Why stick just one rubbish, bad-looking board game adaptation onto a DS cart when you can do four? [Mar 2008, p.70]

As long as you're prepared to get nothing more than a very good, very short arcade shooter, you'll find a lot of value in this package. It's quick, it's explosive and it's great fun.

This repetitious trudge is nothing to do with Soul Calibur beyond some character skins, and should be avoided unless you want to lose the will to live. [Feb 2008, p.52]

Witty story, great characters and a bite-size battle system that's ideal for DS. You can't fail to be impressed by this, regardless of whether or not you're a fan of Final Fantasy. [Mar 2008, p.50]

Magnificently smooth, slick and playable, with a good range of levels to suit all standards of player. [Feb 2008, p.46]

The best Trauma Center to date, we recognise that the game is ultra niche - so we've dropped our original score a little. [Dec 2008, p.73]

Quite tedious at times, although the occasional close battle helps jazz it up a bit. [Feb 2008, p.62]

The lanes are nice and shiny, but "Wii Sports" is still our top banana for Wii Bowling. [June 2008, p.71]

If you're a diehard fan of Mario Party or you've never played one before, this isn't bad. For the rest of us, it's another unimproved, indistinguishable sequel-by-numbers.

The Zapper is okay in certain games but this one doesn't need it. Sluggish aiming, too. [Feb 2008, p.48]

Fans may see past the clumsy structuring, but from a gamer's perspective this is slightly too flawed to pick up for throwaway fun. [Christmas 2007, p.62]

Rabbids provide multiplayer lunacy and joy in a minigame collection that's one of the nicest on Wii at the moment. [Jan 2008, p.46]

Our relationship with IM is similar to the one we have with our grandparents - kudos for giving us life, but pardon us if we don't want to play with them. [Sept 2007, p.70]

This one is let down slightly by a poor conversion from the PC original. [Feb 2008, p.71]

Ignore the fighting's mechanical edge and this is about as good a shot as wrestling has at reaching a wider audience. But wrestling fans, beware - this probably isn't for you. [Christmas 2007, p.60]

Full marks for ingenuity but it is not the impressive in action. [Christmas 2007, p.61]

Resi fanboys should feel free to add ten to the score; straight-up shooter fans with no love for zombies should deduct ten. Chronicles is set to become the most divisive game on the Wii.

Reworked, modernised but still definitely a retro experience, the original Tomb Raider proves there was substance behind all the hype. [Jan 2008, p.41]

The more you enjoy your cars, the more you'll get out of it. [Jan 2008, p.36]

We haven't played a game this demanding in some time... a refreshing kick in the teeth. [Feb 2008, p.67]

There's only one word for this experience: wooden. [Feb 2008, p.51]

Dull, dull, dull. [Jan 2008, p.64]

At best it's a formulaic RPG, but mostly it's a one-way journey to dullsville. [Feb 2008, p.70]

Totally rough as a solo game and not exactly packed with multiplayer modes, but the number of players and the smoothness of the controls make it worth investigating.

An improvement on the first. [Feb 2008, p.63]

Super Mario Galaxy is one of those rare games that makes children of us all, that'll have you straight on the phone to your gaming comrades, throwing out terms such as 'best game in years' or - gasp! - 'Mario 64 beater.' [Christmas 2007, p.32]

Online fighting action with loads of blood, comical fatalities and a slightly dodgy bonus puzzle mode. Hardly 'ultimate' but fun all the same. [Feb 2008, p.69]

Ugly, repetitive and a waste of the license. It's not quite "Balls of Fury" bad, but getting there. Punch-drunk and pointless. [Feb 2008, p.64]

A welcome twist on the Pokemon formula, but only an English translation will really uncover the game's possible depths. For now, it's fun and a joy to look at. [Mar 2007, p.75]

If you like laughing and sweating - and especially both at the same time - this is Olympic gold. Some duff events, but you'll be giggling too hard to care. [Christmas 2007, p.44]

Technically clumsy and laughably silly, but it's still oddly endearing. [Jan 2008, p.56]

