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.

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."

UFO isn’t perfect, but it does breathe enough life into a genre that hasn’t seen enough action recently. You could do a lot worse.

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

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.

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.

I'd suggest you treat The Red Star like you would a dead dog full of lovely cream cakes: ignore the stench of old mank and dig right in to the deliciousness!

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.

A curio for fans with money to burn only, I think.

The only real problem with this expansion is finding the time to play it.

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.

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.

What needs to be taken into consideration with Chili Con Carnage is that despite its lack of substance, and tendency to milk the ridiculous for all it's worth, it's the kind of game that can be turned on for a quick burst of action and then thrown aside until the next time it takes your fancy, something which a lot of PSP games have failed to do, and something that encompasses the whole concept of handheld gaming.

An Average game, with a capital A. it has lots of things that are nice about it and some that are not great. In places it plays ok, in others not. It seems entirely right that the game has been set in ancient mythical China as the concept of Ying and Yang appears to be in full flow here.

If you've ever felt that Mario needed more guns, explosives, and the ability to drive up to a villain in a sports car, then get out and throw the sports car at the villain's head, or that GTA would be vastly improved if the lead character was an indestructible mute on a pogo stick, then this is the game for you. It's just lacking a certain meatiness that (and here's that name again) the GTA games have in spades, even if they don't have quite the same level of originality that's been shown here.

Given how fast and exciting jet fighters are by their very nature, it takes a real effort (or in this case, lack of one) to make a game about them as pedestrian as this. Modified Air Combat Heroes? Mediocre Aeroplane Crap Hour, more like.

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

Naturally, nothing can currently compete with the current industry leaders, but with a little time and a lot of bug spray, Vanguard will surely rise far enough through the ranks to challenge the titans for their crowns.

A title that by nature seems much better suited to the PC - on the Xbox it never really endears enough for players to persevere and get past the initial awkwardness, and the strategy control schemes are just a bit too long-winded and cack-handed to pull off well on a joypad.

It hasn’t moved from its niche within the RTS genre, but without compromising a single pixel of depth Paradox has managed to simplify and streamline the experience. Possibly Paradox’s finest title yet, certainly the most pleasing.

Most games are labours of love that many people have obviously spent a lot of time on. Patriots, however, feels like it was made in an afternoon by three bored computer science students. Please avoid this.

This game is unlike anything you'll have ever played before. From the sharp dialogue to the memorable graphics, this is a refreshing challenge for the weary adventure genre.

It’s the type of game that’s near impossible to put down once it’s been started and greatly encourages replay through the notoriety scoring system.

Predictably simple, brilliant, and delightful.

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.

Perseverance is the key, but a lot of people might walk away from it before they master the more demanding elements. This is a shame, as there's a cracking think-first-shoot-later game waiting to be discovered, but the (sometimes overly) cerebral nature of things coupled with that crushing toughness will doubtless be too much for some.

Is it better than "Wind Waker"? Yes – much better. Is it better than "Ocarina of Time"? That’s one that might need some retrospective analysis in a couple of years to figure out, but it's certainly going to be a close call.

Our advice is this - snap up this underrated little racer, because you won't regret it. It might not offer a billion options and a trillion tracks, but for the time it lasts you'll be playing with a ruddy great big grin on your face.