The rigidly linear levels with obvious trigger points, the failure to evolve the basic gameplay and the newly random nature of the effectiveness of cover all conspire to devalue what was a novel and rather fun original.

Black lasts only eight hours, has no extra modes and no multiplayer. Not even split-screen; not even co-op. Granted, multiplayer FPS games are a two-a-penny these days, but it leaves wide open the question of what exactly you’re paying for here.

An unfortunately aimless and inadequate sequel: a game that somehow manages to improve many areas but makes others worse in the process.

There really is no excuse for the workmanlike presentation though – if Sony are going to keep releasing these games, they should at least put something new in them.

This is not a bad diversion for a few hours, but Boing! Docomodake feels like a very short game that could actually have done with exploiting its unique features further. In conclusion, there is still mush-room for improvement.

Solid at its core and deft in attack, Genji is still a swipe or two away from being something seriously special.

For £20 we’d hope for a few more games, with greater variety and a slightly slicker presentation. Definitely one for Capcom nostalgists.

If you take it at face value and realise that it is a simple game that provides an element of fun especially in 2-player mode you wont be disappointed.

As for the TBS hardcore, they’ll probably indignantly object to the dumbed-down gameplay mechanics. Galactic Assault isn’t a bad game – we just don’t really know who it’s for.

Overclocked’s complex and rich setting is ultimately just that – a setting. Too many things let the game down for it to be truly recommendable, like stiff animation, poor audio editing and a lack of insight into your own character’s agenda.

If you are a fan of action RPGs the by all means give Silverfall a look. It certainly isn’t a bad game, but games like these are an acquired taste and are very difficult to recommend without first referring people to similar and ultimately better alternatives.

2006 is an unforgiving time for online gaming, and a game as mixed up and inconsistent as this simply cannot make an impact, as hard as it tries with its meaty combat and awesome-looking vehicles.

It’s such a shame to see what could have been a splendid old-school RTS with mostly decent presentation (aside from the fact that the camera doesn’t zoom out enough) and three imaginative and well-balanced factions being ruined because of so many niggling problems.

It still looks great, it’s still dripping with detail, and there are now even more rides to create and things to do. However, it still plays like it’s a piece of modding software, and not everyone’s going to enjoy it as a result.

It is slightly let down by some rather pointless puzzles, a few frustrating moments where it’s unclear what you have to do to progress, and the rather lacklustre character graphics. In essence, it’s a rough diamond – nice, but missing a lot of polish.

The package is, as a whole, rather rough around the edges. You know you’re in for trouble when even the publisher admits that the tutorial is “a pain and a little time consuming”.

So while Ghost Squad is a perfectly reasonable lightgun shooter which only significantly falls short in terms of its length, what really sticks in our collective craw is the price. Asking thirty quid for it would be a piss take at the best of times, but considering the US version is being sold for the same figure in dollars, making it around £15 in real money, that’s quite frankly unacceptable.

It’s a little simpler to play than the 2K series, and more fast paced, but it’s also just not as good.

For atmosphere and an authentic Star Wars feel (Clone Wars or otherwise), Jedi Alliance does a good fan service. The gameplay elements aren’t very imaginative or even especially enjoyable when taken in isolation, but overall there are enough different challenges spread out across each level that it’s much less of an issue than in might have been.

It’s a little simpler to play than the 2K series, and more fast paced, but it’s also just not as good.

Formula One Championship Edition is a weak debut for F1 on PS3, trying to hide its complete lack of progress and innovation behind a high-def exterior; but it’s not all bad.

Sega Superstars Tennis offers some interesting diversions, but the main meat of the package is lacking the bite it requires to be a great game.

Many will lap up the opportunity to get to business tweaking and customising every shot, while players who might more often reach for the likes of Mario Golf or the Monkey Golf mini-games will be repelled.

The Crash Bandicoot games seem a little stuck in a rut, and despite some apparent efforts to expand the gameplay, Mind Over Mutant does nothing to pull the series out.

