This is quite long and has stacks of replay value with the multiplayer. That multiplayer mode will be hugely satisfying to anyone who happens to know someone else with a PSP (gasp!) and it represents further evidence that 2006 is the year of co-op gaming.

Those in desperate search of a new platform game after completing New Super Mario Bros. upside down and backwards might get a few hours' respite from this, but otherwise wait until it costs nothing and then buy it for the nephew you gave your old chunky DS when you decide you had to have a Lite, and maybe invest your money in some of the Virtual Console's retro treats instead.

A strangely compelling, if completely non-essential, diversion for adults and definitely a recommended rental for the youngsters.

While not as essential as a title like Geometry Wars, Roboblitz can still be a charming and enjoyable experience, definitely setting new precedents for future Arcade releases. However at times it feels a little too much like an Unreal Engine 3 tech-demo than a game in its own right.

The multiplayer mode is more a case of surviving the longest than exhibiting any competitive skill (in which case, why not just play Survival mode?), and while those who get stuck in will find plenty of stages and difficulty levels to work through, it's all still quite basic even after a few tortured hours, and the occasional lazy design decision (like refusing to accept chains bigger than those asked for in "get 4 chains of 4" style scenarios) conspire with the general lack of urgency to turn you off completely.

While I can understand the financial reasoning behind milking the Capcom back catalogue for two volumes, as a fan I'd much rather have had one all killer, no filler compilation with Street Fighter II, Ghost 'n Goblins, Commando, 1941 and Strider all in one place.

It still feels clumsy, and while it's possible to overcome this in time and reach a decent standard, it robs the game of some of its accessibility - something critical to its multiplayer appeal - and your ultimate proficiency in moving, jumping and firing at the same time is only likely to announce itself long after you've exhausted what depths there are to excavate.

Frankly terrible considering the rich potential the Wii controller offers for games of this ilk.

On a rainy day there's an enjoyable few hours to be had riding these highs. On a sunny day, a trip to the theme park and riding a rollercoaster would be more understandable.

The game becomes a painfully slow and suffocating linear trudge through every single cabin on the train - for the fifth time - in an effort to find everyone and get hold of their passports for investigation purposes, while asking all nineteen passengers and crew practically the exact same set of twenty odd questions.

If more of the same is what you're after, you can't really argue with what Bethesda's served up for its hardcore fans.

Indeed, if you can get your eyes past the epilepsy-inducing menus, and your head round the aneurism-inducing unions, there is a decent game struggling to break free of its gratuitously obfuscated difficulty curve. [JPN Import]

VB2's no featherweight then, whatever Ippo's boxing class, but it's certainly an acquired taste that proves satisfying if you give it time to beef up.

Superman Returns is so criminally lacking in any inspiration, though, and is such a dismal waste of the licence that you'll want to curl up and rock yourself into a trance. At least then your mind can entertain you with thoughts of what a good Superman game might be like.

To really catapult it into the very highest bracket, Ubisoft still needs to work on a more compelling premise and improve on some of the production values, but otherwise Vegas represents one of the best shooters on the market and deserves to succeed.

It has inspired moments and a substantial single-player venture, but the whole thing is undermined by the terrible presentation and the all-permeating impression that Red Steel isn't quite finished, from the story-board-sketch cut-scenes to the jerky animation and weird, basic, placeholder textures.

Sure, there are times in the game when you want to shake Miyamoto and co by the lapels for including elements of the game which remain dogged by old-school convention, but they represent a flea bite on what is just a stunning and relentlessly enjoyable game.

The game's a source of surprisingly inexhaustible enthusiasm.

Brilliantly embodies the Wii's dramatic premise: that this kind of control can appeal to people who don't play games and people who used to play games as well as people who've been playing them for as long as we have.

After a jovial couple of hours in its company the scales will fall, and what had just seemed an unpretentious, unassumingly enjoyable videogame becomes a kind of existential nightmare of averageness that it's impossible to play for a minute longer. Monster 4x4: World Circuit is the definition of the lowest common denominator.

Snapping out of your glazed-eye reverie to find you've added a few points to the high-score table. Well Gunpey-R's sort of like that. Not quite as good. But it's almost as good, and that's a pretty significant achievement after all.

505 Game Street has been commercially smart to jump aboard the Brain Training bandwagon quickly, but it has made a huge mistake in throwing a faceless copycat effort out there. Hopefully people will not be remotely fooled - we're certainly not.

That's Trackmania's secret. It's deeply satisfying, while at the same time being more frustrating than you could possibly imagine. It's a contradiction until you've played it.

But the bigger problem seems to be that developer Bluepoint Games has gone after two audiences at once, and it hasn't really done enough for either.

The starkness of the choice - RTS or RPG - is quite arresting. Sadly, it was also plainly a balancing nightmare.

Sonic Rivals still stands head and shoulders over other recent efforts in the franchise - and, indeed, over many other recent PSP titles - simply because the game at the heart of it all is downright fun.

In these days of paying over the odds to download crippled Virtual Console games, and pretending not to notice how many Microsoft points are on your credit card, this latest compilation takes on an even greater value and may even - whisper it - encourage a few of us to finally take the original boxes out from under the bed, and consider putting them lovingly in the attic.

As it is, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy is best sampled as a rental for Wii owners looking for a multiplayer party game that'll last a night or two.