While never terrible, Darkspore feels like it's had its heart surgically removed. All the components for a giddily stupid, aesthetically imaginative action RPG are here. Somehow, however, they combine into a shambling golem that knows its basic purpose, but not a whole lot else.

If you loved Words With Friends, then it's almost certain that you'll waste just as much time here. Just don't blame me for corrupting your innocent mind.

Yes, just to add an even greater degree of random nonsense, you can shake the device to jog the coin a little, and therefore give you a chance to influence its direction. Once you start employing this tactic, of course, you can't bloody well stop, and so spend most of the game spasming like a drunk with an involuntary tic.

In spite of its steep learning curve, dearth of content, and lack of depth (both figuratively and literally), Steel Diver grew on me. It may have less to do with being a submarine commander than Trauma Center does with being a doctor, but it's a novel premise nonetheless, and the tactile fidgeting with the sub's controls is strangely rewarding.

Amidst the unremitting chaos, there's something fractured to admire in Trouble Witches Neo, especially if you can drag a friend into some co-operative mayhem. At least download the trial, but maybe get into the spirit first by putting on some Elton John shades, wearing a pink wig and wolfing down a big bag of Haribo.

Still, this is Cave we're talking about - the masters of Stress Gaming. What did you expect?

Unfortunately, it also features some of the things that remind us why adventure games fell out of the mainstream, with tedious fetch quests, aggravating scenarios and a spirit-crushing trash-sorting mini-game conspiring to gradually strip the joy out of it all.

For the most part, you're left plodding and prodding around a series of mildly engaging scenarios, wishing that a spark of wry creative genius could just kick it up a notch.

The core strength of the experience ensures Virtua Tennis 4 is best in class where it matters, on the court. Likewise, a well-structured World Tour mode, while slightly anachronistic in its straight Japanese presentation, provides a sense of journey and progression that is wholly engaging. But the motion controls, core selling points for many buyers, are woefully implemented and provide little interest or value.

The core strength of the experience ensures Virtua Tennis 4 is best in class where it matters, on the court. Likewise, a well-structured World Tour mode, while slightly anachronistic in its straight Japanese presentation, provides a sense of journey and progression that is wholly engaging. But the motion controls, core selling points for many buyers, are woefully implemented and provide little interest or value.

The game is a gradual reconnaissance into your capabilities as a leader. The smaller battles hone your self-awareness and prepare you for those glorious life-or-death crucibles – there's at least one per stage – where the screen bursts into a Technicolor fog of war, with glowing power-ups layered on top of energy bars on top of exploding missiles.

Don't play Outland because you expect it to be charming and filled with personality, then: play it because of the swooping, speeding cleverness of its design. Play it because of the craft.

It's about getting behind the rhetoric and gaining a meaningful understanding of the many dreadful things we're doing to our home.

If Mercenaries Vs was a basic online extra on a full-fledged mobile Resident Evil, you might forgive it, but as a standalone release it has no redeeming qualities. Come on Capcom, you can do better than this.

But even with the 2600 stuff taken out of the equation, nine quid for the whole lot is reasonable value, and if you're only interested in certain titles, you can buy each one in 59p packs.

Once again it comes down to this: superb pop songs and amazing choreography, wrapped up in a package which could be more polished and comprehensive but which does the job. Good times.

This is a game about singing and dancing along to some of the greatest pop records ever made. Perfect for parties, it's also ideal for entertaining small children, unlike oh see why'd you have to go and spoil it all right at the end.

Some games are so excruciatingly terrible that you feel compelled to review them, if only as a benevolent act of public service to ward off the curious and daft.

It doesn't help that you're saddled with an inelegant control set-up that demands constant use of all four shoulder buttons at once.

But if you're the kind of hardy soul who positively revels in merciless treatment, then a couple of quid is a small price to pay for such joyful puzzle punishment.

If you can adapt to the control eccentricities, there's plenty to recommend, but you might find it too much like hard work at times.

If you can adapt to the control eccentricities, there's plenty to recommend, but you might find it too much like hard work at times.

At its best, Red River surpasses Ubisoft's original Ghost Recons for squad-based tactical play. But it's the presentation of the story – not the broad-canvas story, but the story of four marines and their staff sergeant – that marks it out as something new.

The series has always ridden in the wake of its own spectacle, but after years of unfocused deviation, we finally have an evolution that demonstrates clear progress. It's the best 3D game in the series by a long way, and that's because it embraces the 2D heritage which always made Mortal Kombat its own kind of game.

Were it not for the outdated visuals and functional presentation, Prejudice would easily be worth a full-price purchase. It is, quite simply, the best multiplayer shooter since Battlefield: Bad Company 2. As a budget digital download, it's ridiculously good value.

Portal is perfect. Portal 2 is not. It's something better than that. It's human: hot-blooded, silly, poignant, irreverent, base, ingenious and loving. It's never less than a pure video game, but it's often more, and it will no doubt stand as one of the best entertainments in any medium at the end of this year. It's a masterpiece.

I would say that EA has landed a knockout blow to the competition, but that would probably result in actual violence against my person, so I won't. Anyway, it's good. You should get it.

If you're prepared to expend the requisite effort, there's a decent game of golf to be had here, but there's substantial room for improvement.