El Matador is an unsophisticated action shooter which might have been a decently average blast - there are elements of simple fun to be had in its running and gunning - but it's all messed up by the transparently scripted and static enemies, patchy AI and poor clipping detection.

Race sims don't come any better than GTR2.

Defcon is as pure and direct a game as its inspiration, and its limitations are ones of the game's basic scope.

With brainless autoaim combat, forgettable missions and little in the way of challenge, the flash stunts and crazy moves can't hide Just Cause's flaws, and ultimately, rather than being some sort of "GTA"-beater, it's more of a poor man's "Mercenaries," ludicrously padded out with hundreds of entirely worthless side missions that sprawl over uninteresting terrain.

ParaWorld isn't without its charms, particularly its diverse and enticing set of armies, but it's truly a dinosaur of an RTS, bog standard in terms of mission design and somewhat messy in the combat department.

Doom is the rarest of retro games, in that you can enjoy it just as much as you did when it was first released. Better still, you can appreciate it with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, and see not only how enormously influential it is, but how perfect its design was from the very beginning.

The main linear quest path provides the bulk of Mage Knight, with little in the way of sub-quest trimmings, and the replay value is low despite the temptation of trying out new characters.

It's just doing pretty much the same generally reliable job it always has done, putting in its hours and going home again - if anything, it's getting sloppier with age.

Ford Street Racing's biggest crime is to be an ambitionless entry in a genre already overstocked with faster, cooler titles.

Die-hard followers of drift racing and modification will applaud the unforgiving accuracy of the game engine but, given the importance they tend to place on shiny shiny good looks, they're also the people most likely to be turned off by the scrappy presentation.

The potent mixture of action with the high-level statistical balancing will quickly seduce the right-minded player.

While this remains a great multiplayer, social game for some people, and it's certainly a good way to work up a sweat, at heart it's still an eight year old game with remarkably little alteration from the original.

A very precise, slick, and technically impressive game. It just lacks a crucial spark.

Many won't appreciate the simplicity, or the fact that there doesn't appear to be enough of a substantial challenge to grab your attention for very long. Not for everyone, then, but well worth further investigation if puzzling's your thing.

NBA Live 07 does the basics, but when the competition, namely Take 2's NBA 2K7, does everything so much better (and we do mean everything), there's no reason at all why you should be wondering which title to pick up.

But if this is the sport you're dedicated to, Visual Concepts has made the game entirely for your pleasure. And it's not very often you can credit a game with giving you a year's worth of play. Go get it.

Right from the start it conjures an atmosphere of being something special, but to keep that level of quality up consistently over 60 hours ensures that this will be a game that will be talked about for years to come...A work of art, you might say.

With a longer, more substantial campaign mode, a bit more polish and less pointless peripheral missions we could have been talking about The Godfather more fondly, but as it is, its place is history is as a flawed GTA clone that really didn't need porting to the 360.

So while it never becomes particularly difficult, it remains constantly interesting, bursting with personality and a desire to be incredibly silly.

Put it this way: if your kid gets stuck on a game like Open Season, you know something's amiss. Consider it a good test of whether videogames really are for them.

Maximum Impact 2 feels so incredibly sloppy and dated that the only real benefit of its existence is highlighting just how great sister title "KOF XI" really is by comparison.

If they continue to be this thrilling, this visceral, this bombastically brilliant, then more of the same is absolutely spot on. Sign me up.

Ironically, it's a game that'll probably be criticised for not being the same game as before. But actually that's one of its strengths. Especially if, like me, you're a massive fan of Rogue.

It's beautiful, though that's entirely the wrong word. This is a war game, so the word should be "visceral" or something. Models are hugely detailed for an RTS, physics implemented impressively and so on. But relevantly, it's a functional sort of beauty (or - er - viscerality).

It's really not that engaging a game in 2006 once you've got over the initial reaquaintence, and certainly not deserving of a standalone release on Live Arcade when there are so many more worthwhile games to download.

When it comes to cutting-edge WW2 strategy there are other worthy options besides the highly-decorated "Company of Heroes."

Although Harvest Moon DS possesses the same base addictiveness as its forebears, it has no charm, no originality and no ambition.

The missions are beautifully detailed, but characterless. The acting is just a few inflections the wrong side of ham. The units simply don't pack the punch you want from modern combat, and that lack of zing is pretty much found throughout the game.