Better than Midway’s "RedCard," and more violent than the average ice hockey game, Sega Soccer Slam is pure arcade fun, albeit not very long-lived.

The proliferation of save points also strips any element of tension away from the experience.

Despite throwing in a canine companion, button-tapping mini-games and retweaking difficulty levels and so on between NTSC and PAL, Dead to Rights is fundamentally underwhelming to look at, repetitive to play and riddled with more flaws than bullet holes, and this'll stick like rigour mortis after your fiftieth fistfight.

As a multiplayer game though, Beach Spikers is exceptional – up there with "Virtua Tennis," "Soccer Slam" and "NBA 2K3" in Sega’s hall of fame.

Kri's got a lovely story though, and otherwise it is very compelling, thanks to thoughtful level design and so on, but we just don't want San Diego throwing different styles of combat into the periphery if they're going to screw up the main one.

After driving around the three cities, picking up fare after fare and learning your best routes and so on, there's really very little the game can offer you that "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "Vice City" doesn't do far better with its throwaway Taxi missions.

You should buy this game because it's frightening in a way that few games ever have been, and because it's a vividly explored, engrossing narrative the likes of which few out-and-out storytellers like "Final Fantasy" can compete with.

The single player campaign is, if anything, too long, and focuses more on continuous combat than actual role-playing. The lack of any support for parties in the single player mode is also disappointing, and makes the game far less involving than it should be.

One of those games which stands inches away from greatness.

One of those games which stands inches away from greatness.

One thing in its favour was the gorgeously rendered fruit, that look so realistic and juicy that we swear we were salivating during our time with the game - but that's about as good as it gets.

Once you get it on a big TV or monitor and hook it all up to a meaty stereo system, it really is something special to behold.

The PAL conversion with its enormous borders is a big disappointment, but the strength of the story, the battle system and the combination of clever dialogue, visuals and soundtrack conspire to captivate the player.

A decent length for a videogame at roughly ten hours, and it boasts an enormous number of hugely varied tasks to complete and beautiful sights to see. Capped off with an elegant control system and intelligent game design, this is the platformer to bury both mediocre rivals like "Banjo Kazooie" and old classics like "Mario 64."

An exotic cocktail of entertainment for Nintendo fans, who will slurp up every last drop, and if you want to talk about longevity, I've had this game on import for about six months and I still haven't finished it.

You can’t help but want more once you've rushed through it all. I wanted to take it all in at my own pace without sacrificing the life of little Olimar.

The absolute pinnacle of Star Wars games. It's bloody hard in places, but it pampers the nostalgic and conveys so effortlessly the beauty of the galaxy and the sheer tyranny of the evil Empire that you will Force your way through it until there's no stone left unturned.

A competent, atmospheric adventure and truly a new direction for the characters, but at this length it simply isn’t worth the £35, let alone the cost of the console.

The first half is fast, exciting, beautifully designed and constantly full of surprises. The second half is festooned with gobsmacking plot twists and great cinematics but let down by repetitive paint by numbers level design.

As stunning and enjoyable as ever. You may feel foolish gripping the controller throughout a 40-minute cut scene, but MGS2 is something which must be experienced.

One of the key successes is the complete abandonment of convention - screw physics, we want to breakdance on the boards in mid-air. SSX Tricky is bigger and better, with more explosions.

A luscious, sprawling epic of a game and one of the most complete experiences I have ever encountered. If this is what I've waited a year to see on my PS2, then I would have waited ten. Magnificent.

Perhaps not the deepest of games, revolving as it does around slaughtering demons and finding the appropriate key-substitute to open the next door, but it's certainly one of the most stylish and downright entertaining I've played in recent months.

In an industry justly accused of leaning towards style over content, ICO is a beacon of light and a bastion of superb game design.

The feeling of jubilation once you have Gold awards for every area of every test is immeasurable.

There are some nice stretches of track to travel on and plenty of things to do along the way, but several of the activities are downright dull, while others are marred by questionable design decisions such as lengthy stops and the excessive use of temporary speed limits in the most boring parts of a track.

It's easy to be wooed by Echelon's glorious graphics and its sometimes epic atmosphere, but the game is marred by a few problems which could sadly bring it down with a disappointing thud for many.