With an identical look and feel to its predecessor, it's hard for anyone but the most hardcore of players to get excited. Battles of Ardania is a continuation, nothing more.

Combat is solid and dependable, the RPG elements are functional and decently presented, and there is a good 'just one more mission' addictiveness that'll keep you coming back for more if you let its charms sink in.

Even with those negative points and the fact that it doesn't add much to the series I still like Faith in Destiny. Despite showing its age at times the core game play is still entertaining and somewhat addictive.

In a year that has seen plenty of top-notch sports games, this is arguably the worst of the lot.

Both Terraria and Minecraft handle the basic mechanics of crafting and resource gathering better, and aside from an intriguing and visually enticing setting, there's nothing here that really makes Darkout stand out.

Simple, childish fun that never tries to be more than it can be, and younger kids will have a great time helping their favourite superheroes save the world. Anyone who has hit puberty, on the too light on real gameplay for your tastes.other hand, should steer clear as Super Hero Squad will be far.

Despite the shoddy graphics and performance, and a story that could use polish in its execution, Homefront: The Revolution has a solid foundation. It’s challenging and the mission variety in a pseudo open-world game is the best I’ve played in a while. It kept me engaged for its 22 hours. At the end, I felt satisfied. I hope to see another one with a bigger budget behind it.

It's dreadful.

To be honest there is very little that Backbreaker does wrong. Its only real drawback is that it is not an official NFL licensed game and misses out on the major draw of taking a team to the Super Bowl.

Ultimately though I found myself sat in front of my computer, scratching my unkempt beard and trying to answer the question: who is the game for?

Port Royale 3 is not a bad game, not by any means, and I'd say on the whole it does a better job of things than Patrician IV did – it's still not fantastic though. Definitely one to pick up cheap if you can find it, but still worth picking up all the same.

Simple, childish fun that never tries to be more than it can be, and younger kids will have a great time helping their favourite superheroes save the world. Anyone who has hit puberty, on the too light on real gameplay for your tastes.other hand, should steer clear as Super Hero Squad will be far.

A mediocre game that I didn’t mind spending some time on. There are enough interesting factors to be engaging, but enough drawbacks to keep it from reaching the levels of enjoyment that it had every possibility of achieving.

Sacred 2 was the sort of action-RPG you turned to once you’d exhausted better, more focused options in the genre. 17 years later, a decent remaster can’t mask what’s a largely plodding and miserable experience.

All of the issues that I’ve outlined with Metal Gear Survive essentially boil down to one thing: the vast majority of the game feels boring. It takes quite a long time for certain aspects of the game to stop feeling tedious, and its very easy to feel discouraged from playing altogether as it takes so long for the game to feel like its actually going somewhere. If you can be bothered to sit through hours of hunting, completing repetitive missions and accumulating skill points at a painfully slow rate, you’ll eventually feel comfortable enough to focus on the crazy story. If exploration and survival is your cup of tea, this one may be for you. If not, this is not worth your time.

It may go down as one of biggest anticlimaxes in gaming, but don't expect too much of it and you might enjoy it. I for one am going back to play it again, at least on PC. And besides, I'm sure Duke 5 will be the greatest game ever made.

It is a simple role-playing game for slower systems. You would get far more enjoyment from playing something such as "SpellForce: Order of Dawn" for the same cost.

Even relatively minor things like the inability to jump will grate, let alone more major concerns such as the control system. What could have been something rather special is simply a scattering of nice ideas, awkwardly actioned.

I can forgive the shonky voice acting, the monotony of the slaughter, the lack of free roaming. I can ignore the dull challenges, I can even forgive the second rate graphics, this is a slasher game and there is plenty of stabbing and hacking to keep you going, but what I can't forgive, in the end, is the dreadful monotony of stun to finishing move and back again.

Bland, boring, and turgid to the last - look to Tropico 4 for a fine example of micromanagement, or instead XCOM Enemy Unknown for turn-based kicks: Omerta: City of Gangsters deserves to be thrown in a trunk and taken "someplace up state."

Bedlam is a neat concept that has managed to result in a game that’s utterly bankrupt of creativity, polish, or fun. It’s a game that went so wrong at every turn that it makes you just feel bad for its developers. There’s nothing here but a bunch of half-hearted references and wistful nostalgia for old video games, both of which you can get plenty of for free on the internet.

It's not awful and, in a House of the Dead-while-standing-up kind of a way, it's acceptable, but only really worth buying if you have nothing else for the Kinect that you spunked money on and you've seen it going dirt cheap somewhere.

