Being so excellent that you obliterate the single-player in a weekend is not enough to stop it being my favourite Xbox 360 game of recent times.

Punchy and immaculately produced, NBA Street Homecourt is a great jumping-on point for a simple, entertaining and really well-designed series.

Any prospective patron should be well-prepared for an extremely challenging relationship that will strain even the most-committed Rogue-devotee. But, for the very few fans still looking to recruit in that toughest of niche sectors, Izuna is a worthy hire.

Fairly dull - a sensation that the "zany" presentation usually accentuates. The Vs. mode makes up for it slightly, as you try and outpace your friend, but even then it's hardly essential, despite a single-cart download-play option.

For all its grandeur, it'll simply feel too much like hard work for anyone who wasn't already sold on the concept - a timeless classic should have more universal appeal. It's a triumphant achievement nevertheless, a just reward for anyone who's ever lost their heart to an RTS - a love letter to the fans.

The game quickly gets repetitive, and becomes one of those retro games you'll dip into now and then rather than have extensive score-beating sessions on like the best games on Xbox Live Arcade.

As an added bonus, even the multiplayer mode is fully supported online via the somewhat underused infrastructure mode. That said, we should perhaps stress that four player multiplayer is very much a 'bonus' rather than something to get massively excited about.

If you have the sort of disposable income that allows you to spend thirty quid on a short-lived and rather bland diversion, or if you have an intensely adolescent fondness for flames, skulls and chains, then I dare say you'll find Ghost Rider to be 'not that bad'. And it's not.

It's a great game in so many respects, and we're overflowing with admiration that Revolution stuck to its purity of vision about what an adventure game can and should be about in the mid noughties. But when you're sat in front of the monitor filled with rage because of some utterly obscure puzzle, you'll have to question whether consistently busting a player's balls in so many ways is the right approach these days.

The Warriors more than holds its own on its transition to the PSP. For a start, it's still a perfectly playable, charming and downright brutal game - there really is nothing quite as ludicrous on the shelves today.

Wii Play has a few timeless gems that should prove to be party favourites this Christmas, but regular gamer, in particular, shouldn't expect the novelty value to endure much beyond that. Think of this as commercial tutorial.

It's worth a look if you're short of a good portable adventure, but it's not quite smashing.

The nagging question is why on earth should a second-rate FPS game that's so indebted to its peers - and one of which, in the case of BF2, does a persistent character thing for free - think it can get away with demanding a subscription fee for any of its content? Answer: It really can't.

It stops being fun alarmingly quickly.

Like all the best games, there's a whole world of subtle strategy beneath this simple concept and the Street Fighter branding is cleverly used.

If you weren't around for the old days Micro Machines, and you're desperate for something to race around on the DS, this is a solid, straightforward game that should keep you going, providing you can put up with its inherent foibles.

Lunar Knights is a plain idea wrapped in an ornate cloak; peek underneath and its fleshy action adventure innards look a little bony. Crucially, without the sunlight gimmick it's lost the ability to truly stand out from the crowd.

What we have is solid, and refinements could propel it back to glory, but really it's high time we started over from scratch...It's hard not to think that the series has taken a noticeable step backwards at a time when EA's busy taking giant steps with "FIFA."

If you've been suffering with the last version in whatever form, success will be a lot sweeter for it, too.

If you're looking for a fully featured PES game, you'll obviously need to look to other formats, but if you're just after a decent facsimile that allows you to enjoy the magic of a flying football, you might find the series' best feature to be its saving grace on the DS.

Snobbery be damned, Life Stories is a thoroughly enjoyable crossover between an established series and the world of casual games.

Insipid character and course design married with inherently repetitive gameplay, obsessive collecting and an array of horrible touchscreen features make this feel like a waste of time. It's got plenty of content, and is a perfectly serviceable, occasionally competitive kart racer, but there's not much distinguishing about it.

In 1994 the fresh gameplay ideas Final Fantasy 6 brought to the RPG genre, coupled with the highly enjoyable story, brilliant ensemble cast and stirring score would have made the game an easy, trailblazing Eurogamer 10. It's either a remarkable testament to the original development team's vision and skill, or a damning indictment of a genre that this is so very nearly the case thirteen years on.

For now, Vanguard is a game which has plenty to offer a brave adventurer with a stunning PC. Aside from any design or content problems we've identified with the game, potential buyers need to be aware that they're entering a world which, as a prominent WOW character would have it, is not prepared.

This is undeniably still a good, enjoyable and very pretty game. Nevertheless, at this time, from this developer, Eurogamer won't be alone in mourning the fact it's not nearer a perfect, staggering and beautiful one instead.

It's a game that does things a little differently from its peers, and has the rare distinction of being a game that stands out in its own right. But the very fact that it's an action game with a strategic bent also makes it quite tough to appreciate at first.

It's a sub-par offering in almost every respect, chock full of insipid, charmless, half-baked zero-fun games that would embarrass a start-up indie studio.

So few games display such effortless charm, and even fewer are rammed with as much warm humour.