While FIFA 11 may be the better, more polished and controllable simulation of football, in many respects PES 2011 is the more charismatic of the two games. If you're only interested in the finished article then you might want to wait another year for further progress, but in the meantime PES fans can hold their heads high, and fans of the beautiful game are on the road to being spoiled for choice again in light of this encouraging instalment.

It's cute and clever, then, but still more than a little clunky.

From the outset, they've dulled the bold strokes of the Alan Wake concept in a desperation to ensure that everyone got the complete experience. Well, I got it. And I'm left pining for what could have been.

The idea of an interactive comic as narrative expansion is a sound one, but Ignition entirely fails to do the concept justice.

With goofy stupidity and smart one-liners pepping up the otherwise simple gameplay, it's the kind of game you'll happily trudge through just to see what nonsense Twisted Pixel can throw at you next. Frankly, it's worth it for the stat screen song alone.

So even though the wait continues for a 3D Castlevania that truly matches the elegance, complexity and spatial intelligence of the 2D games, this is a polished and enjoyable blast of musty Gothic action in its own right.

Its back-to-basics approach strips away much of the pointless frippery of the modern JRPG without stripping out the satisfaction of playing them. The DS isn't short of absorbing RPGs, but 4 Heroes of Light is a worthwhile addition, particularly for anyone with fond memories of simpler, happier times for Japanese role-playing.

Only dedicated deadheads need apply.

So, while Hydrophobia breaks new water, it treads old ground. The systems beneath the ebb and flow of its technical accomplishment are archaic and, without exception, lack finesse.

At its best FIFA 11 is enormous fun and brilliantly engineered, but in its battle to be more varied and realistic it has lost some of its momentum, and off the pitch returns are starting to diminish too.

At its best FIFA 11 is enormous fun and brilliantly engineered, but in its battle to be more varied and realistic it has lost some of its momentum, and off the pitch returns are starting to diminish too.

The game's central conceit, which has you infiltrating giant towers with the aim of bringing them down from the inside, encourages uninspiring, repetitive internal environments, a problem the game's art team fails to overcome.

It's revealing that Warriors' most famous track, Bohemian Rhapsody, is the one that most clearly highlights its limitations.

The Borderlands gameplay is still as strong as ever. This may be more of the same, but when the same is this good, it's hard to feel too aggrieved, even if it never quite feels like the experience is worth another 800 Points (£6.29 on PS3 and PC).

As well-intentioned as this remake probably was, the harsh truth is that the gameplay hasn't aged well. If you can stomach even a quarter of the game's 16 levels, you'll deserve a Medal of Honour for special feats of tolerance.

The best F1 season in years deserves the best F1 game in years – thankfully, that's exactly what it's got.

With simple, intuitive controls making combat and exploration a pleasure, what starts off as a fairly routine blade-swishing blizzard soon settles into a more interesting groove. With secret-packed levels offering countless opportunities to poke around, it's a formula that's familiar but satisfying.

With simple, intuitive controls making combat and exploration a pleasure, what starts off as a fairly routine blade-swishing blizzard soon settles into a more interesting groove. With secret-packed levels offering countless opportunities to poke around, it's a formula that's familiar but satisfying.

For all the hours it eats up, outside of its multiplayer it gives disappointingly little back, and it will continue to give very little back until Firaxis bites the bullet and admits that there are aspects of Civilization which deserve not just to be improved, but fixed.

With simple, intuitive controls making combat and exploration a pleasure, what starts off as a fairly routine blade-swishing blizzard soon settles into a more interesting groove. With secret-packed levels offering countless opportunities to poke around, it's a formula that's familiar but satisfying.

Sure, the poop gags are a little wearisome, but a sprinkling of the old Gilbert magic makes it a worthwhile ride.

Hopefully the community will build and become more sociable over time, but until that happens Clone Wars Adventures is a nice website full of decent mini-games with a less than rewarding membership scheme.

Reach captures what you love about Halo, refining it on the multiplayer side and preserving the fluid, dynamic, ever-surprising campaign action that makes most rivals look like clumsy shooting galleries.

Tumble's never quite as outright fun as something like Boom Blox, but along with Sports Champions' table tennis mode it's a terrific showcase for Move, and another reason to get excited about the possibilities of motion control.

At its best, it's arguably the most accomplished Phantasy Star yet, and undoubtedly the new king of loot-hoarding on the PSP. We just hope next year's Sega-developed Phantasy Star Online 2 does more to reinstate this classic series to its former glory.

It's a brave experiment in the genre, a more solid package than the Penumbra games and stops at nothing to make you truly, deeply uncomfortable.

Presentation is what lets Sports Champions down, and not just when it comes to the characters. The environments appear bland, empty and dated.

Nine unspectacular turn-based mini-games, none of which you're likely to play alone or on a long-term basis. No matter how much you've been drinking.