It’s great to see the creators of Disgaea trying something new but this charmless, needlessly confusing, action role-player is a failure on almost every level.

An extra hour of combat and so much less, with a download that manages to undermine much of the impressive storytelling of the main game.

Incompetent, outdated and hopelessly misconceived - but other than that a great fighter for the Wii.

A hugely disappointing remake that misunderstands everything that made the original great and turns a state-of-the-art blockbuster into a low rent timewaster.

It may be a good quality racer but this is also one of the most offensively cynical video games we’ve ever played, and despite being ‘free’ also one of the most expensive.

Mixing Tower Defense, third person action, and beloved ’80s toys should’ve been a recipe for success, but this bland sequel doesn’t do justice to any of its ideas.

Eventually you unlock a Vampire Survivors-alike mini-game that’s actually moderately entertaining, but the rest is a uniformly bland cash grab that is absolutely not worth your time.

A game bursting with interesting ideas but dragged down by a lack of technical competence and some very outdated ideas about game design and controls.

The real mystery here is why Nintendo continues to allow such a minimum effort cash grab to dilute the Pokémon name, in yet another bland and repetitive dungeon crawler.

A more noble failure than most Kinect games, but a failure all the same. And even beneath the control issues not a particularly good on-the-rails shooter.

The very worst thing about Declassified is that in reporting its failure we feel like we're writing an obituary for the PS Vita itself...This was make or break for Sony's portable, but such a shamefully underdeveloped shooter disgraces both the PS Vita and the Call Of Duty franchise.

A disastrous failure whose technical shortcomings may one day be fixed but whose design failings, and obliviousness to its own potential, suggests a game that is irrevocably broken.

A terrible backwards step for Transformers games, and a movie tie-in so cynical it tries to cut corners by ripping off its own predecessors.

Embarrassingly poor Japanese role-player that manages the impossible task of playing worse than it looks.

You'd need a very thick pair of rose-tinted glasses to appreciate this frustrating retro 2D shooter.

Horribly unrefined historical romp whose few positive features are outweighed by dull, glitchy questing.

Online battles provide the odd moment of fun, but matchmaking is regularly unfair, the gameplay little more than a flimsy veil over the upgrade system and in-app purchases, and your character’s stats overwhelmingly the most important factor. It’s dull, over-commercialised drivel that’s not even a shadow of the franchise whose name it sullies.

Like the ineffably dull Battleships, OIL has difficulty providing interest when so much of your success depends on luck.

In many ways just a bog standard movie tie-in, but the potential of the licence and the unscrupulousness of the microtransactions make it seem even worse than it is.

Why a show set in the 80s has a video game tie-in that recalls the worst of 90s licensed games is a mystery, but this has absolutely none of the charm, wit, or excitement of the TV show.

Some very clever ideas are completely squandered by a game that is neither scary, enjoyable, or thought-provoking – although it does manage irritating and dull with great aplomb.

Utterly pointless and almost completely boring, this soulless scrapper has little to do with Fable and even less to do with having a good time.

An unlikeable, repetitive, and blandly designed clone of Payday that wastes its celebrity filled cast on an equally substandard script.

Time Crisis with Transformers, but not any sense of pace, excitement or fun.

The anti-Chinatown Wars shows everything that could have gone wrong trying to make Grand Theft Auto on DS.

A gruelling and protracted stat-management simulation, with paltry interactions and stilted dialogue that’s entirely removed from the actual process of parenting.

Spore hits an evolutionary dead end, as the "everything sim" becomes just another dull platformer.

What started off as a fan remake of Resident Evil 2 has been transformed into a would-be homage that even in its better moments is a tedious and frustrating slog.

A deeply flawed attempt to combine survival horror with Devil May Cry style action, that tries to do a dozen things at once and succeeds at none of them.

As miserable a waste of a good licence as we've ever seen and the most bug-ridden and unimaginative download of the year so far.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 feels like the equivalent of a straight-to-video movie, and one of the really bad ones that don’t even have any washed-up actors you’ve sort of heard of. Instead it’s just a cheaply-made, unwanted sequel to a franchise that should have never got past the first one. And yet somehow it’s still the best the series has ever been.

