The Tales franchise still feels like a great combat system in need of a much better game, especially given the banal script and dungeon design that mars this latest entry.

It’s got toddlers, swimming pools, and all the recent updates, but what this otherwise promising console port lacks is a sensible control scheme.

A competent enough clone of Final Fantasy Tactics but unlike the TV show it lacks any real sense of imagination or invention.

A not very dynamic comeback for Sony's other platforming duo in this repetitive and flawed adventure.

Impressively unique in terms of both visuals and gameplay but all the most interesting ideas seem to wash away disappointingly quickly.

As well as building your town, your overarching quest is to awaken a titan and kill a dragon. Getting there takes plenty of resource management and job assigning, but the late game drags horribly in the gap between completing all your buildings and killing the dragon, and while it’s mechanically interesting, it’s also a short game with absolutely no replay value.

Gameloft's cloners have excelled themselves in replicating all the basics of Batman: Arkham City on a smartphone - albeit only at shallow, surface level.

Relatively generous in size and scope, but being Second Son in miniature only helps to highlight what a hollow spectacle the game is.

It’s still amazing that such an old game can remain so playable after all these years, although it’s equally incredible that Capcom still insist on charging full price for it.

Not an encouraging start for the first Harvest Moon on the 3DS, with a game that struggles to justify not only its own existence but that of the franchise as a whole.

More than just a tech demo, but still far from a defining VR experience – especially given the plain visuals and unfocused story and gameplay.

In other words it’s a clone of 1983 coin-op Spy Hunter, but unfortunately what you see in the first minute of the tutorial is all there really is to it, with relatively little nuance to uncover. As mindless entertainment its daily missions are a brief diversion, but little more.

Just like the original Dying Light, nothing works quite as well as it should and although there are some interesting new ideas here none of them are realised without significant flaws.

Strangely self-defeating downloadable expansion that strips out everything that made the original fun.

Taking its cues from laid back infinite sand-boarding game Alto’s Odyssey and its predecessor, Ava Airborne has you attempting to keep hang-glider pilot, Ava aloft as long as possible. Graphically it’s pretty sparse and the flight dynamics are simple-going-on-remorselessly shallow, but there’s a world of upgrades to unlock at the usual snail’s pace of freemium titles.

Not a very good Batman game and certainly not a very interesting take on the Metroid formula, this portable dud squanders its potential on boring exploration and frustrating combat.

MegaTen's experiment in action role-playing continues, but it remains a flawed and repetitive ride.

An unexpectedly daring attempt to reinvent the series but one mired in technical and design flaws.

A masterpiece of mediocrity and a crowning achievement in unambitiousness. The Devil’s Cartel has sold its soul, not to Beelzebub but to boardroom suits and focus groups.

A rather staid lightgun game, with unexciting action and a lack of genuine horror. But the tech works well and the future potential is obvious.

A 90s style JRPG with dungeon exploration, random monster encounters, and a penchant for crafting, whose rough and ready production values undermine its comforting milieu.

A flawed mix of shooter and Tower Defense, but a far great failure as an anniversary celebration – since it seems certain to decrease the chances of there ever being another.

Being closer to a traditional video game does more harm than good, in a game that is all too proficient at making anarchic mayhem seem boring.

A very slight improvement on the original but this is still a deeply flawed and unlikeable role-player.

There's plenty of novelty value in seeing your games on TV, but it's one that wears off very quickly.

The least scary and least imaginative Resident Evil returns, and although it’s not the worst Resi sequel it certainly is the most boring.

Carefully engineered sniper action that’s let down by frequent departures into close combat, exposing weak gunplay and a lack of polish.

The combat has it’s moments but it has very little to do with Final Fantasy, although the awful storytelling is all too familiar from the rest of the Final Fantasy XIII series.