While it’s kind of cool to see a new take on such an old game, the presence of a muddy palette and outdated game mechanics combined with the inexplicable absence of co-op makes Beast Rider forgettable and so much less than it could have been.

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

Littered with occasionaly glimmers of hope, Vivendi’s attempt to create a true killer-app sadly falls flat, with most of the game feeling uninspired and largely by-the-numbers.

This could, and indeed should, have been a market leading game, blowing people away with clever tactical shooting action. Instead, it’s flawed and with the exception of the co-op mode, has nothing to make it shine.

There’s nothing of note here – nothing thrilling or stirring, or any part fuelled with even a hint of passion for the sport it wants to portray. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

The game’s RPG spin is a positive one, and the potential for multi-player missions certainly lifts Snowblind Studio’s effort above the banal, but the superheroes that the developer has attempted to honour here deserve much more bang for their buck.

Littered with occasionaly glimmers of hope, Vivendi's attempt to create a true killer-app sadly falls flat, with most of the game feeling uninspired and largely by-the-numbers.

The idea behind it is good and there’s a lot of polish in the presentation, but the gameplay is just so shallow and unevolving that it’s really hard to recommend as a full-price purchase.

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

Yet again, the PS2’s outing plays a distant second-fiddle to the more established output of Climax on the 360 and, while graphically Milestone gets a good grunt out of its hardware, those who are eager to take their PS2 for a spin on two wheels will have a hard time choosing between this stunted effort or the ultra conservative Tourist Trophy.

It’s not like Ubi to release such a generic and obviously flawed game such as this, but it’s not unprecedented either and we can only hope this unfortunate blip is the worst that we’ll see for a while.

This game is an unchallenging space shooter made a little more difficult with frustrating design and a terrible camera angle. Even if you’re a fan of the TV series, we really cannot recommend a purchase.

The idea behind it is good and there’s a lot of polish in the presentation, but the gameplay is just so shallow and unevolving that it’s really hard to recommend as a full-price purchase.

Namco has created a capable fighter and dressed it in some especially uninspiring clothes. To put it plainly, Urban Reign appears to exist purely because it can. Despite its skill, no forward steps are taken or advancements made in the genre.

An interesting addition to the genre at best, but is only an average example of what’s available that, apart from its looks, offers little that hasn’t been done before and more importantly, done better.

Play 3 is sadly little more than a humdrum selection of shallow mini-games that make you feel like you’re going through the motions when playing them.

It’s still taking the piss though, and Square Enix should be ashamed of themselves for being so lazy and cheeky. Twenty pounds each? Piss off.

The good implementation of the strategy makes up for what would otherwise be a pretty unimaginative and uninspiring game that would at best be described as a homage to a much loved aging genre.

It’s nowhere near being a hellish failure and it’s possibly even worth a go when it’s cheaper, but on its own Infernal is little more than a good looking tech demo for Ageia’s PhysX cards, a fantastic endorsement for mittens, and the perfect gift for overly religious relatives.

Lovecraft’s work intrigues people, it immerses them and, given the right circumstances, can scare the crap out of them as well. Unfortunately most attempts to turn these ideas into gameplay fail miserably and Darkness Within is just another example of how not to do it. The game mechanics fail to create any kind of immersive experience that the graphics could easily have supported.

It’s huge and ambitious, but you run the risk of losing the will to live in the process of playing.

The gameplay is very basic and badly dated and, with all the top-end city building sims out there now, that makes it doomed to failure. With very little in the way of redeeming features, it is only going to have any kind of appeal to the most hardened of Roman history vets – ones who don’t know games very well so won’t know better.

What we don’t understand is why someone allowed this to soil the reputation of one of the best FPS series of the last generation.

A few minorly successful party games aside – namely Golf and, to a lesser extent, Bowling – Super Monkey Ball just doesn’t work, and is almost true to its title: It’s not super, but it does have monkeys in, and it’s mostly balls.

Aside from the documentaries and research, D-Day is a lazy, insipid, botched effort of a game.

What we don’t understand is why someone allowed this to soil the reputation of one of the best FPS series of the last generation.

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.

What we don’t understand is why someone allowed this to soil the reputation of one of the best FPS series of the last generation.