The ‘80s nostalgia is laid on so thick you could almost choke from it, in this joyless proof that too much nostalgia can be a bad thing.

A Frankenstein’s monster of other people’s ideas, that if not for the sleazy script would be laughable in its desperation to include every fantasy cliché imaginable.

Fighting giant monsters should never be as dull and formulaic as this cheap and nasty attempt to remind you other better games… and anime.

Unfortunately, the lack of chain reactions and the fact that the game automatically selects chains for you gives it a dull, staccato feel. Combined with the stingy number of turns you get before having to wait for a recharge, Tumble Time utterly fails to live up to the joy of its visuals.

Unfortunately, despite the high quality of the artwork the text amounts to little more than pseudo-philosophical new age gibberish, and without a plot or anything much to say, the experience is disappointingly hollow.

A hugely disappointing follow-up for To The Moon, whose trite and overly sentimental story feels long at just 60 minutes.

For a brand new Nintendo franchise this is short not just on content, but also compelling gameplay and a sense of fun.

A survival game that, despite a few interesting ideas, struggles to provide any reason to persevere with its overfamiliar gameplay and poorly handled storytelling.

It might be okay on a mobile phone but you'll want to reverse the charges for this on Xbox Live Arcade.

Harry's film tie-in career ends with an inappropriately bland third person shooter, that is severely lacking in any kind of magic.

Praey For The Gods attempts to do far too much with obviously limited resources and the end result is a buggy, frustrating chore that at no point comes to close to doing anything as well as Shadow Of The Colossus, let alone bettering it. Like a bad pub tribute band, its only real accomplishment is making you appreciate the original even more.

The least hand-crafted horror game ever, whose legion of design missteps and tepid scares make the worst of an already clichéd set-up.

A highly peculiar social game that seems to revel in the mundanity of its gameplay, despite some intriguing ideas and visuals.

The potential for an exciting period strategy game is clear but that only makes the buggy mess of unbalanced combat and simplistic tactical decisions all the more frustrating.

The 3DS did not need two Ridge Racer style arcade racers for its launch, least of all one as badly made as this tiresome wannabe.

It has admirable intentions, but this misguided role-player proves a quiet life is rarely an entertaining one when it comes to video games.

Elite Squad is a blandly generic gacha game, with tedious, tactics-free, but mercifully brief gun battles tacked onto the front end.

A shallow and unambitious tech demo, of the sort that console launches specialise in. The action works perfectly well but it’s instantly repetitive to the point of inanity.

ModNation Racers was never top draw but this drags a previously competent franchise into the bowls of low budget cash-in hell.

It’s obviously been made on the cheap, but that’s no excuse for the legion of technical problems and the embarrassingly unsophisticated script of this obnoxious action game.

The evil twin to Zelda: Phantom Hourglass shows just how bad broken touch-screen controls can be.

A sci-fi shooter-meets-RPG sabotaged by a lack of plot, weak character progression, and sluggish combat.

Viewed as a visual novel where you have to sit through large numbers of identical, non-interactive fight scenes, you could enjoy it purely for its plot and characters, but this is not a game in the conventional sense.

The X-Men don't have a great history in video games but this is possibly their worst outing yet and offensively poor value for money even for fans.

An extremely insubstantial Star Wars pod racing themed VR and mixed reality experience, that is technically competent but whose greatest value is in demonstrating the limitations of AR as a concept.

Nintendo hobble their excellent old GameCube sports game with dreadful new motion controls.

A Fisher Price version of Earth Defense Force could have been fun, but this doesn't even try to offer any lasting entertainment, let alone value for money.

There’s the endoskeleton of a good movie adaptation here, but with dire graphics, dull combat, and tedious missions this low budget shooter is very easy to resist.

One of the worst introductions to Pokémon - and gaming in general - a small child could suffer. The video games equivalent of corporal punishment.

It often seems like you're making more effort in the game than the developers did, with this miserable showcase for PlayStation Move.

Despite the return of Zipper this repeats all the same mistakes of the last game and seems even more old-fashioned and generic as a result.

You'll be begging for mercy after just a few hours with this distressingly poor online shooter.