The Golden Horde is a pleasant shake up to the usual tried and true method of a RTS game, mixing light RPG to give the player the chance to better customise and tune their own war machine is an engaging feature. Unfortunately this also plays against as some won’t find it to their tastes.

Rise of Prussia is a solid but unspectacular slice of neoclassical strategy gaming that is worth a look if you are a die-hard fan of AGEOD's previous efforts, or if you're a strategy buff looking for a new challenge. And possibly if you have an obsession for white wigs.

With a huge amount of investment, there is a worthwhile and entertaining simulation underneath all of the confusion.

As cynical as it might be to release a quick follow-up to a third-person shooter in one of the most populated thematic genres of the last generation then, Sniper Elite Nazi Zombie Army 2 is nonetheless another diverting exercise in brainless co-op action.

Clunky, frustrating and a world away from the series best efforts, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia limps over the finish line, completing a spin-off trilogy and closing the door on a concept that simply deserved better.

Yet the novelty of airships and battles with giant sky-whales are simply not enough to save it from its flaws, painful as they are. Perhaps post-release support will allow Windforge to transform into the game I hoped it would be, but for now it sits as a flawed gem.

Simply grab them each separately (preferably when they each appear in the inevitable sale), and your life will be a whole lot more fulfilled.

There's still a bit of extra polish needed, not to mention, well, the rest of the game. If you like story and want to take yourself through the tale of the Gemini sector, then by all means give this game a go.

It's never satisfying to condemn any game but it's hard not to with Inversion. There are glimmers of nice ideas within, but the water is too muddied to see them clearly. All that's left is a bunch of mechanics that we've all seen before, and better implemented elsewhere.

PlayStation Move Heroes isn't awful, but it's a shame these grand old licences have been used for something not so grand.

If you've just come from a literary binge of A Song of Ice and Fire, or just had a marathon of HBO's high production TV show you might be tempted by the lure of Cyanide's A Game of Thrones - Genesis. However if you're that invested in George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy universe you're likely to be left pretty angry, whereas newcomers like me leave feeling just dazed and confused.

Necromunda: Underhive Wars is a capable strategy games full of tactical options, but the glacial pace will put more people off than draw them in.

Deadfall Adventures certainly has some problems but if you’re an Indiana Jones fan you really should be getting it.

Bodycount has been pinned as the spiritual successor to Black, but this couldn't be any further from the truth. The latter was full of quality at the end of the last generation's lifespan, while this title whimpers to a halt in a key point of 2011's gaming calendar.

Good intentions and sporadic success can only carry a campaign so far, and Sniper unfortunately falls well short of the quality benchmark in almost all respects.

Jurassic Park: The Game gets the licence utterly perfect, offering a thrilling rollercoaster ride (sometimes literally) of dinosaurs, tension and action, but still wise enough to slow down, let you and the characters catch their collective breath, and unwind with a simple puzzle or two.

Overall Darkness Within wasn’t a bad game…however it wasn’t a great game either. It’s a game with a lot of potential that felt like it just needed someone to tighten everything up across the board.

Krater presents an intriguing world, a new take on character development and clever design but at the same time the design choices to support its interesting mechanics are the negatives.

Kinect Joyride is not a game you should invest in, yet with a few tweaks here and there, it could have been something great.

All in all though I can’t think of a single reason you’d want to play Escape Dead Island over a thousand similar, better games on Steam. Most of them have zombies in them anyway.

Blades of Time never matches up to the well-executed time mechanic it so readily deploys.

The intelligent use of horror, intensity, and most importantly, subtleness has gone. While this game is only a diversion until Resident Evil 6 arrives, Capcom have done an amazingly awful job. Resident Evil used to be the trendsetter, the series everyone looked up to, now its identity has been de-constructed in a major way.

As a curiosity project for fans of the genre, I can only say that I’m glad Lords of Football exists; but as a full-price release it’s not something that can be readily recommended.

Defenders of Ardania is competently made but doesn't really excel in any particular area.

It’s extremely challenging and offers plenty of ways for you to keep challenging yourself with simple but precise mechanics. It would be nice if it looked better and the framerate stayed at 60 consistently but those problems don’t hurt what Mighty No. 9 is trying to do. What hurts Mighty No. 9 is that it’s not Mega Man. So if you want Mega Man, keep playing Mega Man. If you want a game in the spirit of Mega Man, Mighty No. 9 will definitely satisfy that desire.

