For all its flaws, Fable II is still a masterful piece of game design, and utterly compelling.

An incredible package. It’s claustrophobic and sinister, yet utterly action packed and arcadey at the same time. It’s completely gorgeous, yet the visuals serve the gameplay at all times, whether that’s through subtle changes to the presentation to alter the mood, or the fact that you’re playing so much of the game at the end of a flashlight.

As DLC, The Ballad of Gay Tony is an incredible offering, but when combined with The Lost and Damned in 'Episodes From Liberty City' at retail, it's irresistible.

You can finish it in less than 15 hours and then there’s not much else to do other than play it again - but it’s so bloody good you probably will! Intelligently written, beautiful to look at and actually genuinely scary - not to mention gory beyond belief, Dead Space is a stunning survival horror/action title and well worth a gander.

There’s just so much to collect, so much explosive firepower to wield, and so much charm to the environments and characters that you’d be crazy to let this game pass you by.

You can finish it in less than 15 hours and then there’s not much else to do other than play it again - but it’s so bloody good you probably will! Intelligently written, beautiful to look at and actually genuinely scary - not to mention gory beyond belief, Dead Space is a stunning survival horror/action title and well worth a gander.

In raw gameplay terms, BioShock 2 improves on the original in everyway, with a deeper combat system, a broader set of enemy types and the addition of a fully-featured multiplayer mode.

It effortlessly captures the feel of a classic, rollicking pulp adventure film through charming, fallible characters, great dialogue and voice acting, over-the-top action sequences, and a story featuring plenty of twists and turns.

This is going to be the cult-hit DS game of 2008. Jupiter and Square Enix have developed a game that nails just about everything it tries – and it tries quite a lot of new or carefully lifted ideas.

In raw gameplay terms, BioShock 2 improves on the original in everyway, with a deeper combat system, a broader set of enemy types and the addition of a fully-featured multiplayer mode.

There’s definitely enough gameplay gold here to make it worth a look for fans of the series, but it’s a real pity that Criterion made the decision to make the game less user-friendly than it could have been.

It's clunky and frustrating and (occasionally) dull, but it's also solid and addictive and (occasionally) beautiful. Like I said: a game of glaring contradictions.

This game represents some fine character development and storytelling. The further in you get the more involving it all becomes, and when you finish you’ll be raring to start all over again, and that’s always a great sign.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii demonstrates one more time why Nintendo are masters of the all-ages gaming market, relevant and refreshing but at all times reverent and above all, incredible fun.

Zack & Wiki is very much what happens when talented Japanese game designers decide to revisit classic point-and-click adventure gameplay, and proceed to inject it with their own aesthetics and sensibilities, all with a modern coat of paint.

It's a delight to give into a fantasy setting with such a dense back story, even if the gameplay still rarely breaks away from conventions established a decade ago.

Very possibly the Wii's longest adventure - and certainly one of the most varied. So many side-quests, hidden areas, collectables, characters, classes and things to do. A boon for RPG fans, so buy it.

A game of impressive depth and considered content, with A-grade presentation and production values and only a handful of quirks that prevent it from significantly pushing the genre forward and propelling the game straight to the top.

GRID’s super slick presentation and the flashy bells and whistles will grab your attention, but there isn’t anywhere near enough depth to hold it. You’ve changed, Race Driver. We hardly know you anymore.

A Crack in Time isn’t a revolution, but it is an impressively solid and fun game with a number of new gameplay hooks to enjoy. Plus, it continues a story set in motion back in Tools of Destruction that you’ll want to see through to the end.

Its larger than life sci-fi world and speedy, explosive gameplay really work on console and the whole thing runs like a dream. A great PS3 port, and a ready demonstration of what the system can do in the right hands.

Valkyria Chronicles is a truly magnificent outing for Sega. It dares to be different, it scoffs at genre conventions and finds its own path, and in doing so succeeds brilliantly as both a deep strategy experience and a wonderfully story-driven RPG.

A charming and compelling hands-off strategy-music-RPG. It's one of the few games on the PSP that really stands out on shelves, mainly because it isn't a port and it's just so darned unique on the platform.

It's a delight to give into a fantasy setting with such a dense back story, even if the gameplay still rarely breaks away from conventions established a decade ago.

The presentation, while certainly more mature, has lost that almost imperceptible 'something' – personality or individuality perhaps – and you'll either dig the change, or you won't really care. And why won't you care? Because the gameplay is still just as solid, entertaining, compelling and addictive as ever.

It’s just too hit and miss, too divorced from its stated purpose and is too anaemic in its dispensation of the funk.

There's something undeniably more approachable and mainstream about the Guitar Hero franchise that Rock Band simply can't quite match.

If you can deal with some minor shortcomings, Pure delivers exactly what the title promises: pure gameplay. Almost all aspects of the racing, tricking, physics and ATV creation come together seamlessly and the result is a rock-solid racer that aims to please and thrill in the same sweep.