FUN - in 200-foot high letters made of Lego. Regardless of whether you think George Lucas is a genius in a beard or the prime reason for bringing back the thumbscrew, play this now. [Christmas 2007, p.48]

Riveting stuff, no? No. And neither is this DS game. [Jan 2008, p.65]

A rather impressive little package. [Jan 2008, p.64]

So what if it's the same old Fire Emblem? The score's for non-Japanese speakers - the UK version will likely do much better. [JPN Import; May 2007, p.45]

Standard shooty war game that's unremarkable on DS despite the lack of handheld shooty war games. [Jan 2008, p.61]

It's a rather cute create-a-friend-to-play-minigames-with cart, sadly it's just a little short on the games. [June 2008, p.71]

If you've never heard of Ben 10 you're too old to play it (which is most of us), but for action-loving tykes this is a surprisingly well-made title. [Christmas 2007, p.58]

No amount of Simpsons love justifies sitting through this much clumsy mediocrity. [Jan 2008, p.42]

Punchy, cheap and cheerful splatter gaming. [Christmas 2008, p.60]

Fan of the first? You'll probably have a blast online. [Jan 2008, p.38]

An incomparable gaming experience, well worth the expense. And Wi-Fi (co-op and competitive) means no need to splash out on a second guitar. Deserves to be a rocking hit. [Christmas 2007, p.40]

Genuinely atmospheric and unnervingly scary - a grown up treat for your DS. [Jan 2008, p.60]

Scratch your head in tragi-comic woe as you try to decipher the game's cryptic instructions! [Mar 2008, p.71]

A completely manic fighting game that makes it satisfyingly simple to do some impressively simple moves. [Jan 2008, p.54]

The thrill of the eureka moment is Zack And Wiki's currency. Combine this with a control scheme that puts even first-party efforts to shame, and you've got the easiest Zack And Wiki conundrum to solve: should you buy it? The score's a hint.

A fluid run-jump-fire actioner with something new at every turn. [JPN Import; Oct 2007, p.72]

The best in the series. [Dec 2007, p.68]

Namco have done much better retro remixes. [July 2008, p.64]

Great characters, great value, an addictive story and loads of furious fighting fun. [June 2008, p.51]

Survive like Ray Mears while fretting over how good you look in a grass skirt. It's a whole news Sims experience. [Christmas 2007, p.50]

The only people who'll be able to get through this game are those who already know how to tell the difference between C and F. [Jan 2008, p.65]

Compared to this month's "Thrillville," EA Playground is severely lacking. Don't let the EA brand influence you - the kid in you will much prefer the theme park over the playground. [Christmas 2007, p.53]

As playable as the Wii version. But without some of the Wii game's key features, it feels a bit flat. [Christmas 2007, p.50]

This looks a bit lightweight when you think it's this or "Galaxy" for the same price, but it's a decent addition to Sypro's post-PlayStation gameography. [Christmas 2007, p.62]

Fiendishly hard and rewarding in equal measure. [Dec 2007, p.56]

If you think of it as a kind of a spin on Wii Sports Tennis, then you might enjoy elements of this. Unfortunately, with the disappointing controls you should probably give it a miss.

So yawningly uneventful we were able to play it with one eye, while watching Flight of the Conchords with the other. A waste of disc. [Christmas 2007, p.67]

We can't see what anyone will gain from this that they couldn't gain tenfold from a good novel and a dictionary. [Feb 2008, p.71]

It's highly addictive, some puzzles are fiendish and stylus controls trounce mouse clicks. [Nov 2008, p.75]

This substantial race-against-the-clock ball puzzler will reduce even the most hardcore player to a sobbing emotional wreck in need of institutionalisation. In a good way. Not one for the lazy. [May 2007, p.54]

Only the most hardcore fans are going to persevere with it, and even then it just doesn't work properly. [Jan 2008, p.52]

2D fighters aren't so cool now, so GGXXAC was never going to unite the gaming world like "Street Fighter 2" did back in the early nineties, but it might just unite your frienids. [JPN Import; Nov 2007, p.48]

Imagine "Ninjabread Man" with all the cakes taken out and replaced by musical stuff. Congratulations - you've just invented Rock 'N Roll Adventures! [Christmas 2007, p.65]

As a pinball game, it's up there. As entertainment, it stares blankly at you and occasionally farts. Concrete-proof pinball belongs in the arcade.

