Painkiller Overdose is definitely for fans of the series. Frantic blasting action might not suit everyone but you can't really knock it until you've tried it.

Overall this game can’t really decide whether it’s strategy or arcade and consequently doesn’t really work as either, being too generic and limited as a fighting game and with not enough depth to be a really good turn-based strategy game.

The bitter irony of this game is that, despite the purpose of videogames being to relieve one from boredom, this one will actually drive you further into the depths of tedium.

What this game lacks is substance. The missions, the plot and so on are as easily thrown together as they are to complete. The quick bursts of fun to be had here are indeed intense, and are partially flanked by excellent graphics, but there’s no longevity in a paper-thin premise. Arcade gaming yes, just not in the maddeningly addictive sense.

It's a really short game that, in the end, feels like a horribly drawn-out tutorial chapter of a bigger, better title.

It has a fantastic score, an excellent cast and some genuinely good ideas, but its inability to find balance between narration and game, along with poor execution, means that this is one purple headed monster you won’t want to be playing with.

While the stealth mechanic is implemented fairly well, and enemy AI at least stands up to initial tests, there’s just far too little excitement throughout the entire course of play.

It’s still far from perfect – poor graphics, camera problems, AI all take their toll – but they took a bold step and it largely paid off.

Gothic 3 is a game that punches above its weight. To a certain degree it holds out well against competing RPG games but with so many bugs and lingering issues, it would be wise to hold off for a while until the dust settles.

Here’s a one word review – crap.

We're not in movie licence disaster territory here by any means, but things could have been a lot better and definitely should have been a wee bit longer.

A highly enjoyable title to while away at, offering a unique blend of "Syndicate" and "Drug Wars."

The whole thing screams ‘generic Ridge Racer game X’, with its borrowed tracks, borrowed handling and overall lack of depth.

What started off very promising ended up taking a bit of a nosedive – it doesn’t do anything better than the games it draws from.

Overall the game offers an in-depth experience with plenty of missions and lots of action to keep all the wannabe Biggles fans out there happy. So slap on your goggles, start your engines and take to the sky for some high flying action, Wings of War proves to be a rip-roaring ride in the skies.

The problem is the blatantly obvious lack of effort that went into this game.

Even though Wings over Europe has a lot of stiff competition from other games, I can’t seem to get the odd ‘leaning at 90 degrees’ sensation out of my head. There’s always a new trick or manoeuvre to attempt in a different mission in a different plane. Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to drop bombs.

Pros for Lineage 2 include the good graphics, castle sieges and the sound. Cons include the interface, the blatant lack of interesting quests (especially for low level characters/delivery boys) and the soul sucking experience grind.

Paradise City does a lot of things well (the RPG systems are well put together, as are most of the RTS elements), but it never once dares to do something fresh. When it fouls up, it’s something blatant that shouldn’t have happened.

SpaceForce: Rogue Universe has plenty of potential, but unless the long wait times between action sequences are addressed (along with the other problems I’ve mentioned above), the game is doomed to mediocrity, forever wandering among the stars.

The multiplayer offers one of the most addictive and accessible experience since the EyeToy, everyone can play and have fun doing so.

Perseus Mandate offers undeniable value for money. If you love first person shooters, you should really check it out.

This game is so flawed, so monotonous and deathly, deathly dull that I'm struggling to think of any reason whatsoever to waste your time and money on it.

A disappointment. It has a serious story but an ill-fitting cartoon look (or vice versa), it has fast-paced game elements tied to a slow, ponderous combat process and it’s too rough around the edges – though nothing is fundamentally wrong it has too many small flaws and they all add up.

There is something captivating about The Guild 2 that makes you put up with the bugs, the bad animations and the memory leaks.

It makes a welcome change from all the overcooked WWII games that just won’t stop coming out of the factories, although disappointingly enough, I didn’t catch a single whiff of Napalm. Probably not a good idea in the city. Probably.

Yet for all its minor flaws, Infernal fills a gap that has been filled on consoles by games like "Resident Evil" and "Gears of War."

