Valve have once again managed to transform a genre, and taken pure gaming pleasure to brand new, unthought of heights. The sheer number of moments you'll be astounded by the graphical touches, by the storyline, by the sheer polished nature of the title, and even the incredible level design is quite astounding.

Once you have dominated the death match realm, you can truly call yourself either an expert gamer, or an obsessive stinking nerd.

Though I may not agree that the style they did this game in isn't the best for the series, as everything seems a bit awkward in its non-realism cartoony world. Still, you find little time to complain when you're engaged in its vast world and incredible gameplay.

Take a large measure of "GTA III"; add a sprinkle of "Vice City", freshly sliced sprigs of nineties gang culture; stir in dashes of "Manhunt", "Fable", and "Dance-Dance Revolution" to taste, then mix in a nitro-powered-blender from hell. Result? Ten out of ten.

The end still lands with a blindsiding jolt. It doesn't help that the last moments of gameplay are so anticlimactic. Regardless of the game's end and its other problems, it takes a fool to say that Halo 2 is a bad game.

Slick, pulse-pounding fun that will have you shouting happily at the top of your voice in shock at the addictive and visceral action onscreen...[But t]o see the computer rewarded for slick driving, and yet not lose anything for crashing is a demoralising and frustrating experience that detracts from the single-player game.

In some ways the game feels rushed as it has a fair few bugs and missing features that are referred to in game. Also the inventory is not the best as it can be hard to find what you are looking for.

The levels are fantastically designed and when you get the chance to learn the levels and play with similarly skilled players the gameplay goes into overdrive. It's the kind of revolutionary online game that was promised at the beginning of Live, it makes such a change to the diet of FPS' and racing games.

A totally different atmosphere has finally graced the scene, and its certainly nothing to complain about, since the same old atmosphere has never been given a break from the start.

With a sublime mix of a humorous storyline, fantastic weaponry, some pure comedy moments, and some amazingly solid platforming sections, there's very little to criticise in Ratchet and Clank 3.

It may be nothing new, but it does each part so incredibly well that you cant help but feel the overall polished feeling of the game is something innovating in today’s world of rush releases. If you need yet another shooter, buy this and you’ll fall in love all over again.

The sheer addictive quality and the fact that Capcom have (once again) gone completely against the grain for the recent trend of titles on this generation of consoles brings about a delight that very few games manage to inflict upon their game players.

The game may not stretch out into an epic fifty-hour quest but it is wonderfully consistent throughout and it's streamlined structure means your interest never wavers for the oh-so-small amount of time it takes to complete.

The addictive quality, and sheer joy to play that were very much there in abundance in the 97/98 and 01/02 iterations of the game has returned, and been incredibly well complemented by some tweaks, and fantastic additions to the overall package.

The fact that the game can be quite easily completed within 10 hours of play may very well put a few people off making the purchase. It has to be said however that these 10 hours of game play are some of the best you'll play in the last few years.

On your first go you'll be left wondering what all the fuss is about, but give it ten minutes and you'll find that your GBA will have to be prised from your cold dead hands.

In simple terms, there just isn’t enough in the game that manages to firmly grab you and take you on a gameplay experience that warrant a higher score.

Problems do arise however, mainly down to the computer AI. At times they can act obscenely professional, and at others fairly dumb.

Paper Mario 2 is full to the brim with that classic magical gameplay that only Nintendo can produce. It's witty; it's fun, and highly original in terms of both visual style and gameplay. Even if you hate RPGs, you can't go wrong with this little gem.

Graphical flair, addictive gameplay, and a variety of multiplayer modes that will attract a whole new group of gamers see’s Colin McRae Rally 04 on the PC as one that we can all recommended with great pleasure.

The main failing of the game. It's short. Veterans can get through the game in about eight hours, beginners about fifteen. Even so, I enjoyed every single minute I spent with the game, something I can't say for other quest games that are longer.

It’s almost difficult to put into words how brilliant the game is. It seems to embody everything that gaming is about – pure fun, lacking any frustration at all, requiring the simplest of button presses to absorb you into a world full of colour and beauty that you will get lost in for hours on end.

Just a few little flaws with the sometimes simplistic combat, and the fact that there’s not really anything here that we haven’t seen in the previous titles (although its done much better in this third instalment), means that Onimusha will never be remembered in the same kind of regard as say the "Resident Evil" series.

In the long run, every RPG enthusiast would likely agree that Fable, though not as sophisticated or profound an experience as some other RPG's, is still as purely fun to play as any other title available on the Xbox.

“Merely” a fantastically addictive, and quite easily one of the very best in the genre to date.

Perhaps if it had the graphical accompaniment, and the in depth storyline that it deserves, we could be looking at a game that will be remembered as fondly as "Final Fantasy VII."

The gorgeous visuals coupled with some brand new, incredibly realistic physics do draw you into the whole world. But then there are certain anomalies. For example, the loss of localised damage.

While it's possible if you're a fan of the originals to get to grips with this, and enjoy it throughout, for everybody else, Jak 3 is a beautiful, yet disappointing game. It does a lot, but only gets some of it right, and in the end you'll just want to skip whole sections and see the ending.