Although RotWK certainly doesn’t justify rushing out and purchasing the original if you don’t already have it, BfME2 fans who can put up with the micromanagement and fancy some new challenges will find plenty to love here.

It shows great aptitude for minimalist design and strikes a good albeit controversial balance between steep difficulty and steady progress. Joyful and infuriating in turns, it comes well and truly to life as a shared experience and, if nothing else, is perfect for masochists.

Although Strong Badia the Free is a shorter episode than Homestar Ruiner, it’s more perfectly formed.

As simple as Toki Tori is, its cheerful presentation coupled with a well thought out difficulty curve make for a puzzle-platforming treat that is more than the sum of its parts.

The lack of initial on-screen prompts aside, it’s entirely possible for anyone to throw themselves into Tiger’s 2008 outing and have both a rewarding and entertaining time, be they a golf fan or not.

It may be no substitute for the real thing, but is by far and away the best stop-gap we’ve seen so far.

It’s the interface, audio and visuals that make this an outstanding package, although even here there are things that are not quite right.

Purely from a gameplay perspective, it works.

There are no huge technical leaps or jarring presentational changes, just eight-or-so hours of extra content and some convenient and entertaining additions to the core gameplay.

An enjoyable and engrossing game. It’s a little on the short side and it relies a bit too much on the strength of a single gameplay mechanism, but fortunately it’s a mechanism that is fun and that we haven’t really seen before.

Is it as good as "Yoshi’s Island," "Super Mario World," or "Super Mario Bros. 3"? No. And that is a disappointing fact. It is, however, a solid game, worth it for the nostalgic trip alone.

Open Warfare 2 is pretty near perfect in terms of presentation, balance and content. That basically means we don’t need to see another Worms game ever, and if we do, it had better be somehow more original and better than this. So that’s it. We’re happy now, thank you very much Team 17.

Newcomers to the series should definitely stick with the first instalment, while veterans should be aware that, despite the title, this is in no shape or form a proper sequel.

It’s visually wonderful, technologically marvellous and honestly a great deal of fun to play, but as with many other people, we have to seriously question its staying power.

Although describing it as the best submarine sim available could quite easily be a backhanded complement considering the genre’s paucity, SH4 is a genuinely absorbing and fun game that manages, largely successfully, to straddle the never-land between hardcore and arcade gaming.

It’s novel, it’s a good fighting game and it’s extremely well presented, but Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is still one for the fans.

The downsides don’t trash what is basically a fun and frantic experience that manages to combine realism on the ice with arcade action.

Jade Empire is non-linear in the most magnificently linear way, and well worth it for those who missed it first time around.

Just like a real orchestra, Red Orchestra requires a concerted effort to get the most out of it. It may not be the most popular mod right now, but it has one of the strongest communities and anyone willing to invest a little time to become a part of it will be well rewarded.

The pounding soundtrack, the huge campaigns and the four different approaches with each side you control will certainly make this one to keep the midnight oil burning for strategy gamers.

It’s accessible, addictive, and an excellent tech-demo for the Wii-mote, not to mention an obvious choice to whip out when you want to show off your new purchase.

Once you get around the slightly muddled menu system there is quite a lot of content between the full & mini games within this package to keep you entertained for many an hour, either playing against pretty decent AI controlled teams or over Xbox Live.

You’ll have worked out by now that our earlier reference to the quality of the three parts of the game refer to the space battles being pretty good, the campaign map being reasonable, and the ground battles being a bit limp.

This might go some way to appease those who thought the original game was too repetitive, but we suspect it’s probably too little, too late. As for everyone else, ROE follows the exact same formula and therefore doesn't disappoint.

When you get down to it, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift is a bit basic in terms of overall structure, but the intense multi-disciplined racing still makes for a fun and relatively unique experience.

Unlike the innovative "Rainbow Six 3," Lockdown doesn't introduce a great deal new to the franchise aside from some miscellaneous aesthetic improvements.

That said, this collection of safe, well known chart singles from the past four decades is sure to go down well at parties, and if you’re canny you can pick it up for less than £20, making it actually pretty good value, relatively speaking.

As addictive as the gameplay can become, the comprehensive (albeit complicated) modding software is sure to trigger compulsion in the more creative players.