Sega Superstars Tennis offers some interesting diversions, but the main meat of the package is lacking the bite it requires to be a great game.

It’s most successful at emulating the film’s atmosphere, particularly with wise-cracking Jack Sparrow taking centre stage, but the gameplay feels unambitious and ultimately stuck in a rut.

The Sims: Pet Stories is, for our money, more interesting than Life Stories in that it contains the relationship elements of the latter while adding in the extra dimension of training up a pet.

The gameplay is nowhere near as original as the setting, nor is it particularly spectacular for that matter, but just as you could do better, you could also do worse.

What it boils down to is the fact that there are better racers and better puzzle games already on the PSP.

Infected is one of those rare PSP games that manages to tick all the right boxes in terms of design, functionality and execution, so it’s no wonder it received so much hype prior to release. Sadly none of that translates to a particularly compelling gameplay experience.

If you’re looking for an extremely cutthroat head-to-head mode then you should certainly take a look.

The graphics, although dated and unoriginal, aren’t terrible. And the first person shooting gameplay can’t be knocked too heavily, because after all, it’s the same system implemented in every first person shooter.

Shadow Ops is a rather bland, generic FPS that – aside from some good sound and all-round high production values – offers absolutely nothing in the way of originality.

The game is every bit as cute and niche as ever, but it’s not even pretending to be anything new or innovative for fans – it’s just the same old slog once again, with only a few new faces and a few new things to see.

Sadly what we get is some very cluttered gameplay, a nonsensical story even by Japanese standards, and not much in the way of challenge beyond that which arises from the fiddly method of controlling the tokobots during combat.

In the end Fair Strike comes across as a competent if not particularly thrilling combat helicopter flight sim.

This is the Xbox 360 dammit, show it some respect and put some effort into your ports people.

This type of game has been done better, and on top of that, the genre has moved on to the next generation where murky and jaggy graphics are a thing of the past.

Even hardcore mech fans, who may well get their money’s worth in the multiplayer, would have benefited greatly had more time being spent making the combat more enjoyable.

Had the puzzling been of a more engaging nature, then we may have warmed up to the game considerably, but even at a budget price there isn’t much to recommend.

We can see some hardcore puzzle addicts playing this (and probably being very good at it), but for the average gamer it represents little more than a curiosity with little long-term appeal.

After a while it’ll begin feeling like you’re playing the game in auto pilot, but that won’t last long because, well, the game doesn’t last all that long.

Considering the game is too dissimilar to appeal to Civ fans, too simplistic to appeal to SimCity veterans and too bland to appeal to gamers looking for a Roman epic, it’s tricky to pinpoint who exactly will want to buy CivCity: Rome. It’s not irredeemably broken, but it is repetitive and a little on the dull side.

If you can live with the fact that there are no expansions aside from a minor collection of downloadable extras, and that, unless you’re somehow immune to the boredom which strikes after playing any instalment of The Sims for more than a week, it probably won’t last you very long, then Life Stories might make for a decent introduction to one of the most over-exposed series of all time.

It’s mildly entertaining, mildly disappointing, mildly challenging and overall just mild.

It's incredibly hard not to spend hours just wandering about the beautiful rooms that form the foundations of Opoona's play, but it's just a shame that most of the time there's little to do in them.

Featuring jumping, gliding, twatting things with sticks, and bucket loads of what some would call "wit", this game has it all.

It’s a full blown advert for anyone doubting the need to upgrade and a serious slur on the series’ newfound "Unlimited" take on the racer.

It has some decent ideas and concepts, let down by bad enemy A.I. and very repetitive gameplay.

If VT's controls are too simple for you, then Top Spin is waiting in the wings to take your money.

Featuring jumping, gliding, twatting things with sticks, and bucket loads of what some would call “wit”, this game has it all.

A by-the-numbers hack’n’slash – technically competent but emotionally void.

It has some decent ideas and concepts, let down by bad enemy A.I. and very repetitive gameplay.

