Fun but slight real-time strategy expansion that's rather short on strategy and value for money.

Shallow, repetitive and easy, but this Ninja Gaiden clone is also mad as a hatter - and that helps a lot.

A slightly disappointing sequel, but still an addictively bizarre musical mini-game collection.

A very disappointing comeback for the creator of PaRappa The Rapper, that shows none of his earlier style.

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

One of the worst video games ever made - brutally unfunny and monotonously inept on every level.

Mama's sideline in gardening proves to be just as shallow and repetitive as her cookery courses.

The worlds of hairdressing and vegetable fancying combine in the best, and only, topiary simulator.

Metallica fans will be happy enough, but everyone else will lament the lack of evolution and poor value.

Vin Diesel proves not to have the magic touch after all, with this technically inept Driver wannabe.

Pitifully inept real-time strategy that makes almost every design and technology mistake possible.

The glory days of '80s/'90s wrestling is an appropriately arcade style affair and all the better for it.

Too expensive to win the graphic adventure new fans but old ones will still enjoy this genre highlight.

Exactly the game you'd expect to result from the film, with fun effects but no variety or depth.

Square Enix finally gets the Crystal Chronicles formula right with this great multiplayer action RPG.

Microtransactions all but ruin this unusual real-time strategy and its flawed collectible card game.

The best console version yet of the PC hit - and accessible enough to suit even real-time strategy haters.

The end product is still several features short of classic status but it's not as dry as January's "Lonpos" and yet just as addictive a time-waster.

This new episodic graphic adventure is mild cheddar compared to the original TV shorts and movie.

Yet another entirely inessential special edition of one of the best video games ever made.

Not a bad attempt at bringing Resistance to the PSP, but the end result feels shallow and repetitive.

Probably the best Harvest Moon game ever with a successfully odd mix of farming and dungeon crawling.

EA's latest DS game is half platformer, half puzzle game, all fun (well, three quarters at least).

Konami's role-player is a frustratingly uneven mix of great graphics, dull combat and fun questing.

A startlingly well realised iteration of GTA that even does some things better than the home consoles.

Konami's reinvention of the footy sim still impresses a year later, even if this is largely the same game.

An unexpected, but largely successful, change of pace as Norse melodrama meets strategic role-playing.

Someone finally finds something interesting to do with Pong, with this excellent retro homage.

An unsatisfying facsimile of Resident Evil 4 with none of the style or excitement, just more bugbears.

Not only a poorly disguised mobile game but one of the shallowest Tower Defence strategy games ever.

A hugely entertaining, if slightly uneven, roller coaster ride of gorgeously stylised ultra violence.

There are some great ideas at work here, but the game can't quite bind them into a successful whole.

Charmingly old-school puzzle-solving with some interesting gimmicks and cute characters/corporate mascots.

Viewing this simply as a re-release it's still a hugely enjoyable game, overshadowed only by its own sequel - with its longer, more complex missions, no time limit and multiplayer modes. Since it's getting the New Play Control treatment too it makes this a little harder to recommend... but not much.

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

More restatement than rebirth, this Gradius greatest hits collection has little new to offer.

It certainly looks and sounds the part but this downloadable game is just as shallow as most retail tie-ins.

Halo's attempt to re-imagine real-time strategy for consoles is simplistic and surprisingly drab.

An almost total success and one of the best ever strategy games, with amazing scope and accessibility.

A flight simulation so shallow you barely need to hold the joypad to become a top gun.

The graphical downgrade has certainly been handled with less grace and the new controls are more twitchy and unpredictable than the old ones.

Sonic speeds ever further away from his roots and into one of his most ineptly-designed games so far.

It's barely any different from its predecessor but it's still the best skiing sim on any console.

The Phantasy Star Online legacy still goes unfulfilled, as the portable version treads water.

One of the best looking games ever, but also one of the least ambitious in terms of anything else.

You'll be laughing at, not with, this parody - which perpetuates every cliche it sets out to mock.

50 Cent's second game is an enjoyable slice of dumb fun that has plenty to teach more serious shooters.

The combat is excellent but everything else disappoints in this overblown and unlikeable role-player.

It should never have been made, but this abridged zombie slasher avoids being a complete disaster.

