Plain and simple: if you buy Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires, you’re saying it’s ok for this lame excuse for a video game series to continue dragging everything else down with it. It’s even less amusing than it used to be now that it’s infecting next-gen consoles.

The rigidly linear levels with obvious trigger points, the failure to evolve the basic gameplay and the newly random nature of the effectiveness of cover all conspire to devalue what was a novel and rather fun original.

As with its namesake, Evolution doesn't hold many surprises, being a by-the-numbers retread through environments and situations that will now be more than a little familiar to veterans of the series.

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

A pretty basic combat flight game with some nice graphics; but a lack of focus in the single player game, annoying voiceovers and features that deserved to have been pushed a little further spoil what could have been a really manic and exciting shooter.

A huge, lazy and sometimes glitchy disappointment of a game. The character progression really doesn’t provide a strong enough excuse to keep playing after the initial joy of the combat has dissipated, and the number of times you find yourself going through the same old motions during missions smacks of padding of a magnitude normally associated with the corpulent Don.

A huge, lazy and sometimes glitchy disappointment of a game. The character progression really doesn’t provide a strong enough excuse to keep playing after the initial joy of the combat has dissipated, and the number of times you find yourself going through the same old motions during missions smacks of padding of a magnitude normally associated with the corpulent Don.

The magnificence of rolling around, attaching yourself to everything that moves or doesn’t move is lost on you so called gamers, too afraid of the words of us game journalists to buy something unique, entertaining and insanely brilliant as this. Even if it isn’t great on PSP.

If you aren’t an experienced Splinter Cell player, or found the game tricky on the Xbox, then the controls will likely be confounding and the other issues not worth dealing with. Nice try Ubi, but no cigar.

A huge, lazy and sometimes glitchy disappointment of a game. The character progression really doesn't provide a strong enough excuse to keep playing after the initial joy of the combat has dissipated, and the number of times you find yourself going through the same old motions during missions smacks of padding of a magnitude normally associated with the corpulent Don.

A refreshing, immersive, massive, satisfying and hugely impressive game.

A refreshing, immersive, massive, satisfying and hugely impressive game.

More like a series of interactive episodes of the show, with the point and click bits amounting to a basic means to get to the next part of the story.

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

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that, as nice as all the extras are, it’s still essentially a two-year-old game with a new camera.

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.

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

If you’re on the look out for ‘the next big thing’ then keep looking, but if you quite fancy a laid-back shooter that’s best enjoyed with friends, then you might want to give this a shot.

Twenty quid for dozens of modifiable cars, 4 well realised cities and plenty of online and offline races is a good deal in anyone’s book, and especially ours.

Twenty quid for dozens of modifiable cars, 4 well realised cities and plenty of online and offline races is a good deal in anyone's book, and especially ours.

A slightly fiddly control scheme, some less-than-stellar AI and perhaps the sense that the graphics could have been a teensy bit more polished are the only factors that hold this particular experience back from absolute greatness.

All told, even with the addition of unlockable race and time trial modes, Pursuit Force is actually a very short game. Certainly it is if you give up due to frustration (we wouldn’t blame you), but even if you spend ten hours completing, about eight of those hours will be failed attempts.

No doubt a new title entirely rather than an enhanced re-release would have been more welcome, but less than six months in, Burnout: Revenge provides the Xbox 360 with some glorious moments of unhinged debauchery.

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.

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.

As welcome an update as we could ever have hoped for. By expanding beyond the reach of the films, adding in the distinctive modes of play in the forms of the simple campaign and the more tactical War of the Ring and improving upon the construction elements, EA have done a splendid job of bringing an already solid RTS right up to date.

Black lasts only eight hours, has no extra modes and no multiplayer. Not even split-screen; not even co-op. Granted, multiplayer FPS games are a two-a-penny these days, but it leaves wide open the question of what exactly you’re paying for here.

For all its faults, 24 is strangely compelling largely due to the snappy story-telling, but non-fans of the show may well disagree.