THAW is a step backwards, with its uninspiring Story mode being mostly to blame. The PC version suffers even more thanks to it being the recipient of such a sloppy conversion.

It’s automatically a better game than any in the "Dynasty Warriors" series, but still comes a distant second place to Phantagram’s own "Kingdom Under Fire" titles.

All told, even with the addition of unlockable race and time trial modes, Pursuit Force is actually a very short game. Certainly it is if you give up due to frustration (we wouldn’t blame you), but even if you spend ten hours completing, about eight of those hours will be failed attempts.

Series veterans will love the endless customisation, four-on-four multiplayer battles and blindingly fast combat, but even the most loyal fan will wonder why Armored Core 4 couldn’t have been so much more than it is.

It has some decent ideas and concepts, let down by bad enemy A.I. and very repetitive gameplay.

Featuring jumping, gliding, twatting things with sticks, and bucket loads of what some would call "wit", this game has it all.

It’s not that the game doesn’t look great – it does. It’s not that it doesn’t control well – it does. It’s not that it has bugs or camera issues – the camera never presented a problem and, aside from falling through the floor a couple of times, the game ran smoothly. It’s just that this is a short game, and yet still not short enough to stop the gameplay from wearing thin.

Sonic CD is a title worth purchasing on pure merit, and whatever their standard, the sheer number of games on the disc make Gems an economical acquisition.

It shows off, but doesn’t have the talent to cash the cheques its looks and potential are writing.

It’s not that the game doesn’t look great – it does. It’s not that it doesn’t control well – it does. It’s not that it has bugs or camera issues – the camera never presented a problem and, aside from falling through the floor a couple of times, the game ran smoothly. It’s just that this is a short game, and yet still not short enough to stop the gameplay from wearing thin.

Unfortunately, Rumble Roses is just stuck inside a teenage boy’s fantasy about Anime and the WWE, with no ambition or revolutionary features even attempted.

The gameplay had the potential to be really quite good, but its limitations – i.e. the interface – seem to be borne of the PSP’s shortcomings, which rather defeats the purpose of this being a handheld game. The best feature of Squad Command we have found is the multiplayer.

Yet no matter how straightforward Still Life is and how simple it looks, it’s incredibly easy to fall for. Aside from a few unnecessary inflections and misplaced accents here and there, the storytelling and voice acting is superb.

Restricted Area is not astounding, or flashy, or new, or even particularly exciting to most gamers but it is at least decent, reasonably priced and fairly enjoyable if you like cyberpunk and combat RPGs.

The genre has moved on in terms of gameplay, presentation and even hardware, leaving Vanguard feeling like a relic from years ago rather than something to whet your appetite for EA’s next effort.

Only time will tell whether Naruto will become a gaming joke or not, but for now Naruto fans in the UK could do a lot worse than Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2, though they could also do better.

Teenage Zombies feels a bit like a normal platformer made in a haphazard fashion with slightly dodgy, sluggish gameplay, that has had the whole zombie thing tacked on afterwards in an effort to pretend it was meant to be dodgy, haphazard and sluggish in the first place.

All of the mechanics for a great game are there, yet the more intangible aspects of great game making seem to have been overlooked entirely.

CSI: Miami may not be much more than a glorified interactive story book, but it’s still easy to recommend.

With Harmonix moving on to the extremely ambitious Rock Band and Neversoft taking over the Guitar Hero reigns, it’s sad to see the series’ creators bow out of their own creation with such a purposefully half-arsed effort.

Sure the kiddies might like it, but big kids should avoid this one unless you have a good reason to make your brain go numb.

Certainly Outlaw Volleyball Remixed can’t be accused of short changing anyone, but it is also firmly and comfortably in the realm of 'not bad'.

That the story and dialogues are actually quite good might make the game bearable or even enjoyable to play, but unless you’re very young or don’t play games much there’s really very little to recommend here.

