Sadly the AI isn't particularly good. While enemies do dodge out of the way and hide behind objects there's no intelligence to the way they fight.

A reasonable 3D platform game which is occasionally let down by a slightly un-responsive control system. There's enough to keep you coming back for more and with the arcade games to play there's something to do when you're getting frustrated with a level.

Bruce Campbell was great but, perhaps with a little more time, Crankypants could have done a lot more with this one.

So it’s not the most challenging of games, nor does it extend the downhill racer genre much. Despite this, it’s mostly a pleasant diversion.

The more you play XIII the less you'll care about the gimmicky graphics, and the more you'll feel the drag of the "same old, same old" action.

I hope if they make a sequel or a similar game they include more ‘real’ puzzles and make it a genuine scare. Helping an old lady ghost find her ghost cat hardly pushes the terror buttons.

Sadly, regardless of the time of day I played, I generally felt very alone in the world.

All the fun elements of a are present: wave after wave of enemies, boss characters, various weapons etc. but some people will find it repetitive. There's no real variation from start to finish other than different enemies and areas to move through.

Another perfectly reasonable entry into the franchise, brought down by a mixture of being very similar to past titles, loading and framerate problems, and – worst of all – a lack of players.

An accomplishment for a downloadable title and absolutely worth a look, but don't be surprised if you find yourself pining for Nuketown or Arica Harbour before long.

With the absence of a multiplayer, WW2 Tank Commander has very little replay value. There’s just not enough interesting gameplay to warrant the budget £20 price tag. Still, if you enjoy tank games or WWII in general, you may find something here.

More of the same from KOEI; mindless hack and slash action that is fun in short bursts.

The truth is Farcry Instincts Predator is a great game for first time around players. For anyone else, it’s sadly more of the same.

The overall presentation (although a little strange) works well and the animated menus are especially nifty. However, the redesign of the attribute system and the inclusion of the corny ‘Trick Stick’ that takes all the effort out of the Uber tricks mars the good reputation of an otherwise impeccable series of games.

If it were possible for Marmite to return from the grave, Dead Rising 2 would be that game.

The inclusion of a teaching system, Kasparov videos (which I could only access via media player), etc, is a nice touch, but the interface is awkward at best. This is probably the best chess engine out there right now.

While there’s something to be said for giving value for money, I’d have preferred a more tightly paced story; a good handful of levels are just making up the numbers, and Shade would have been so much better for a bit of trim.

Despite incongruous story points and sometimes clunky camera work, Silent Storm deserves the support of all right-thinking strategy fans. With its turn-based combat and destructible scenery it signals something fresh in the stale mound of World War Two games.

If you like to eat your dessert before your meal, this is not the game for you. However, if you are a patient gamer, you may find something satisfying in the end.

A competent shooter but one that fails to innovate, expand or better what we've already seen from this genre. The multiplayer is a bit of a diamond-in-the-rough but, due to its 'me too' similarities to the competition, it's unlikely to win over fans of the established franchises for long.

Ultimately, Armageddon feels like an opportunity missed. It feels like the series has taken two steps backwards after the promise shown by Red Faction Guerrilla, the focus moving away from destructible environments and coming to rest on generic shoot 'em up action.

What seems promising at first soon devolves into a monotonous chore of timed reversals and little else. All Stars' take on the WWE is a charming one but, it ultimately falls flat thanks to a lack of depth to both the gameplay and the game modes.

Not a komplete katastrophe, but you should employ kaution when deciding if Mortal Kombat X is right for you on PC. It's a great game, but one that's krippled by bugs.

Like the redacted CIA documents featured so heavily in the game’s marketing, The Bureau comes across as disjointed, baffling and inconsistent. But moments of clarity may well keep you interested in what lies beneath that faltering surface.

An entertaining comedy adventure, but too many of the puzzles in Randal's Monday are too far from even its own internal comic logic to really make sense. It's a fun ride, but it's also liable to frustrate if you refuse to use any outside help to solve this time-travelling puzzler.

