Definitely an improvement over Donkey Kong Country; the levels are designed better and are more fun to play, but unfortunately retain the same frustrating challenge.

But if you throw away expectations of Metroid Prime: Volume 2, and instead think of it as Metroid: Echoes - a separate game - you'll realise that the changes Retro made are just as amazing as the transition to Gamecube was for the original.

Optimatch is annoying many online gamers; the Flood is annoying many offline players and lowers the replayability factor, and the storyline has gone in a completely different direction to where everybody assumed it would go.

Despite its downfalls, it still maintains solid gameplay and will be a winner with the kids.

Although it might not be much of a tennis simulator with a realistic attitude, it is still tennis at heart and will test your skills even if you're a pro in real life.

Excellent work has also been done with the voice acting of the characters. It is as if they hand picked the voices first and then made the looks of the characters to reflect the voices because the voices are well trimmed to the personality of the character they resemble.

Levels are often linear and heavily scripted.

It’s not quite the free-range RPG that we’ve been hoping for where we can prance along the fields on horses playing as Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli permanently, but its close enough to make for a great game.

There aren't as many improvements as we thought there would be, and with games such as "Wrestlemania 21" on the way for the Xbox, one would have expected that THQ would have released a much higher quality game than this one.

It's not quite the free-range RPG that we've been hoping for where we can prance along the fields on horses playing as Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli permanently, but its close enough to make for a great game.

Mio and Mayu hug each other quite a lot creating the perfect sense of fear as there's nothing scarier than watching two young girls being frightened out of their skins by ghosts.

The game however takes a mere 8-10 hours to beat for the average gamer, and Xbox Live extras only include one more downloadable level.

Once you get into the games antics you'll see that there's actually a solid foundation built for a good quality adventure game, with a nice famous cartoon character under your control.

While the melee fighting is undoubtedly excellent the magic element is the combat's greatest strength.

The fact that you can do whatever you want, gunning down rival gang members, impressing the girls, robbing the rich, breaking into the Army Depot, whether it is flying a plane, or pimping out your car, playing some pool, riding across country, the game play is endless.

As far as theme park sims go, RCT 3 is the bees knees. It's detailed, beautiful, complex, and with a few extras thrown in. Any fan of this genre will love this game.

The gameplay is fast, furious and responsive, with some incredible context sensitive throws and counters.

While the melee fighting is undoubtedly excellent the magic element is the combats greatest strength.

The game's detailed tutorial and isolated storyline pave the way for newcomers to the series, so if you've been contemplating becoming a pilot in the series that is Ace Combat, now is the time to do so.

Half the time you might find yourself falling asleep at the wheel, rather than getting too excited about Outrun 2. The first time you pop it in, it looks promising, but beyond the slick veneer there isn't much more to it than those first few minutes of excitement.

While it does lack in certain graphical aspects and contains some fairly linear worlds, the game's concept is unique and the transformation feature really adds a lot of variety to the gameplay.

It might be a good present for a lonely mate though, but that's about it.

Though the game features many replayability features the casual gamer won't be compelled to do so considering the fact that the game gets repetitive and difficult early on what with the constant fighting and all.

And, of course, you can't go past the amazingly destructible environments - they'll blow you away.

A great game, the game play is full of trepidation, well crafted and engaging. What makes MoV different from your standard FPS is the brilliant use of the scripted sequences to build up a story between Dean and his squad.

The graphics are pretty damn good and the single-player is fairly competent for a largely multiplayer game.

More boomerangs, much more diverse gameplay.

GameBiz is confident to suggest this title as a purchase for any gamer aged between the ages of eight and twelve.