It’s still the most complete virtual poker experience you’re likely to come across, but it falls short of what it could have been. Cool ideas like the ability to change your player’s facial expression are all but pointless, and the online play doesn’t really seem to have taken off.

A pretty basic combat flight game with some nice graphics; but a lack of focus in the single player game, annoying voiceovers and features that deserved to have been pushed a little further spoil what could have been a really manic and exciting shooter.

A series of unlockable wardrobe items do little to massage the questionable value for money factor of what is ultimately a short game that puts an interesting, er, ‘spin’, on the classic Sonic gameplay, yet fails to live up to such past successes.

The concessions are noticeable enough to affect the game adversely, which means you’re only really going to consider buying this if you’re already a huge fan of the console games.

While the decision to expand upon the Super Monkey Ball franchise is to be applauded, the fact that the execution is so lacklustre conspires to make Adventure a less than essential purchase.

Number four in the series is one for the hardcore Wild Arms fans; the rest of us will wait for the next Final Fantasy as usual.

Ultimately though, the move to the Wii has done much more harm than the game could really take, with the control issues tearing what was a solid and enjoyable game apart mercilessly.

The graphics are good, but every other feature is just scooped up from a number of other strategy games, and spread thinly.

It has to be said though – as a game, LSL is pretty thin. The mini-games are weak and become pretty repetitive. Happily though, the bawdy comedy that plays out while you’re going through the motions, especially during the conversations, do make it all worthwhile.

The magnificence of rolling around, attaching yourself to everything that moves or doesn’t move is lost on you so called gamers, too afraid of the words of us game journalists to buy something unique, entertaining and insanely brilliant as this. Even if it isn’t great on PSP.

A brave but ultimately over-ambitious waste.

It has to be said though – as a game, LSL is pretty thin. The mini-games are weak and become pretty repetitive. Happily though, the bawdy comedy that plays out while you’re going through the motions, especially during the conversations, do make it all worthwhile.

Personally, we’d probably rather pick up the Rome DVD box set – there’s more than thighs exposed in that little number.

As an RTS it’s as entertainingly humdrum as any of the sixteen billion others, but the Hero Command innovation is so wretchedly underdeveloped it mostly serves to annoy and all but ruins the game’s single player campaigns. It’s fun in multiplayer and skirmish modes for a while, but Rise & Fall is far from the classic game that it could have been.

Kane & Lynch is very much a case of what could have been. With a little more time for polish and tweaking Eidos could have had a game worthy of the hype and its British Academy Video Games Award nomination (which was somehow secured before the game’s release).

It’s cause is certainly helped by the price tag, relatively low system requirements and the fact you needn’t have even heard of Chrome to enjoy it. Sadly, though, even if the game did take the series to headier heights, it would still be destined to be ignored and forgotten in a world filled with Half-Life 2, Far Cry and so many other top drawer PC first-person shooters.

Kane & Lynch is very much a case of what could have been. With a little more time for polish and tweaking Eidos could have had a game worthy of the hype and its British Academy Video Games Award nomination (which was somehow secured before the game’s release).

We can appreciate what Ubi has tried to do, but most of us have gotten over the novelty of the fact that the PSP is ‘a bit like a handheld PS2’ and are looking for a lot more substance and enjoyablity in our games, no matter how many dozens of cars and miles of road have been packed onto the UMD.

It has to be said though – as a game, LSL is pretty thin. The mini-games are weak and become pretty repetitive. Happily though, the bawdy comedy that plays out while you're going through the motions, especially during the conversations, do make it all worthwhile.

It’s just so frustrating. Not only the puzzles, for all the wrong reasons, but the fact that what could have been a perfectly decent adventure has been yet again held back by the same old ridiculously common mistakes.

Night Watch has plenty of big ideas, but the overall execution is lacking.

Kane & Lynch is very much a case of what could have been. With a little more time for polish and tweaking Eidos could have had a game worthy of the hype and its British Academy Video Games Award nomination (which was somehow secured before the game’s release).