Competent to the last, Alien Rage Unlimited will tick the boxes for anyone wanting to indulge in warfare, whilst perhaps parting ways from any sort of thought process for an hour or two.

It plays like a poor man's Call of Duty, copying everything except the stuff that makes the series enjoyable. It's unpolished, has terrible enemy AI, impossible stealth, boring multiplayer, a badly-told story, last-gen graphics, and the shooting is merely okay.

The whole affair just suffers from a lack of polish all round.

Dawn of Magic contains enough deep content and a pleasing enough approach to the genre to recommend a purchase, but only if you know what's in-store and don't mind the incessantly repetitive nature of the combat.

Bannermen’s appreciation of genre greats can be easily seen through the cracks in its shoddy construction. However, in between a single faction with a small, uninspired roster, bland story and writing, and very few options in terms of tactics and strategy, it’s tough to recommend. As rooted as it is in the genre’s past, it’s nowhere close to mastering what made RTS titles of yore great, ultimately being just a flimsy, soulless imitator.

It's a bit of a weird one then, as neither the story nor the action is particularly enjoyable, but neither is specifically bad either.

The game feels more like a web browser game than a console feature.

There are lots of things Duke does right however, like ridiculous levels of interactivity, variety in level design and for entertaining me personally all the way through.

Rather like last year's Amy, Lexis Numerique have created in Red Johnson's Chronicles: One Against All a game that appears to hold much promise, only to be let down by a ham-fisted implementation of the game mechanics. While it's nowhere near as bad as that game, One Against All's annoying puzzles and clumsy interface too often suck the joy out of progressing through its pulp plot, making it impossible to recommend to even the most committed of adventure game fans.

There are some half-decent ideas here - particularly the evolution of the hospital - and some fairly decent jump scares, however Daylight is too often too keen to rely on tropes that have been far better served elsewhere.

A lack of ideas and poor design just won't cut it in a year that sees Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare go head-to-head.

Gomo isn't a great example of the genre by any means, but it's nice to look at and a fun little diversion. I found it rather endearing.

I loved Empire Earth and still do to this day, but Empire Earth III is literally in a universe of its own. It barely takes anything of worth from its root and instead we are left with an unremarkable real-time strategy.

As it stands, there's hardly ever a reason to go beyond the obviously marked out route to the objective, as there'll not ever really be anything that interesting to find if you do.

AlthoughDoorways starts to find its feet in the concluding segments, the closing shots of the chapter feel desperately anticlimactic.

It's interesting, baffling and - at times - bizarre whilst it lasts, and if the community ultimately flocks around it during the coming weeks, you'll likely have a few hours' fun delving into multiplayer matches and figuring out your best build queues before moving on.

Kung-Fu Live isn't worth the 10 quid it costs on the PlayStation Store, especially when most PlayStation move titles charge just under double this price for a superior experience. Don't waste your PlayStation Eye on Kung-Fu Live.

Still the best Kinect game your correspondent has played.

In a year that has seen plenty of top-notch sports games, this is arguably the worst of the lot.

Even if you spend the time to unlock your skills and build that warrior-archer-tank-damager behemoth you had in mind, what's the point if the activities you're engaging in are so threadbare and unappealing for the most part?

With the amount of great action games on the market there is simply no reason that you should give Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z a try. It is a shoddily made, awful mess.

If you’re into in-depth management of a park then Adventure Park may be for you, but for everyone else the design problems, unattractive menus, misplaced priorities, and numerous other flaws adds up to a tedious experience. Worst of all though, Adventure Park is bland, lifeless and lacking in both character and imagination.

All-in-all, the game can be a lot of fun, but basic gameplay controls and mechanics stifle its ability to really make a lasting impact on you other than one of untimely-rage quitting and frustration.

By the time you reach the end boss, complete with compulsory quick-time events, you'll be glad it's over.

It promised a light-hearted take on one of the world's most serious sports and it never gets anywhere close to showing that. Poor character designs, terrible mini-narratives, and a broken fight system make this a waste of time and effort. Fans of MMA might satisfy some blood lust, but for everyone else, it shouldn't even register on your gaming radar.

Light has great ideas but fails to use them in any meaningful way or make any lasting impression - it's like the setup to a great game that never comes. Shame.

As usual, all objectives revolve around causing mass genocide and protecting painfully annoying innocents. If you were looking to buy this game for the online multiplayer experience, don't bother. At the time of writing, it seems nobody across the world wants to punch with friends.