Bad movie tie-ins are hardly a new phenomenon but never before has so much potential been wasted on so uninteresting a video game.

The fake game hero stars in another fake parody, which hits neither its comedy or gameplay targets.

It looks like Metal Slug but it certainly doesn’t play like it, which would be fine if only the strategy gameplay had any real depth – or the microtransactions were less obnoxious.

A steaming pile of robot parts that seems to go out of its way to appear more repetitive than it is.

A remake that is loyal to a fault when it comes to honouring the original, with gameplay and design mechanics that were barely acceptable 21 years ago, let alone now.

FIFA Street meets Mario Strikers, but even as an arcade game this falls well short of world class.

Conventional Nintendo games want to make you happy, whereas Dr. Mario wants to take your money by providing an experience that’s just a touch sub-par. It’s oddly nauseating seeing Nintendo’s much-loved characters cynically shaking you down for spare change.

A colourful and creative first person adventure, whose From-style asynchronous multiplayer, branching plot, and faltering stealth sequences are hamstrung by a very low budget.

For a Dynasty Warriors game this features some useful innovations, but compared to any other series it remains as irredeemably shallow and repetitive as ever.

Rather than fixing the issues with the PC original the console versions only seem to add more problems, as a pirate's life is made to see even more frustrating and repetitive.

Playing as a powerful, rage-filled werewolf should be the perfect set-up for a great video game but Earthblood misses so many obvious opportunities it’s as if the game itself is cursed.

The Wii U game was just a few flaws short of a minor classic, but this joyless companion piece is only a couple more problems shy of a complete disaster.

Rock Band's first band specific release is the epitome of dirty deeds done (but not sold) cheap.

The third round of Dynasty Warriors vs. Samurai Warriors is almost identical to the first two, with more characters, more options, but even less innovation.

An ill-conceived attempt at bringing competitive deathmatch to Resident Evil, that has turned out to be just as terrible as everyone always assumed it would be.

The creator of Final Fantasy creates… a not very good smartphone mini-game, with annoying controls and all the longevity of a terminally ill butterfly.

An astonishingly shallow and repetitive game even by Dynasty Warriors standards, and one that’s unlike to satisfy even the most hardcore fan.

LucasArts may have turned a page lately, but it's still got its cheap and nasty tie-in days bookmarked.

Namco Bandai unleash the God Of Bore, with gameplay and graphics that definitely belong in another age.

Probably the least surprising game on the 3DS, but even if you do like Dynasty Warriors games this is still one of the lesser spin-offs.

An interesting script and missions can't save this miserable morass of repetitious role-playing.

It was arguably never very good even back in the day, but playing it now The Chaos Engine’s basic action is hopelessly outclassed by any number of retro and contemporary titles.

A music game so bad you genuinely feel pity for Konami. Just stick to Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

An unasked for remaster of a tedious, badly written survival horror that is even less effective now than it was seven years ago.

The original god game will find itself short of worshipers, with gameplay that's as old as Methuselah.

Being better than the other Sonic Boom games really isn’t a compliment, as this dull, ugly platformer continues to sully the memory of Sega’s once great mascot.

On the surface It may look as cute as an ewok but the money-grabbing machine beneath is twisted and evil – not to mention incredibly boring.

For a game that won an amateur game design contest, this lacks in both imagination and implementation.

It should be impossible to make a mix of zombies and scantily-clad samurai bimbos this boring but that’s the one and only accomplishment of this brain-dead button-masher.

The developer’s love for Resident Evil and old school survival horror is obvious but this poorly made homage does nobody any favours.

A Celtic take on God Of War sounds like a great idea, especially with these graphics, but Bloodforge's only triumph is making its inspiration look even better by comparison.

Dumbing down Mario Party sounds impossible, but this strips out every ounce of fun or thought from the concept to create the most vapid Nintendo game ever.

A cheap and nasty film tie-in that reaches a new low for Lego games and stands in stark contrast to the creativity of the movie and the toys.

Another failed attempt to revive a franchise whose time seems long since passed, especially given how frustrating and unrewarding this reboot is to play.

No matter how much you like your Japanese role-players this convoluted crossover has little appeal.