A game that will live long in the memory, and needs to be played from time to time just to refresh the senses and reinvigorate the gamer inside us all.

An action title that relies on keeping the player immersed and focused on the game as much as possible. But if you're asked to spend literally 20 per cent of your playing time staring at a loading screen, then that sense of excitement and immersion quickly ebbs away.

Certainly an excellent game, but in becoming a much more accessible and polished title than its predecessor and taking significant advances in storytelling, it has left behind some key aspects of gameplay and much-loved variety from the first title.

It's a stunning little game to play for a while after the pub or while waiting for a taxi to turn up, and a complete contrast to the involved multiplayer experience you'd get with FF:CC. If a copy lands on your lap, you'll probably love it - you just wouldn't pay thirty quid for it.

I polished off the three main Match Race cups, most of the Time Trials (to unlock the better boards), the final Extreme Challenge and most of the Gate Challenges, not to mention completing each Trick Attack course to a decent standard, well within one five-hour sitting.

As for its translation to Xbox, it's a revelation. Not only is it as visually faithful as anyone could reasonably expect, with no discernible compromises save for the resolution, but even the controls feel right.

For many, most of the titles on show will be obscure, but if you want to dip your toes into the bewildering waters of the '80s arcade, this is probably the best introduction released to date.

We're even less inclined to accept the messy control system, the often dreadful AI, the questionable animation, the less than stellar visuals, the fact that following the dark side makes no real difference to the game, and the overall feeling that it's just not that exciting.

Ah... sub-"Jak & Daxter."

The game's single biggest problem is that while it starts off by making you laugh most of the time, it's not long before it slips into a formulaic procession of irregular gags and the same basic gameplay elements cut and pasted from start to stop.

When it's firing on all cylinders Manhunt is a disturbingly entertaining take on the stealth action genre with the trademark high quality Rockstar production that mask some of its shortcomings. But scratch beneath its grimy surface and it's blighted by serious AI issues, repetitive gameplay and frustrating combat.

It's extraordinarily well crafted and polished, as most Square Enix games are, and should deliver a good forty hours of entertainment for your money. Once you get past the kitsch trappings of the game, there's a surprising amount of intelligence underlying it all.

Experienced platform fans will recognise its tricks before they even hit, and they may feel mildly short-changed for it, even if I have a strong suspicion they'll be as happy playing it as I have been.

It lacks a single-player offering worthy of the name (and simply is not worth buying if you don't have Live), is mystifyingly missing most of the PC maps and has been ported to such a disappointingly low grade standard technically that we can't help but feel like it's a huge missed opportunity and a disservice to hardcore followers of the machine - the very people this game is intended to excite.

Hats off to Bizarre for a marvellous technical achievement, slapped wrists for meddling with the already perfect progression system and balancing and tarnishing what would have otherwise been a peerless single player experience and hearty congrats for an excellent online offering.

Simply put it borrows a hatful of ideas, implements them well but never truly wows you as a landmark gaming experience.

A flawed masterpiece. A game brimming with variety and a freshness lacking from most of the factory farmed franchise exercises that pass through our offices with crushing regularity.

In terms of shoot-'em-ups we can't recall a more enjoyable one, and any game that causes someone who's supposed to be holidaying from videogames to not only complete every single campaign and challenge mission, but go back and replay some of them as well has to go down as a one of the games of 2003.

The only thing I got out of Fire Warrior was motion sickness. It's starts off great, but soon degenerates into a tiresome chore of a game.

While it does its best to be an amalgam of all the best street racing games - and is certainly one of the best looking - it fails to haul itself onto the top of the podium by virtue of not enough variety, no new ideas and a few too many minor irritations that take the gloss off the final package.

One Of The Best GBA games of the year, Nintendo games on the GBA, and RPGs in existence. Simple, fun and rewarding, this is for everyone who ever ogled but never played the original Mario RPG, and everyone else besides.

With a few more levels, more varied objectives and less psychic guards it would be indispensable.

With more battle tracks, a few more actual racetracks and four-player Grand Prix mode - and let us not forget Internet play, for those of us who will never have all the equipment to make use that tantalising LAN mode - Double Dash would almost certainly qualify for the top score. As it is, at times it's a hair's breadth away, and you're doing yourself a massive disservice if you don't race out and buy this the second it's available.

The single-player is compelling and disappointing in equal measures in a seen-it-all-before-but-I'm-enjoying-it-anyway kind of fashion, but it's the multiplayer action that saves the day.

It is, apart from a few choice technical hiccups, a marvellous game...[It] leaves you feeling warm and happy every time you finish playing it, and in this medium there can be no greater triumph than that.

If you have a flagrant disregard for your sanity, your bank balance and enjoy the kind of masochistic self flagellation that true weirdos get up to in the privacy of their own home, then by all means pop down to your local gaming emporium and pick up Rise of the Machines and remind yourself how good all the other games in your collection are by comparison.

A formulaic, by the numbers FPS with zero innovation, demented AI and a crushing lack of inspiration.

Although it could be accused of taking a while to get going, Ratchet & Clank 2 leaves an indelible impression as a platformer full of variety and, above all else, options.