There's a rich, deep, accessible and fun score-attack game lurking not far beneath Wreckateer's rubble, but it never fully reveals itself.

Some of it is down to the execution, which is mostly competent but lacks the spark and energy of Neversoft's original work.

The change in tone and tempo may well come as a jolt to long time fans, just as the lumpen opening sections may deter newcomers, but it's rare to see a decade-old franchise reinvent itself with this much vigour.

A flawed game, then - but one that Enzo would, perhaps, have approved of.

There is a real MMO in there - a secret world within The Secret World - but it's estranged from the player, clouded by obfuscating systems and smothered in charismatic but stolidly single-player adventuring. Tornquist is a writer, the man behind adventure games The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, and it seems like he's more interested in telling stories than building adventure playgrounds, never mind emergent worlds.

Project Zero 2's gameplay is pretty basic throughout and showing its age in areas - although the graphical makeover, bar some dodgy textures, is very good. But with the lights off, it's as spine-tinglingly scary as any game I've played, with some truly haunting moments and gasp-inducing set-pieces delivered as it reaches its disquieting climax.

It's all horribly addictive. You're compelled to keep clicking that "end turn" button one more time, inching closer to an interlocking web of different goals, watching your domain grow and spread, star systems turning from neutral grey to your chosen faction colour as you go.

It's a huge game, in other words, and it's tough enough to ensure that you'll move through it fairly carefully. Throw in a scrappy kind of handicraft charm, ignore a selection of little annoyances, and Rainbow Moon becomes a bit of a blast.

It's playful, subversive, irreverent and, at times, impudent, revealing a darker, more left-field side to Nintendo that increasingly stays hidden. Let it out, we say. Let it out.

A simple music game. But, for someone who grew up with these myths wallpapering their imagination, it is a complex vehicle for emotion. Final Fantasy may be a loose, somewhat obnoxious umbrella term for a collection of games of mixed message and quality, but Theatrhythm succeeds in touching upon some true magic within its bounds.

If Beenox had been allowed the time to build on that foundation - to add more life and colour to Spidey's world, to construct more compelling reasons to explore and develop your abilities - then it could have earned the adjective of its title. The Passable Spider-Man just doesn't have the same ring.

Spelunky's astonishing creativity and the spectacular depth that opens up as you make progress make it easy to forget that it's also an extremely competent platformer, with tight, poppy controls that work far better on an Xbox 360 pad than they ever did with a computer keyboard.

Overall, London 2012 is a lot better than I expected on a presentational level and in its best-realised events. But the lazy repetition of dull mechanics throughout the poorer activities (gymnastics, diving) means there's as many bores as scores.

Apart from the (sadly) expected Bethesda hiccups - erratic quest markers, odd spawn glitches - there's nothing really wrong with Dawnguard. At the same time, there's nothing here that demands 1600 Microsoft Points' worth of attention. If all you want is a solid side quest and some good loot, this will scratch that itch. If you were hoping for something more epic and ambitious, keep waiting.

It's certainly not about to reach out to anyone who doesn't like wargames, nor appeal to anyone who wants the broader scope of the Civilization series, but it does a perfectly good job as a tombola of fantasy combat nonsense, full of new and wonderful and silly surprises.

A budget game, and Swift and her team can't be expected to match the perfect cohesion of Portal. The disappointment is that, in trying to do just that, they've undersold their own good ideas as well as inviting unflattering comparisons with a classic. Despite its frequent frustrations, it's a solid, intelligent puzzle adventure and represents good value for money, but it could have been much more by trying to be a bit less.

There are such a lot of shooters these days, and so many tend to blur into each other if you're not careful. This one won't, however - and that's quite an achievement.

Would Heavy Armor be a better game if it ditched Kinect and focused purely on the tried-and-tested buttons? In all honesty, no - because without the novelty of raising your arm to pull down a periscope or punch your fleeing co-pilot in the face, this would be a comparatively dull experience.

It's simply a phenomenally assured game, a pleasure to explore, and bursting with barely contained enthusiasm for its comic-book universe.

An amazing game, easily one of the best I've played in any medium. Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is its best video game translation yet, a perfectly pitched blend of hard strategy and endless tinkering with unlocks that just keep on coming.

After spending several days exclusively on Close Quarters matches, I dipped into a Rush match on Kharg Island and in the first five minutes shot down a helicopter with a rocket launcher, crashing it into an enemy jet for a spectacular double kill. That is why I play Battlefield.

The true strength of Heroes of Ruin is in the pleasing flexibility of the online experience - and it's a model Nintendo itself could learn a few things from.

Spectacularly miserable licensed fare - a tie-in game that recalls the bad old days when a movie title was leased out to some mom-and-pop developer in the middle of Siberia and put together with the help of a broken woollen loom and old chopsticks.

This compilation captures Ratchet & Clank at their innovative, genre-bending best. Great games at a great price make for a compelling if disappointingly businesslike package. If you have any fondness for the platforming genre, you owe it to yourself to sample this greatest hits compilation from arguably the last worthy faces to grace the genre.

A strategy smorgasbord rather than a focused expansion of any one area.

Grasshopper's latest really is a bit of a lollipop: it's sugary, colourful, insubstantial - and perhaps a bit sickly with it.

4am is too obfuscated for serious music producers who will grow frustrated at the limited number of samples and the lack of visual feedback over which tracks and effects are active at any one time. And the experience is also too inscrutable for beginners, who will find themselves lost in the matrix of noise, unsure of how it may be truly directed or tamed. A fascinating toy, then, but a toy nonetheless.

Virtua Fighter may no longer be at the cutting edge, but Final Showdown proves that it still runs deeper than any of its peers.