The development team should perhaps be reminded that players tend to take it personally when their progress is halted by poor design.

Right now, Grand Slam Tennis 2 echoes the debut of the Fight Night series, a franchise that has consistently galvanised its quality. Would you bet against EA to do this again?

Still, it's a generally fun romp, so let's close on a high note: the ending sets the stage for a sequel with plenty of scope for fantastic areas. If Hothead continues to work on the gameplay side of things and gets the environment back up to par, we'll be in for something truly spectacular next time.

In the end, it works fairly well. Unfortunately, once you get the hang of "making" relationships, there is no reason to keep playing. If you are a diehard sims fan looking for something to tide you over until the sequel is released, you may want to give this a try.

A sizeable free slice of casual flying.

Battle Engine Aquila could be cruelly summarised as a poor man’s Yager. It’s fair-to-middling, fun but shallow, and suffers for its missed opportunities.

This particular episode is more a shaggy dog story rather than something that goes for the throat, but it's building up promisingly towards the season climax.

I hope that, when episode two launches, I'll be bemoaning my own idiocy and falling over myself to award the complete game a much higher score. For now, though, I'm playing it safe: until I know how the whole thing plays out, my recommendation is guarded.

If they had fixed the controls and camera I would of given it a [70], if they had extended the game and not forced me to visit the same old levels I would of given it an [80]

Hotline Miami 2 is certainly worth a purchase from anybody who played the original over and over, but don't expect it to hit the same heights.

A solid RPG experience offering everything you'd expect - but not enough surprises. Many enjoyable features but feels like playing part one of a two parter.

Rubbish controls, dull combat, and a general sense that it's not quite sure what it wants to be, let down an otherwise entertaining and regularly amusing world-saving romp.

Amusing and usually quite entertaining, but let down by location repetition and some poor puzzle design.

A self-contained tale about the human catastrophe of slavery is an abrupt turn from the original’s happy-go-lucky plundering style, but the game’s mechanics adapt relatively well.

By stretching the years to 24 turns, adding seasonal weather and (all but) removing sea battles and internal politics, Caesar in Gaul proves to be an effective, though not exactly revolutionary, expansion to Rome 2.

If you are sceptical of games that feature co-operative multi-character play, you needn't worry too much; it's handled reasonably well.

The story is good, certainly, but if I wanted to watch a sci-fi tale I'd flick on Star Trek. Nexus is purely for the lover of slow paced space adventuring and combat, and those caught up in the Imperium Galactica series.

Child of Light perhaps doesn't shine as bright as it might, but it's nonetheless quite a dazzling sight.

Even though Nightlife fits seamlessly into the Sims universe it just doesn’t seem like sufficient extra content has been included in the expansion. It feels as though Nightlife is more about expanding on what you already have instead of giving you more to work with.

I can’t see any compelling reason to buy this over any competing product. And if you are male and in a stable relationship, just forget it.

While it had the potential to be the best console war FPS game out, it is nothing more than a competent, but mediocre shooter.

Latency and optimisation issues hamper what is otherwise a weighty multiplayer melee title. War of the Vikings could do with more modes of play, but the ones already here reward the skillful combatant.

Syndicate is by no means a bad game, many of its elements work perfectly fine - the problem is that they don't work that well when combined, resulting in a grinding of the individual cogs rather than a smooth clockwork motion.

So, in conclusion, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded packs one of the worst single player modes of any FPS to appear on 360, PS3 or PC in recent years, but it goes some way to making up for it with its split screen multiplayer. Its biggest accomplishment is that it demonstrates there's still a life for such games and that multiplayer in an FPS doesn't have to exist exclusively in the online arena.

A change of focus from civilian to military engagement places a greater emphasis on firearms and offers neat thematic alternatives to scavenging resources. But Lifeline’s familiar urgency is restricted to Danforth’s rather mundane outskirts.

Gods Will Be Watching is an interesting and novel little game, but one that's quite horribly flawed in a number of ways.

