What Storm of Zehir does best is in bringing a little bit of Forgotten Realms to life without going too over the top on the story.

By no means is the game a classic, but it is arguably a good tie-in that drawns from the movies’ strengths and doesn’t do anything in particular to offend.

If you’ve always fancied getting one of those home gym kits that are always in the Argos catalogue and Sunday supplements, then Wii Fit would make an ideal substitute. Without will-power, though, you might want to consider waiting for the inevitable clutch of games to appear that’ll use the potentially excellent balance board in a way that’s just more fun.

With its slow pacing and detailed puzzles, Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches is definitely a game for confirmed adventure fans rather than casual players, but aside from the spookiness factor being somewhat hampered by the low budget aesthetics, the story does a great job of pulling you in thanks to its intimate nature and everyday setting. A minor gem, but a rough one to be sure.

EA have, just as they did with "Battlefield 2," released an unfinished game full to the brim with bugs and annoyances.

While we found Obscure to be a very reasonable addition to the genre, it has to be said that there isn’t really a great deal to get excited about.

The story and puzzle solving elements work really well, but Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is badly let down by this insistence on making some clues as obscure as possible.

If this Mercury was put into a thermometer, it would be floating just above “lukewarm”.

Other than its repetitiveness, disappointing draw-distances and dodgy camera, Dynasty Warriors 4 Hyper isn’t actually all that bad. In fact, despite its attempt to look tactical and thoughtful in its objective screens, the entirely unexpected bombastic soundtrack makes it clear that, at its heart, there’s no pretension of it being anything other than a cracking little arcade fighter.

But at around 7 or 8 hours and with no multiplayer or real longevity beyond playing on Hard difficulty, it's just as well that the game has a budget price tag.

Should have been great, could have been great; but ends up just being a better than average attempt at doing something a little different.

Just Cause does have the qualities of an addictive game, but there isn’t enough substance to keep you interested for very long. And for all its fancy stunts and gun battles, the nannying controls take away the element of skill, making the whole experience feel a bit shallow.

So. It's GTA. On the GBA. But… it's just not GTA. Not really. Like Max Payne Advance before it, what you're getting is a watered-down experience, but still the closest thing you're going to get on the handheld (if that counts as a plus-point).

It is worth re-emphasising that the core game is still intact, and is still better than you might expect had you not played it before. It’s just such a crying shame that the control system, as functional as it is, does absolutely nothing for the gameplay.

The game is short and sweet but with little to offer any replay value. It’s a mishmash of good ideas that have been thrown together with only some success. It bodes well for a sequel, though.

Ultimately Spikeout: Battle Street is a decent and mildly refreshing old school beat-em-up, but it could be better.

A game that falls short of expectations. You can see from the early levels and even a few of the later rooms that a lot of really creative ambition and skill was employed in its making, but for whatever reason it’s as though that particular tap of talent was turned to a trickle towards the end. Combined with some control issues that weren’t in the previous two games, Tomb Raider Underworld represents a bit of a downturn for the series.

An extremely robust and well-featured RTS with hours of play stretched out waiting to be dived into. The fact that the usual selling point of such titles – the campaign mode – is rather disappointing interferes with how the game will ultimately be received.

You’d expect the first of a trilogy to be the most novel and at least as good as future instalments, but in this case we’re really hoping for a greater effort for the next outing. It’s worth noting that there’s no multiplayer and little replayability, but a Steam version of the original SiN has been bundled with it as a sort of bribe.

The trouble is it’s not especially outstanding either, and lacks the hook enjoyed by the likes of the Tetris or Bust-a-Move games.

The decent visuals and mainstream theme do help things a little, and the underlying complexities of hex-based warfare are pretty well masked, but in the end this is still a game for those who prefer to spend long nights, manual in hand, working towards a distant reward.

Fans of the series will find plenty to do in Shin Budokai 2, although ultimately there’s not been enough progress since the last instalment to make the game anywhere near recommended.

The game is short and sweet but with little to offer any replay value. It’s a mishmash of good ideas that have been thrown together with only some success. It bodes well for a sequel, though.

A game that falls short of expectations. You can see from the early levels and even a few of the later rooms that a lot of really creative ambition and skill was employed in its making, but for whatever reason it’s as though that particular tap of talent was turned to a trickle towards the end. Combined with some control issues that weren’t in the previous two games, Tomb Raider Underworld represents a bit of a downturn for the series.

The story is derivative, the aliens are clichéd and stupid and the gameplay is pretty bog standard for the most part.

What the series needs is not useless gimmicks and badly rehashed game mechanics, but good, old-fashioned racing fun. We don’t need customisable bells and whistles; what gamers really want is a Need for Speed that uses its strengths, and doesn’t try to shoe-horn in its weaknesses for the sake of bullet points on a press release.

It’s playable and for a while it’s even fun, but you’ll be surprised just how quickly mindless violence and bloodshed with semi-naked women can turn into a grind.

As great as it is to be sliding down a banister firing off both guns before holding out your blades to slice into two anyone unlucky enough to be standing near the bottom as you pass, the sloppy controls and quirks in the design do prevent BR2 from being anything more than a reasonably-decent third-person action-slasher.