendlier jetfighter that plants you firmly in the role of the one man army. To put it another way, "Ace Combat" expects you to be upset at the scripted, drawn-out death of your wingman and Heatseeker lets you fly into the ground and bounce off with a bit of damage.

With nothing like 42 All-Time Classics' meta-game structure to compel you through each game at increasing difficulties, there's no greater purpose to scoring victories in the single-player 'campaign'.

The cinematic cut-scenes are poorly voiced, the characters unconvincing, and the plot is so-so at best.

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.

Eets is of most value to players who enjoy experimenting. In much the same way that it's fun to replay the same level of "TrackMania" or "Mercury Meltdown" over and over to find a better solution, finding a way to complete a level in Eets without using up all of your available tools is satisfying - and the game credits players who use their imagination, too, with a range of achievements reserved for players who can get through without exhausting their inventory.

A fantastic virtual pinball engine, the practical application of which is slightly hamstrung by the restrictions of the (old) Live Arcade regulations and by the shape of modern TV sets.

It's absolutely no exaggeration to say that this is far and away the best game for anyone who hasn't played an MMOG before to cut their teeth on. Even more than the familiar universe, the excellent interface and gameplay design Turbine have crafted turn this into an experience which those who have previously avoided the lure of MMOs will find tough to resist.

It's an exercise in frustration and annoyance, and the payoffs aren't worth it - nothing you unlock makes this game any fun.

It is broken in the literal sense of not working as sold and, as such, must be scored appropriately. That the game underneath the bodged localisation is also, figuratively, a broken shell of what it once was and absolutely nowhere near as good as it should have been, is more than anything, deeply, deeply sad.

Instead of the kind of solid, varied combat which the RTS genre has been steadily evolving towards over the years, Ancient Wars: Sparta falls back on resource management for its core gameplay. Distressingly, this is a sub-"Age Of Empires" affair which rapidly becomes a chore.

While you could argue that it's relatively short, it has variety: new enemies are introduced on almost every level and each boss is distinctive, differing in size, strength or attack pattern to the last.