If you're after a stop-gap before Gears of War 3 comes out, this might well fit the bill. Take your time, root around for secrets, play sporadically, and chances are good that you'll warm to the game. It's just a shame that the wonderful ideas aren't pushed nearly hard enough and that the game, as a result, feels overwhelmingly generic.

A perfectly capable tactical RPG that's unfortunately light on both the tactics and the RPG. Not really bad in any way, but I suspect this won't really shine until the community get to grips with the editor.

On a conceptual level Hybrid stands out as an above-average shooter in a packed genre, but its reality is dogged by inconsistent matchmaking, server problems and an inessential devotion to some contemporary multiplayer fads. Seeing its true potential one match in every three just adds to the frustration.

And Then There Were None is a pretty solid attempt to revive the long neglected point and click genre with some fiendish puzzles that even hardened wannabe detectives will have a hard time figuring out.

An enjoyable pirate adventure for those who can tolerate its innumerable flaws.

For once, I think the experience can be summed up by the main menu. It's very pretty. It also has a transitional animation, in between sub-menus, that lasts four seconds. Want to change your graphical settings, then load an old game? You're going to spend about thirty seconds just watching a transitional animation repeat. Pretty, functional, and then hopelessly irritating for no good reason: that's Hard Reset.

Driver: San Francisco would be an easy game to recommend if the mission design of the single player campaign were on a par with the quality of its technical elements. As things stands though, it seems that some good gameplay ideas have been wasted on level designers that simply didn't know how to make best use of them.

Perhaps more than any other long-running series that has featured on the current generation of hardware, Madden NFL 12 has that classic end-of-console-era feel to it. The team have seemingly stopped trying to improve the game in any major way and are waiting for the next generation to take things to the next level.

Driver: San Francisco would be an easy game to recommend if the mission design of the single player campaign were on a par with the quality of its technical elements. As things stands though, it seems that some good gameplay ideas have been wasted on level designers that simply didn't know how to make best use of them.

Perhaps more than any other long-running series that has featured on the current generation of hardware, Madden NFL 12 has that classic end-of-console-era feel to it. The team have seemingly stopped trying to improve the game in any major way and are waiting for the next generation to take things to the next level.

To be blunt, TS2012 is a hard game to score. It's a fearsomely niche title (and I play Paradox strategy games for heaven's sake) with a fanbase who'll be judging it by a completely different set of criteria. To them, the interest may be in how accurately the Horseshoe Curve is represented or the potential for inclusion of their favourite engine. My job is to critique it as a game.

Caught between game styles, it'll only make the podium for a very specific audience.

Simply a solid, family game that brings yet another TV show to the shiny black box. If you’re a fan then this game is definitely worth adding to your video collection.

Tex Murphy is back, and that's exactly as good – and as bad – as it sounds.

Season Two's early promise has consolidated into sporadic flashes of greatness, but the consistent excellence of Clementine's character alone isn't enough to carry the series. It needs the lift of an outstanding final episode.

Starts out fun but soon becomes a tedious exercise as one 'extreme' jump, boost or corner leads blandly into the next; the lack of variety quickly muting the initial pleasure.

StarDrive is a collection of solid ideas and features waiting to be unified by the necessary finishing touches.

It's full of problems, but it's also full of charm and ambition. Undoubtedly some of you will fall in love with it, viewing even the input issues as the latest in a long line of challenges thrown at you by From Software. Others will regret their purchase nine deaths into the first mission, unable to even think about how difficult the rest of the game could be.

Once the game picks up speed, it does broadly provide the kind of high-speed explosive thrills promised; but it sure takes its sweet time getting there.

Some "Diablo" fans might find it to be an okay diversion but most gamers will find the respawning issues and limited game save feature a bit too frustrating to deal with.

Van Helsing 2 is a near-complete title that NeoCore are clearly racing to finish in time for release day. It’ll end up a better game than the first, but will almost certainly retain some deadline-crunch bugs until a couple of patches are out of the way.

