It’s brilliant and it’s bizarre. It’s also a contradiction - plenty of mindless violence where the screen literally drenched with blood coupled with subversion and thought-provoking symbolism and metaphor. It’s not a high-school English class, though, it’s a game. It’s great fun if you can get into it, but if you can’t it’s probably not surprising.

Compared with Halo 2 there is certainly more substance and less of the feeling that it's just an excuse for a multiplayer mode.

It brings some fresh ideas to the table and it's very polished.

Don’t let the sour taste left by "Driv3r" put you off. Parallel Lines doesn’t re-invent the wheel, but what it does, it does very well.

As far as gameplay is concerned, Ghosthunter is obviously flawed (although it's by no means unplayable). However, as an experience, Ghosthunter is quite accomplished – it does a great job of developing its characters and it's genuinely spooky on more than one occasion.

Straddles the line between good design and mediocrity so consistently that it's hard to love it or hate it.

This game is for the kiddies and most hard-core gamers will not find anything that keeps them playing to the end, but as a game for parents to buy for the youngsters, it's not a bad buy at all.

We're happy to report that it's actually pretty good.

A huge disappointment. The game certainly isn’t up to Namco’s standards, and although it can be occasionally enjoyable, there are numerous racing games which tear strips of R.

It's not as good a game as "Time Crisis 3."

Had Studio Cambridge spent as much time tweaking and refining the gameplay mechanics as they did reworking the audio and visuals, this could have been a truly great remake.

A surprisingly competent simulation.

If the control had been more intuitive and the combat had been tightened up, the game could have been more enjoyable, but as things stand, most should give Sony's new shooter a wide birth.

Alias isn't the disaster that it could have been, but it doesn't have what it takes to sneak past today's heavyweights.

Disappointingly, preprogrammed machines is a fitting description for the thugs that supposedly threaten Sydney's life in Alias.

This is a game that really benefits from its electronic transformation – it is far superior to its paper and pen counterpart. And this is coming from a self-confessed techno-phobe.

Perhaps if the developers had spent less time trying to blur the lines between roleplaying games and action titles, they could have focused their efforts on compelling combat – something that should be important in a game all about slicing and burning everything in sight.

Aside from dragging it through the mud, Rogue Agent does almost nothing with the GoldenEye name.

Rogue Agent does feature a fully-fledged multiplayer component, but it's just not much fun. The maps are poorly designed and the game modes are somewhat limited ' at least Xbox Live and PlayStation 2 online play seems relatively lag-free.

The explosions appear fake, the animation is a little wooden and the fact that bodies disappear is just laughable. The sound design is much better ' the music is great, and respected actor Dame Judy Dench adds some weight to the otherwise poor production values.

Given your dim-witted team mates and the haphazard aiming, you're going to die quite often (mostly because of incoming grenades), and replaying such huge chunks of the levels is really frustrating.

It’s remarkable that Luxoflux, developer of True Crime: New York City, managed to take such a huge step backwards in the three years since the release of the first game.

Given your dim-witted team mates and the haphazard aiming, you're going to die quite often (mostly because of incoming grenades), and replaying such huge chunks of the levels is really frustrating.

An incredibly disappointing game that may drive a nail into the coffin of this once-promising franchise.

A cheap game offering even cheaper thrills. If you're a die-hard fan, rent the game, but be prepared to be bitterly disappointed.

If you enjoyed the first two Driver titles, chances are you'll have some fun with Driv3r, but anyone looking for a solid, polished production should steer well clear.

The poor controls and physics problems are exacerbated by a laundry list of bugs.

Given your dim-witted team mates and the haphazard aiming, you're going to die quite often (mostly because of incoming grenades), and replaying such huge chunks of the levels is really frustrating.

The game fails to tell an interesting (or even a cohesive) story and you'll often wonder why you're doing what you're doing.

It is worth noting, just finally, that die-hard fans will get to meet Mike Hagger and Guy from the original Final Fight, but even these cameos don’t justify playing this game.