The Vietnam War has never seemed so horrific in this shockingly poor first person shooter.

Further proof of the Wii's gift for first person shooters, if only a more experienced developer would try.

From the creator of Katamari Damacy comes something even stranger that redefines the idea of gameplay.

Superior, but still badly flawed, portable real-time strategy that lacks both depth and variety.

The most innovative real-time strategy for years, even if the story mode isn't as good as multiplayer.

Forget Worms and all the rest, when it comes to parabola-judging multiplayer mayhem this is the best.

It may beat Gran Turismo for realism but the real trick here is making driving a Koenigsegg seem dull.

The best version of Street Fighter ever, the best 2D fighter ever and probably the best multiplayer ever.

After a string of disappointing downloadable expansions, for well respected games such as Fable II and Fallout 3, this provides almost everything a Grand Theft Auto IV fan would have been hoping for.

An almost heroic debut for the explosive penguins, spoilt only by a foolishly inflexible control system.

There's a lot to admire in this role-playing classic, but still just as much to infuriate and bore.

Pretentious and restrictive, but also one of the most spectacular visual and aural experiences on the PS3.

The Windows timewaster comes to Xbox Live Arcade, but the only real addition is a hole in your wallet.

First-person shooter meets survival horror, but the primary psychic phenomenon here is deja vu.

It's better value than the Virtual Console, but it's still a lazy effort.

The best lightgun game never to have seen the inside of an arcade as Headstrong outdoes Sega Japan.

Don't let the subtitle fool you - not even semi-naked girls and/or zombies can save this dire action game.

Impressively original, and wonderfully grotesque, arachnid sim that's just a little short on gameplay.

It's got its share of flaws but this is another absorbingly original puzzler for WiiWare.

This generation's best arcade racer in an extra value compendium that really is a slice of driving heaven.

The best Tenchu for years, even if it does still leave too many frustrating relics from the past.

Beautiful to look at, and with some great puzzles, but the bland writing is even worse than Hotel Dusk.

R-Type journeys into the third dimensions but a lack of control and high entry fee spoils the trip.

Another overly simplistic WiiWare puzzler, that benefits hardly at all from being a video game.

A relatively ambitious WiiWare game, but whose many options never provide any truly riotous fun.

Low budget, low effort port of what is otherwise one of the PS2's more unfairly forgotten action games.

It looks and sounds the part but this anime tie-in should've worried about more than just presentation.

Another disappointing slice of downloadable content, with little of what made the main game great.

Ultimately this is a very different game to the offline versions but on its own terms almost as entertaining.

A hugely original and beautifully presented shooter sadly in search of proper difficulty curve.

The very obvious problem with using The Sims template on animals is that they don't do very much all day expect eat, sleep and procreate.

The problem is there's very little extra of any importance and much of what there is doesn't work that well.

It's no classic, but this is still better value, and in some cases better quality, than shop-bought games.

To add to its problems the game is also surprisingly ugly, often looking much more like an original Xbox game.

One of the best looking DS games ever made, but the gameplay just dosen't live up to the visuals.

It doesn't do anything new, it doesn't fix any old problems and it's not very substantial. There are a lot of better ways to spend £6.80 on Xbox Live.

The reason the PC version works better is simply down to the keyboard and mouse controls, which allow for much faster and responsive movement.

What once was a dumb-but-fun alternative to GTA is reduced to a broken technical mess on the PC.

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

The Japanese role-player grows up, with a fantastic mix of traditional gameplay and daring plot.

The Destroy All Humans! franchise goes out with a whimper not a bang in this disgracefully poor sequel.

The classic 1995 role-player is finally released in Europe and it's almost sad how fresh it still feels.

It's got more in common with Advance Wars, but this is still a great strategy game – real-time or not.

Turning Castlevania into a one-on-one fighter is a dumb idea but at least this tries to be different.

SNK fail to provide any real justification for continuing the 2D shooter series or for moving to the DS.

Even committed fans are likely to be disappointed by this lazy and largely unnecessary rehash.

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

It may be short on gameplay surprises, but it's long on visual shock and awe.

Just a mishmash of cliches with enemies that could have walked in from any other shooter and a plot that simply joins the dots from one contrived set piece to another...You've not only seen it all before you've seen it a dozen times before.