A few nifty weapon ideas alone do not a good game make, and Koei would have been well advised to send this ham-fisted, yawnsome bum-up of a racer back for a bit more turbo charging.

Not an enthralling, tour-de-force of gaming but some great fun in short blasts, like more games should be.

A failed experiment.

The worst part of this game is getting around the hospital. Think track and groove. To get from triage to trauma 1 means a long walk, and a pretty standard route every time – you'd think there'd be a quick skip feature, but it's not there.

Despite the genuinely lovely mood created by the mid 1930s settings, haunting soundtrack and clever use of lighting, even the train full of believable – if not slightly stereotyped – personalities can’t make up for the lack of care gone into the unrewarding finish of Murder on the Orient Express.

Ultimately, ROTS is not out-and-out dreadful but it is offensively average.

If you stick with it, though, and you don't mind your games on the slow but strategic side, you should find a fun and inventive title hiding under all the faults.

In an odd way Chris Sawyer's latest creation is a victim of the very sub-genre he accidentally created, that of the cynical "tycoon' cash-in - from "Zoo Tycoon" to "Casino Empire." Perhaps a better title for Locomotion might have been "Chris Sawyer's Tycoon Tycoon."

I'll have to either return to watching paint dry or tuning in for Celebrity Big Brother…I think I'll opt for the paint, it's far more entertaining.

The graphics are beautiful and the interface easy to use. It’s humorous in a Benny Hill fashion and if your idea of a perfect afternoon is picking from twenty different flooring types then it’s definitely for you. All told, the perfect grown ups dolls house and yes, its got boobs.

The premise for basing a game on one of the stupidest and, at times, funny tv shows of the last few years might seem very sound, but this has missed it's target utterly and I think this is an enormous shame and an opportunity lost.

Kids thrive on new ideas, excitement and imagi-nation, and can easily handle complex situations and scenarios - none of which are on show here. Just because they’re young doesn’t mean they should make do with a bland, unimaginative, unchal-lenging and in parts quite shoddily finished effort.

This is one of those great but flawed games; if you’re up for the challenge then tackle it head on, you will be rewarded.

The RTS genre is already full to the brim with WWII clones and Frontline is nothing spectacularly different from anything we haven’t already seen.

Yet, for all its inventive environments and distracting gameplay attributes, the borderline nudity in Outlaw Volleyball Remixed, combined with an overabundance of ill-fitting arcade traits sullies the enjoyment well beyond reprieve.

Praise is due to the developers who have come up with a novel idea; however it would appear that they forgot to add a sense of rhythm.

With nineteen missions on offer and an Xbox Live feature that there is enough here to keep you going until Bungie's latest effort comes onto the marketplace.

The game is riddled with silly and clumsy flaws and there are numerous holes in the gameplay that make this a distinctly average game in a genre with so many far better alternatives.

Considering that Spartan had a core staff of a dozen people and 170 QA personnel means that the game is quite an achievement – Diablo 2 took closer to 2,000 people to create. In that respect it’s a very good game and something Slitherine can be proud of, but other than that it falls short of engaging.

This is one for the collection, deftly using it’s emphasis on character to make it stand out from the crowd.

For a fun party game - even one aimed at kids, who let's face it are just witless dwarves who'd be impressed by a cardboard box if it had a picture of a monkey on a skateboard on it - Viva Piñata is horribly oversimplistic, repetitive and just plain lacking in oomph.

With its limited playtime and a superfluously slapped-on storyline serving only to hinder the gameplay, Colosseum can only be a hit amongst subligaculum enthusiasts, likely occupying a special place alongside such gems as Conan or He-man: Masters of the Universe.

The real selling point of the latest LOW release is that it is obvious it was developed by wrestling fans for wrestling fans, Acclaim has even gone so far as to get Kevin Kelly to write commentaries for the official website.

Overall, it offers absolutely nothing new compared to the console version (save for a few extra issues making it slightly inferior), and it is highly unlikely it could serve as means to garner any new fans.

A solid, average platformer. We all know Namco is capable of better things, but at least this falls short of being poor.

