They're all fun and all eventually devolve into button mashing murder, so is Dynasty Warriors 5 worth buying over Dynasty Warriors 4? No. Is the Xbox's version better than the PS2's? Not much.

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.

Even with the adapted controls, Ape Escape: On The Loose is a splendid version of the enjoyable original.

Somewhat annoyingly, the game often requires you to tackle each level a multiple number of times in order to collect items such as shields before the next area is unlocked.

We liked the idea of Tokobots when the game came out for the PSP and in a way we still do, but with some very cluttered gameplay, a nonsensical story even by Japanese standards, and not much in the way of challenge, the subtle improvements and minor additions to the PS2 version hardly make the fundamental gameplay any more attractive.

Heroes of Mana does have its moments, but they are few are far between.

When a game is this easy, predictable and limited, hardcore gamers are too busy praying for DS versions of the original Dragon Quest games to be bothered with it.

Turok is far from a revival of the series. Aside from having dinosaurs and lots of frantic fire-fights, it doesn’t offer a great deal of new stuff or even good stuff for shooter fans.

Supreme Ruler 2020 is a big step on from what has gone before in the series. It doesn’t stand head and shoulders above the pack, but it certainly rubs shoulders with the big boys and doesn’t come off looking cheap and a little embarrassed. It makes the job of being a psychopathic dictator just that little bit more fun.

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.

Ultimately Viking: Battle for Asgard is almost a complete waste of Norse mythology. It’s bloody and epic, but the boring, repetitive combat and hours you spend doing un-Vikingly menial tasks leaves a sour taste in the mouth, washed down with a swig of bitter, pointless stealth idiocy.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

Mistaken assumptions aside, the Xbox 360 doesn’t exactly have a lot of new, colourful, non-shooty blood and gore type games, so if that’s what you’re shopping for then while you couldn’t do much better, you equally couldn’t do much worse right now.

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

A decent purchase for the little ones if you’re expecting dross from the adventure mode (which by now you surely are), and you can pick it up at a decent price.

It’s not an awful game by any scale, but it is tepid and flawed in its execution.

A painfully routine affair then, and a missed opportunity to boot.

M.A.C.H is a sad waste of potential that feels like no one actually cared to deliver anything innovative or even competent.

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.

As standalone PSP games go, Revelations is still among the most enjoyable you can buy, but those technical issues don’t do any favours for a game that may already be too confusing and challenging for total newcomers.

While it's true that Secret Files: Tunguska does get one or two brownie points for being in what’s currently a very sparsely populated genre on the Wii, the fact that it’s so middling in just about every respect hardly justifies a purchase.

The 10 year old PC game is better looking, easier to control, has more weapons and features; it doesn’t have average mini games and it has online multiplayer. What’s more, it can be had for 99 pence on eBay.

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.

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.