A sound concept that will attract some space strategy fans but currently lacks long term appeal.

Relic’s attempt to create a more dynamic single player campaign is partially successful, but the systems of company permanence don’t entirely gel with the inflexibility of an Iron Man save system, and the map is light on grand strategy.

Assassin's Creed: Rogue is Black Flag with worse writing and (broadly) improved missions. Does very little to alter the formula, but is about as mechanically sound as Assassin's Creed gets and runs well on PC.

Enjoyable, authentic, and oh-so-cool... when it doesn't break.

At best an average game that will appeal to fans of the series more than it will to newcomers.

A perfectly decent game that lacks variety. It's worth a look now, but if we see some new maps and game modes in the coming months, those should buoy Ghost Recon Online up significantly.

The building and base development aspects are fun but the more you play the more the global overview feature feels like an unwanted distraction.

Perfectly decent and enjoyable enough, but the lack of scares hurts it more than you might think.

War Times is not a bad RTS. However, when you consider that other games are available that better do what War Times tries to do, it is hard to justify purchasing.

It’s not going to blow your mind, but if you’re happy with a total disregard for realism then Ace Combat: Assault Horizon will keep you happy and entertained for a good few hours.

Friendlier F1 handling in a Grid 2 wrapper, Grid Autosport is a tour through the Codemasters back catalogue. Single player is hampered by predictable AI, but tuning options and improved cornering elevates the multiplayer above Grid 2's.

It's more Zuma, and little else.

An ambitious narrative, with some uneven characterisation and halfway successful puzzle design.

KickBeat isn't going to revolutionise the rhythm-action genre, but it nonetheless provides another perfectly solid, perfectly enjoyable opportunity to get into the flow of your music and have some rhythmic fun.

The Football Manager formula is as complex and addictive as ever, but a compulsion to keep playing shouldn’t be mistaken for revelatory advances. 2014 is a marginal improvement for the series, but retains several of its shortcomings.

Flawed, but does just enough right to be worth a purchase if it sounds like it's up your alley.

Clever in oh-so-many ways and almost endlessly replayable but, the level of frustration on offer might pose a health risk to those with blood pressure problems.

There's nothing actually wrong with Core Combat, but as it fails to offer a significant improvement over and above the original game itself, then there is no reason to recommend buying it.

It's nice to see Dragon Age II content that avoids the pitfalls of its base game, but it's a shame that there isn't more to it.

If you're hankering for some PS1 platforming of old but can't find the console in the clutter of the attic, this title should fulfill that need for the day or two it takes to complete.

Despite the spruced up graphics, hot swap and Xbox live features, there is quite honestly very little here to entice gamers who already have the Xbox or PS2 version.

It's difficult to wrap my head around just who Dungeon Siege 3 is aimed at. It doesn't offer the depth that fans of dungeon crawlers have come to expect and, on the other hand, it refuses to incorporate enough modern elements to appeal to the new generation of RPG fans. The result is a game that generally functions as intended but largely falls flat and struggles to impose a sense of personality.

In sporadic bursts, Evolve can be outstanding. But its design depends upon uniting players of idealistically equivalent skill levels, and it struggles to consistently do so. The game’s gated progression system is superfluous and, at times, actively harmful to positive team-play.

A turn-based, space trading and combat title which benefits from its open-ended nature and undemanding PC requirements. Aspects of the dynamic universe are too detached, and the combat doesn’t hold up forever, but these shortcomings do not undermine Smugglers V’s laudable player freedom.

An acceptable game for the fans, though not a particularly good port in any way, shape, or form. If you have a 360 controller and love the series then you'll have a fairly good time, but you might want to consider waiting for a price drop.

A criminally short opening chapter that nonetheless offers a glimpse of Rapture at its opulent heights. The noir intentions are dispensed too soon, so the Booker/Elizabeth relationship and familiar combat have to see Burial at Sea through to its disturbing, perplexing climax.