Its main downfall is the fact that Ghost Rider boasts very little originality whatsoever.

I could go on and on about the other dreadful aspects of this game - the fact that there is virtually zero replay value because once you've solved the puzzles they never change, or the stupid setup that has speech subtitles appearing OVER parts of the screen you need to see to perform actions at some points - but I really can't be bothered.

Midnight Nowhere has the worst box art ever. Fact. That’s a stone cold, hard as nails fact. No getting around it, this box art is simply appalling. From the pathetic background picture to the cheap Photoshop job done on the text, it reeks.

Sadly, a lack of originality alongside somewhat flawed computer opponents, not to mention an almost non-existent soundtrack, leaves LA Duel still trying to catch up to the leaders.

We've got a complete duffer dressed up in some genuinely half-decent bling.

Nothing new for fans of the series and nothing that appeals to gamers, a game that had room for so much potential, sadly falls short in reality.

The graphics are shocking, the sound does little to add to the experience, the storyline is mediocre and the controls are unfriendly.

This is a below average, clunky game that I'm knocking an extra few bonus points off of for the sheer stupidity and laziness of the near-bordering-on-racial-profiling plot.

It’s not bad, but it’s not great either – it’s just plain average. That was good enough for Goldilocks but it sure as hell wasn’t good enough for me. Kreed is nothing more than a distinctly run-of-the-mill title and as a result I’d recommend that you download the demo first before purchasing it.

AvP is a classic example of a production-line movie cash-in.

My biggest problem with this game is the sheer fact that the “Thoroughly modern storyline” is anything but. In fact it is as about as exciting as a show about painting fences and watching them dry and is as easy to follow as tracking a goldfish in the pacific.

This is an absolutely diabolical game, a bloated, leaden, enjoyment-free shambles which Sonic Team should be ashamed to have their name on and you should under no circumstances part with any money for. The only way it could have been any worse is if a representative from Sega had put an actual dead hedgehog in every box.

In summary, I just can't recommend this because it has virtually no purpose and is horribly tedious - it says a lot that Sam Fox Strip Poker on the ZX Spectrum from 1986 actually had more of a point to playing it, even if that point was just to see an awful, monochrome drawing of a pair of oversized norks.

Aura 2 is terrible and I have no sympathy for it – Telltale Games have shown us with Sam & Max that you can still produce funny, clever, well designed and playable adventure games on a very low budget.

A dull and unimaginative affair and if you are unfortunate enough to receive this as a gift, you should start thinking about what you did to offend the person who gave it to you.

An utter disgrace. It’s tedious, blatantly made on a zero budget with zero effort, and consequently is about as much fun as spending a day transcribing random pages from the phone book.

If you can get over the fact that it’s a stealth game where you can’t be stealthy and the poor viewpoint then there is some entertainment in here.

Kazook is nothing but a host of buzzwords and heavily stereotyped characters mashed clumsily together with unoriginal games that quickly plummet into a repetitive tedium.

A formula that is very much out of date and bland by today’s standards.

And by God, when I find whoever told Vivendi about Fight Club and convinced them to make a game out of it, I’ll run their scrotum through a cheese grater.

So to sum up – it looks like a homebrew net Yaroze demo, sounds worse than a knackered monophonic mobile phone with the Crazy Frog ring tone on it, moves with all the fluidity and beauty of a giraffe trying to control a pedalo and is so shatteringly tedious and yawn-inducing you could mistakenly think you’ve contracted narcolepsy while playing it.

Falling stars was obviously designed with children in mind and I can happily say it's a fine game for them. The only problem is that one day, inevitably, a college art student will see it somewhere and it will spawn a cult, the likes of which we'd be a lot better off without.

Metal Heart: it’s like that funny looking pastry next to the apple Danish that looks delicious but I’m sure as hell not eating it!

Though it boasts a whole host of different modes in both the single and multiplayer game, as well as a variety of extras, including the ability to watch the two previously released music videos as many times as is necessary, in general it all feels far too much like it’s been thrown together in an attempt to squeeze the final drop of milk from the long dead and buried Crazy Frog cash cow.