Disposable entertainment designed to be enjoyed unashamedly and uncritically. It's a game to pull out at parties, not obsess over: trashy, garish, stupid and - if all that appeals to your inner 13-year-old girl - terrific fun.

The opportunity to revisit Human Revolution is a welcome one, but this is a competent expansion rather than an unmissable one.

It's a role-playing game in the most literal sense of the phrase, a game in which you're encouraged to give in to the fantasy, and to see what life is like when it's composed of rooftop brawls and zip-line getaways. Animations, traversal mechanics, takedowns: they're all building towards the same thing. In Arkham City, you become Batman.

Rewarding and frustrating in equal measure, but rarely boring, it's a memorable dose of mass slaughter.

WRC 2 is a very slightly improved game, but a year on, gaming has left it behind.

For all its effortless charm, the game ultimately offers a window into an immersive world, fires up the imagination and then tells its young players to simply mimic the actions of others. That's enough to amuse kids, but it won't inspire them for long.

The absence of any tutorial mode makes it an uphill battle for newcomers, while committed rugby fans will probably be put off by its lack of depth. New Zealand games don't even begin with the Haka, and where's the fun in that?

Guardian Heroes is one of the most comprehensive and generous ports on Xbox Live Arcade, a game that has been lovingly updated to suit the contemporary hardware.

Under the hood, Namco's designers have upgraded the series' engine and mechanics in effective and interesting ways, making this the strongest Ace Combat in a decade.

Its rough edges may have been sanded down, but in the process some of its unique personality has been lost. At a time where games like Dark Souls aren't afraid to put players through the wringer, it's disappointing that a title from Capcom of all publishers should feel, much like its doughy protagonist, a little soft around the middle.

With Binding, McMillen and Himsl created the rules of the world and then set it in motion. Yet this game is nearly as much fun as Super Meat Boy, and more profound. It proves that there's more than one way to make a masterpiece.

It's just a waste of time. Too clumsy to satisfy any action gaming urge, and too wrapped up in its own turgid mythology to realise it's getting things so badly wrong, releasing it right before the onslaught of massive winter releases is a decision more audacious than any design choices in the game itself.

The series' steely heart has softened, revealing a game that's as exhaustive as it is exhilarating and that's now been infused with a little extra passion. Forza has always been a series to admire, but now it's a little easier to fall in love with it too.

If you're from the crowd that remembers it the first time around, you'll get the chance to revisit an artful and wonderfully atmospheric gaming oddity filled with sudden deaths and clever set-pieces. If you're new to it, you're probably in for an hour or so of intrigued confusion, followed by a quick trip to a FAQ.

Come not for the enticing Game of Thrones name, certainly not for the ugly graphics, clunky interface (as appears to be Cyanide's habit of late) and soulless writing, but instead, perhaps, for what genuinely is an ambitious new take on real-time strategising. With verve and wit and gloss, Genesis could have been the start of something fascinatingly, enthrallingly cruel: as it is, it's a song of needless branding and sad compromise.

Between the strangely absent humour and the ill-advised diversions into generic shoot-em-up territory, Rochard squanders enough of its potential to hold it back from something truly greatness. The tragedy is that this greatness can still be glimpsed, resulting in a game that invites passionate defence but never quite earns it.

Judged on game design and content, then, it's slightly anachronistic, but as a toy box full of things you can only do in games, Rage is warm-hearted and refreshing. It's not going to change the world, but it does serve as a timely reminder of that other thing id Software games always did besides smashing through some new technological barrier.

If entertainment is fun without failure and progress without pain, you'll have to find it somewhere else. But you'll be missing out on one of the best games of the year.

Fans of Scott and Cameron's fiction will be delighted to see this iconic universe recreated in miniature, while anyone hankering after a 2D Metroid (let's face it, we're not likely to get one from Nintendo any time soon) will be equally satisfied.

If you're looking for a more entertaining game of attacking football - and you can laugh about it when one of the game's many remaining rough edges fires a moment of absurdity into a finely poised multiplayer game against a fierce rival - then PES 2012 is well worth investigating.

Unlike movies, it's rare that games are so bad they're good. The rubbish ones are usually so unplayable that they're not worth plodding through. X-Men: Destiny is the exception that gets just enough right to be fun, while being sloppy enough elsewhere to be good for a laugh. It's the best kind of disaster.

A relic of a bygone era that Capcom has done nothing to reinvent for modern audiences with this reissue. Yet beneath its off-putting anachronisms there is a worthwhile, menacing game - for those with the eyes to catch it.

Buy MotoHeroz, by all means - it's cheerful and fun while it lasts, with some levels that compare with the developer's very finest work. But in the context of what else is out there, and more importantly by RedLynx's own very high standards, this is, at best, above average.

On the one hand, it's perfect for handheld play to make those boring commutes fly by, but on the other you'll probably be unable to stop playing and get run over on the way to work. Your choice, really.

A step forward, and after playing FIFA 12, going back to previous entries in the series seems almost unimaginable. It's another step closer to reality, and this time it's a very welcome one.

The curious structure of Burnout Crash makes the overall experience one of giddy highs punctuated by fist-clenching lows, and as such it's very difficult to recommend with any confidence.

Fans angry that they need to fork out more money to see the "real" ending of the game can rest easy. The events of Lonesome Road build to a suitably apocalyptic climax, but it has none of the depth, pace or meaning of the face-off between House, Caesar and the NCR that rounded out the original storyline. Completists will want to see it through, just to say they did, but it's a shame to see such an epic atomic age narrative go out with a whimper rather than a bang.

In an age where self-consciously clever design can become an end in itself, there's something reassuring about a game that opts to be so deliciously old-fashioned, yet offers a deceptive amount of depth via well balanced upgrades and a robust scoring system.