A very poor effort that doesn't succeed on any level. [Feb 2008, p.54]

Even with a year to polish it up, Bleach feels like a rushed Wii launch job. Very poor. [Mar 2008, p.59]

Despite having all the components for a promising game, this is a complete disappointment. [Feb 2008, p.65]

Patience and perseverance are required. [Dec 2007, p.]

Longevity is questionable and some will find it too bitty, but there are few titles on Wii so full of childish glee. If this is Frontier off the rails, we can't wait to see them on track. [Christmas 2007, p.54]

It's brain-achingly huge. [Christmas 2007, p.71]

A collection of rubbish puzzles that will surely train your brain not to let your wallet waste 20 pounds on this sort of crap in the future. You have been warned. [Aug 2007, p.67]

A game so bad, it brings shame upon Donkey Kong and his entire family. [JPN Import; Oct 2007, p.60]

Awful game. [May 2008, p.75]

A shrine to gaming incompetence. Arriving in the same month as "Galaxy" it's gotta take some balls to release something as totally inept as this and expect people to play it. [Christmas 2007, p.64]

The steaming cherry on an already stinking bum-cake, Billy the Wizard is one of the most horrible things to have happened to us in a long while. [Christmas 2007, p.65]

If this was any more generic, it'd be...er, something really generic. [Dec 2007, p.51]

Not exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to see on the DS, and certainly not in as slick and professional a package as this. Well worth a go if you're into your racing sims. [Nov 2007, p.62]

It's a really simple fighting game with a low difficulty level, plenty of cool moves, great characters, rubbish enemies, and a good dose of cartoon style. [Christmas 2007, p.57]

Utterly mediocre. [Dec 2007, p.53]

20 of the finest gaming hours of the year. [Dec 2007, p.42]

The motion controls don't make for a very intuitive way of playing. [Dec 2007, p.55]

Very basic platform game with a promising lead character. Not actually awful but it's overpriced at 20 pounds and a little frustrating for younger players. [Christmas 2007, p.65]

Only inflict on youngsters when you're absolutely desperate. [May 2008, p.75]

All it needs is for someone to strip out the associations with the film and you'd have a decent table tennis game. [Christmas 2007, p.70]

Utterly uninspired stuff in every single way imaginable. [Jan 2008, p.55]

It's a disheartening slurp backwards when compared to "Eledees," but there are enough unique ideas here to warrant a rental when it comes out in the UK. [JPN Import; Nov 2007, p.46]

The appeal of the characters will draw you through an initial period of confusion and into a genuinely excellente DS title. [JPN Import; Oct 2007, p.70]

We can't figure out how on earth we've spent so much time in the game, or what we've actually accomplished, but doing next to nothing has never been so much fun. [Nov 2007, p.38]

This version is way too lightweight to recommend it as truly entertaining outright, but what it lacks in structure, is compensated in spades by its cute charm. [Nov 2007, p.41]

You absolutely must play "Pac-Man Vs" before you die. [Dec 2007, p.52]

This isn't as mind-spinningly enjoyable as we hoped. [Nov 2007, p.54]

Ancient Egypt in glorious clunk-o-vision. If you like "Ninjabread Man" and "Rock'N Roll Adventures," you'll love this, but seriously, what are the chances? [Christmas 2007, p.65]

Incredibly addictive. [Nov 2008, p.74]

It's challenging, fast-paced and really rather pretty. [Dec 2007, p.69]

This version offers nothing that regular puzzle-players won't have seen before, bar some cute animation. [July 2008, p.73]

A logical evolution of "Guitar Hero." Being able to record our sounds and keep them ensures longevity. [Nov 2007, p.64]

Gameplay that's as pure and refreshing as a glass of cold banana juice on a summer's day. [JPN Import; Nov 2007, p.60]