If you know your laser flips from your rocket airs and don’t mind enduring a little hand cramp while you train your brain to skate and draw at the same time, then Skate It on the DS packs an impressive simulation of skateboarding.

Treyarch have done a commendable job with the single-player in such a tough development cycle, that just managing to make a multiplayer mode that improves upon Finest Hour’s is a fantastic achievement.

Surely everybody knows the score by now: EA ever so slightly update FIFA. It gets new stats, new players, new kits and slightly better graphics whilst remaining pretty much the same game it always has been.

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault isn’t a revelation that puts new life back into WW2-based first person shooters. It is, however, a revelation for the series, pushing the adrenaline-fuelled action away to make for a much grittier, involving and entertaining experience.

As point-and-click adventures go, Runaway 2 is a decent effort with good art direction and relatively high production values.

While some of the set ups and situations are undoubtedly quirky and amusing, there’s nothing this time around to compare to the idiosyncratic psychoanalysis dream-sequence or the sitcom filming from the first and second instalments respectively. And in a game so straightforward, this is a problem.

Nanostray is great fun to play. Unfortunately, the “nano” part of the title seems to be indicative of it having the lifespan of a gnat, and the gulf between the extremely easy (but great) Adventure mode and the overly-hard Challenge mode (which will put off all but the most ridiculously hardcore) is baffling.

The break-up of the storyline as you switch from Felt in Belkhyde to Viese in Eden gets incredibly tedious over time, and the storyline – while incredibly naturally told and performed well – is rather uninspiring, but the game itself should give you a good 40 hours of gameplay.

It’s worth a shot if a relaxing ball rolling puzzle game sounds like your ideal PSP experience, but it’s unlikely to stay in your active playlist for long.

Treyarch have done a commendable job with the single-player in such a tough development cycle, that just managing to make a multiplayer mode that improves upon Finest Hour's is a fantastic achievement.

A pleasant enough diversion that’s unlikely to hold the attention for any great length of time. It’s fun enough while it lasts, though.

Parallel Lines at least shows that the studio is on the right track.

Pokemon Link may well fall short in several key areas – most notably with the lack of play options – but on the whole, it’s actually a fairly pleasing puzzler with all the right ingredients to keep you engaged for a decent period.

It shows that there is huge potential for games that let users create more than just a standard character – if only other companies would grow a set and let their developers use their imaginations more.

It’s just too hardcore for the light-weights and too light-weight for the hardcore.

With the amount of in game advertising that is all over the place, EA probably don’t need to sell many copies to make enough money to guarantee the next instalment in the franchise. We just hope they make more of that opportunity to evolve the series than they did with this somewhat lacklustre effort.

The graphics are worse, joypads are a poor substitute for keyboard and mouse control, online play is laggier and there aren’t enough people playing. And to rub it all in, you can pick the PC version for a good deal cheaper.

The reason not to like it, namely that it’s a compromised version of a two year old game that itself was a pretender to Virtua Tennis’ crown, is pretty strong too.

For the most part it’s an enjoyable if unremarkable shooter, where satisfying gunplay and alien carnage struggle to overcome a shallow plot and quirky controls.

If you really want to have a crack at more cerebral online strategy, you should have a look at the splendid DefCon first. It may not have anywhere near the scope or variety offered in MAN2’s maps and random-ally allocation, but it’s a fair bit cheaper and, dare we say it, requires less work to enjoy.

Longevity issues aside, Duel Masters is still one of those games that are great to play if you only have 10 or 20 minutes spare at a time.

The graphics are worse, joypads are a poor substitute for keyboard and mouse control, online play is laggier and there aren’t enough people playing. And to rub it all in, you can pick the PC version for a good deal cheaper.

Newbies may find it a little intimidating to get into, but perseverance brings reward in the shape of an immersive experience that’s about as fun as war gaming can get.

Space Rangers isn’t going to blow you away, but it may just suck you up for a few long evenings.

Worms Forts has some of the best features straight from the old games, but you can’t help but notice that a few good things are still missing from the transition to 3D.

Those are the game’s main transgressions, but you do get used to them and learn how to avoid most of the major problems. You’ll want to take the effort too, because at its heart Second Sight is a good game whose rewards outweigh its frustrations.

Parallel Lines at least shows that the studio is on the right track.

As a game for all the family and friends it works really well.