On a good day, it's even approaching mediocre or average. Then you fall into the swamp because the killing animation took you over the edge of your small raft and you die instantly.

Yes, it's got loads of realistically recreated tanks, choppers, planes and all sorts of stuff like that. That's all fine and dandy. But it's easy to get that stuff right. What they fail at is creating a 'fun' game for all the nice tanks to be used in. Realism is fine when there's some gameplay oomph to back it up. Not here and, judging by the fact each Theatre of War game is pretty much making the same mistakes, not ever.

What should have been a glorious marriage of Binary Domain and Smash TV in Ares Omega ends up as something far lesser on account of its many flaws. While a serviceable roguelike shooter ticks away at its heart, there simply isn’t enough here to recommend Ares Omega to anybody with a hankering for a well-crafted, progression focused blaster.

A pretty unsavoury experience. Without enough depth and presentational focus on the Huey to make it a decent simulation, and without any form of tutorial or guiding hand for the novice players, the developer has managed to straddle both camps, pleasing nobody in the process.

There are lots of things Duke does right however, like ridiculous levels of interactivity, variety in level design and for entertaining me personally all the way through.

Most of the missions outstay their welcome with shooting down so many planes each level, quickly becoming tedious and dull.

A worthy sequel to one of the most addictive strategy games ever made. It may not have the catchy song, but war still has never been this much fun.

It’s a broken game, unfinished, derivative and sloppily produced, filled with uninteresting environments and levels. A pirate’s life is supposedly full of action and adventure, but you’ll find none of it here.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a slap in the face to anyone who put the game on their Most Wanted list at any point since 2007. It’ll be remembered for a long time, but for all the wrong reasons. What a shame. I just feel sorry for those who bought the Season Pass… since there probably won’t be a Season now.

A seemingly faithful adaptation of a German RPG franchise that may be too detached and boring for modern players.

The Fight, then - possibly one of the better fighting games we will see for the Playstation Move, yet still utterly dull and repetitive. Consider giving it a rent, but nothing more.

This can't be the same developer that made the last two games. That team must be off doing Dead Island or something. There were germs of good ideas in here, and it is possible to play it through to the end, but the criticisms and frustrations will overwhelm any fun you have doing so.

The developer’s heart is in the right place, but Solarix just isn’t very good.

Just too lifeless to bother with.

I was particularly looking forward to Stronghold 3, so much so I requested the review months ago, and I still find it difficult to believe that Firefly have so spectacularly fouled things up.

It promised a light-hearted take on one of the world's most serious sports and it never gets anywhere close to showing that. Poor character designs, terrible mini-narratives, and a broken fight system make this a waste of time and effort. Fans of MMA might satisfy some blood lust, but for everyone else, it shouldn't even register on your gaming radar.

It's dumb, it's crass, and it's not all that good, but it's shocking. If you fancy playing a real oddity of a videogame that will both revile and amuse you: look no further.

This can't be the same developer that made the last two games. That team must be off doing Dead Island or something. There were germs of good ideas in here, and it is possible to play it through to the end, but the criticisms and frustrations will overwhelm any fun you have doing so.

When a licenced game fails to excite fans of the franchise on which its content is based, it had better have something in reserve for the swathes of other consumers to latch onto. Unfortunately for The Punisher, it ends up unrecommended in both regards.

It’s not a particularly good advert for the brand, or the MMO. It’s way too pricey for what it is, and it’s got very little replayability. Coupled with the fact that there are plenty of games on tablet that do what it’s trying to do so so much better (The tablet port of XCOM, for example) that, really, this looks incredibly amateurish by comparison.

Cities XXL represents a serviceable starting point for beginners certainly, but is simply far too riddled with bugs, performance issues and recycled content to recommend to anyone else who has sampled the series previously.

Coast Guard is a game that gets a lot of things right, but at the end of the day, feels rushed.

By the time you reach the end boss, complete with compulsory quick-time events, you'll be glad it's over. Daggerdale doesn't do anything out of the ordinary – it's a typical plod through the world of D&D, and a stale one at that.

Inmates had ambitious intentions and a few good ideas, but these were not executed well at all. Fear and thrills were extinguished by the questionable shaking head effect and the game’s puzzles remained overly simplistic and did not feel challenging or rewarding to complete. In addition, I encountered a number of bugs that stopped me from progressing, at points. While this game may be attractively short for some, I cannot recommend the experience.