Although the online may not last, the single player campaign is worth the price of entry alone, and if you can ignore the cheap rent-a-Communist voice acting and the blatant similarities to other games, you'll find a solid eight or ten hours of play time here. There are twists and turns, multiple endings, and when the credits roll, the enduring feeling is a positive one.

The gaming equivalent of watching Saturday morning cartoons, this is an easy-going marriage of puzzle solving and shooting in a game that never tries to box above its weight class, and it never has to.

Transformers: War for Cybertron doesn't break the mould, but it does offer wonderfully tight gameplay and a respectable online component. Overall, it's an entertaining shooter to play, but for childhood fans of the subject matter, it offers that little bit more.

By now, countless games have been made of various Games Workshop franchises, with wildly varying levels of success. As a full-priced game, Blood Bowl might not be for casual gamers, but the devotees are going to have a spike-studded ball. Where another developer might have taken the franchise and turned it another action-packed button-masher, Blood Bowl is the most faithful translation of the board game that you’re ever likely to get.

If you love your football, and plan on having lots of people over for World Cup parties, then this could be a perfect addition to your library.

If you’re a fan of the western genre and era but are unsure about investing in Bound in Blood, worry no more. Without a doubt the best game in its genre for now, it’s a worthy investment. Rich single player, functional and enjoyable multiplayer which will be supported with downloadable maps, it ticks all the boxes.

The definite arcade nature of play sets this up to be experienced with friends or online. Everything is so simple – the screen is uncluttered with trivialities like a speedometer or map, and the controls are limited to just a few buttons. It really should do well as a casual title to play with mates. Restarting a level takes only moments, allowing players to retry levels in a snap, and the awesomeness starts right from the minute the level loads. As a single player experience it may not have the longest lifespan, but it could become the most popular arcade racer out there.

It’s hard to emphasize what a refreshing thing it is to play a game that’s so completely ... different.

Tiger Woods 09 is like a visit to a strip club – you know what to expect, but it’s always worth a look.

Slick visuals and an addictive scavenging approach doesn't save Borderlands from eventually slipping into the realm of almost-great.

If Dawn of War II was Relic’s attempt to reinvent the genre, Chaos Rising is an evolution of the ideas they previously put forward. It’s fun, atmospheric and over-the-top in all the right ways. Those with reservations about the first title would do well to check this one out – it does everything the previous game did, and does it better.

Moving away from the track and back onto the roads may have returned Need for Speed to where it belongs, but things aren’t perfect yet.

Provided you have some patience, and a computer with enough horsepower to run it, the game is addictive, rewarding and a lot of fun. It would be nice to see Creative Assembly support this title following release, particularly given how much “character” Empire has. A few bug fixes and overhauls could turn this into one for the ages.

This is a game to be played with one eyebrow raised, because that's how the game's looking at you. But for all its snide Gen-X affectations, its often puerile humour, its sarcasm, and insults to gaming and gamers alike, it never insults your intelligence. That's a precious, rare thing in games.

A picturesque, open world environment and some simply brilliant fire physics make up for incompetent AI and a lot of repetitiveness in the missions.

The Prince’s debut on the PS3 and 360 may be impressive, but changes in the formula mean that it’s not going to appeal to everyone.

LHP seems to indicate that the franchise has got its Mojo back, but whether it keeps it or not is another matter. Still, for the time being, Potter's superiority should ensure that old fans will be cheered up and new devotees welcomed into the fold. There is not much here that can be called fresh and inventive but enough minor adjustments have been made to the formula to revive the waning gameplay and provide a decent story and a welcoming return for the classic Lego game.

If you played the first Red Alert and the various add-ons for that, then you have a much better idea of this latest release than you might think you do. If you liked the first one, you’ll love this. Its modernisation hasn’t come at the cost of playability, and while it’s not the best game out this Xmas and it’s not the best RTS on the market, it’s still damn good fun.

The Wiimote is designed to let you feel like you’re playing the game, so you need to let it. You also need to spend a lot of time learning the ropes, because you didn’t buy Grand Slam Tennis for it to play like Wii Sports. It may be tough to master it but master it you can, and to be fair the Motion Plus does a remarkably good job of recreating what you want when you know how to use it.

House of the Dead: Overkill may be a bit short on content but it more than makes up for it by achieving exactly what it set out to do, supplying a gruesome blood splattered shoot’em up, with its tongue firmly in its rotted cheek. Now if only I could import some of the other Wii characters in to replace the mutants.

It is with a sense of dismay then that I say that this: all things considered, it’s hard to call this a brilliant title. It has one of the most enjoyable 10 hour campaigns I’ve played, and if it were to be scored on that alone, it would have done a fair bit better. If you’re a fan of the genre of music, like I am, then the single player would be somewhere in the low –to mid-90s. The fact remains though that bolted onto this wonderful experience are sub par multiplayer and some terrible navigation issues.

For an online multiplayer experience, 1943 is up there with the best of them. With some more add-ons and expansions, which we’d gladly pay for, it can become amazing. But even as it stands, it’s pretty much an essential purchase if you’re a fan of multiplayer combat.

It's polished, sharp, enjoyable, and there is plenty of fun to be had over months and months. If you enjoy games for games sake – and if you have kids – then this is pretty much a must own.

King Arthur is the kind of title big game companies just don't make anymore. Challenging, ambitious and quirky, this is certainly a game that deserves a look, particularly if Neocore continue the fine job they're doing with addressing a few of the game's issues.

It may not compare to SSX Tricky, Amped 3 or 1080 in terms of sheer arcade enjoyment, but the Wii version is better than the 360 and the balance board is the reason why. It’s fun for a moderate amount of time and looks good. Worth a shot.

A dominance of circuit based racers means Midnight Club: Los Angeles is quite a breath of fresh air in the run up to the Christmas season.

This isn’t a bad strategy game by any measure – it delivers some solid missions, along with cinematic action and decent graphical performance. But after so many games using World War II as a setting, more of a personal connection to the narrative of the time would have been nice.

Alan Wake is a fun jaunt across a variety of stereotypes and offers some new gameplay ideas. Unfortunately it’s just not entirely scary, and I find it hard to see where the five years went in making it. Good, but not stellar.