"The Sands of Time" set such a high standard in virtually every area that anything less was always going to be disappointing, and discovering that many of the bits that were nigh on flawless are less taxing, less focused, or are just the same with a scar across the face, is deeply upsetting.

Certainly one of the more passable products of the recent retro-gaming fad, but packaged up in the guise of a modern RPG - without the decency of the NES Classics range in terms of admitting to its own clapped-out state - it's going to be a major disappointment to most who pick it up.

The fort-versus-fort gameplay definitely doesn't gel with the Worms dynamic. Instead it robs a once-proud series of almost everything that made it so memorable, and the result is a game that tires as much as it feels tired.

This is the greatest fantasy MMO in existence, the absolute state of the art in orc-bashing. But the nagging feeling I can't shake is that, for me, that's not quite enough anymore.

If you forget about the campaigns - and God knows, you're going to try and forget about the campaigns - the skirmish is an entirely competent example of its genre, and its inclusion enough to make this not actually an actively worthless game per se.

While the repetitive nature of the sub-games is what really keeps this away from true greatness, what leads to an increasing sense of the game being a chore is something as simple and ethereal as a wind.

The designers didn't love this game, they just threw together poorly understood ideas from other games like "Halo" and "Half-Life" so that the management chimps responsible for the project could be satisfied that it was ripping off popular products.

Even pointlessly simple card matching games like Luigi's "Pair-A-Gone" and "Memory Match" had us playing relentlessly, whiling away Tube journeys and whiling away stolen moments at all manner of the day and night.

With a bit more humour behind it and some slightly more adventurous mission design, Payback could have been a must-have. As it is, it's a perfectly enjoyable way to spend a few hours and it certainly does a decent enough job of emulating "Grand Theft Auto's" media-baiting exterior.

It's a straightforward sequel with a few more bells and whistles than before, and it lowers the bar of entry somewhat compared to the GameCube original.

Only poor pacing early on, a frustrating mechanical legacy and a sense that Konami still hasn't quite cracked the union of storytelling and gameplay prevent this scoring higher.

It's no fun to drive, and in fact driving itself is something of a challenge. On top of that, having begun life on other formats (including N-Gage), it makes only a token gesture to adapt to the DS's featureset, allowing you to navigate menus but do nothing else with the stylus, allowing wireless multiplay but demanding multiple copies of the game, and using the bottom screen for little more than a topographical overview of the course with markers for each car.

Half-Life 2 has astonished us from start to finish. Valve has done to the FPS genre what restaurants in Chinatown do to ducks; shredded it, smothered it in a delicious sauce of their own devising, and served it up in a way which you simply couldn't have imagined when looking at them in the pond.

Easy to sum up: Game isn't finished.

It's so obviously a lot of good games. And we're feeling a degree of magic. But in the end Feel the Magic isn't quite enough to sate us.

As it stands, it hasn't re-ignited much other than a vague feeling that we should pull the PC version out of the cupboard and play it again.

A great package that any squad gaming fan will take to immediately - it's not everything we hoped it would be, admittedly, but don't let that put you off what is still a worthy offering.

Completely harmless and sure to get a giggle from younger gamers.

Gamers under about the age of 25 will frankly be utterly amazed at how basic things were back then, while those old enough to have owned (and who knows, maybe loved) a 2600, or hung around the arcades will have a few hours of curiosity sated before moving well and truly on.

While the story and characters are unfortunately very weak, Baten Kaitos is easy to recommend to anyone looking for an RPG that focuses strongly on gameplay rather than storytelling.

There's none of the track furniture that shined "FlatOut" or the general gloss and roundness of "Burnout." This shallowness in gameplay is honestly the only thing that lets the game down.

With the same sort of instant appeal and practically infinite replayability of Tetris, it joins the pantheon of puzzle gods and goes down as another GBA must-buy - so long as the lack of multiplayer doesn't irk you.

Not a bad package, really, just not a great one. It's never going to trouble the likes of "Super Mario World" or "Yoshi's Island" in the sheer artistry and quality of gameplay stakes, at least not in this reviewer's book.

Don't let the muted disappointment of the multiplayer discolour what is among the best single-player experiences we've ever experienced. Certainly up there with literally anything else, including "Half-Life 2," "San Andreas," and as far as enjoyment, intrigue, reward and challenge, far surpasses the likes of "Halo 2" and "Killzone," and shows up the competition in more ways than we could care to mention.

There are some surprising omissions. The main one being the complete lack of any ability to speed up time - especially since that once a park has stabilised there can be a lot of waiting around while you amass enough cash to buy a Gorilla or whatever.

What's genuinely disappointing though is that it's all over so quickly... Jak 3 is much, much shorter than its epic predecessor. Indeed, it took us just 10 hours to achieve a 100 per cent rating.

Inconsistent, wearisome gameplay.

The truth is, for every hour our blood was pumping like a turbo charged locomotive through our adrenaline scored veins, there were an equal number of hours where we were bored with the unimaginative repetition of formulaic corridor based FPS trawls. [Single-Player review; Multiplayer also rated 90]