There's a lot of fisticuffs packed in, with a massive 114 fighters from the world of UFC to choose from, as well as the ability to create your own brawler (though the customisation options are more serious than THQ's WWE games - you won't be fighting in a zombie mask).

Gotham City Imposters adds daft gadgets and a massive dose of style and humour to an old template, and it's a hugely entertaining way to pass any number of evenings, once you get through the matchmaking. But its biggest problem is that the unlocking system and stingy coins system constitutes its own form of psychological warfare with the player. And there, it misfires.

Playing alone feels slow and soulless, but the great controls and multiplayer features still make Grand Slam Tennis 2 well worth a bosh.

Even on Normal mode, you'll find yourself overwhelmed until the combination of dodge rolls, grabs, pounces, and combos becomes second nature. It's a testament to Shank's new-found competence that this does, eventually happen. Shank 2 has that satisfying feeling of re-mastering a forgotten motor function.

Iron Brigade is great on its own - not a perfectly balanced strategy game, but it's great fun finding out what works. With the flesh-filling and reasonably-priced downloadable content, it's an easy recommend.

It's one of the best shooter-stories we've seen in years - justifying its own ludicrous nature in interesting and unexpected ways. If the ending didn't feel like such a cop-out, The Darkness II could have been on par with BioShock. As it is, the gripping narrative and wonderfully empowering combat mean you'll be talking about it for months after completing it.

It rivals Skyrim's scope, but as a genre piece (albeit a smart one), it lacks the other game's mystery - there's no craggy elusiveness, no glacial hinting at secrets beyond comprehension, to help you overlook the more familiar elements. It's less a world you discover, ultimately, as one you revisit, and that's a failing no amount of fancy footwork can disguise.

Menus are slick, and everything works well. If the thought of a game dedicated to The Black Eyed Peas doesn't make you want to rearrange the contents of your skull with a screwdriver, this is worth a punt. Otherwise check out the far more palatable Dance Central 2, which features more songs and venues, and tunes that aren't catastrophically tasteless.

Trine 2 is a vivid and stunning game that spins the colour wheel on nature. It's completely absorbing as a single-player experience and bawdy puzzle fun with company. Just remember to turn on the unlimited mode and get stuck in.

This should have been better. Rebellion has done likeable banter in Rogue Trooper, Shinta Nojiri has made better stories, and they've all cracked jokes that don't fall this flat. But NeverDead honestly feels like a game whose creators gave up on it half-way through. It's a tragedy that it fails on so many levels.

Where the second through fourth games were exceedingly well-padded, the fifth is SoulCalibur hacked to a sliver, with very little between you and that fiery core. Admirable as that may sound, the result is a dangerously light single player game that's hard to recommend to anybody save SoulCalibur obsessives - or newcomers in search of a populous (because it's recent) online fighter. Notoriously fleet of foot, the series needs to put a bit of weight back on.

The true paradox of Final Fantasy isn't a temporal one. It's how it can conjure a feeling that's a combination of love, hate, derision and awe. XIII-2 gets less love than XIII. And the simplification dampens the open awe of previous games. But it's still the dominant feeling. And the fact I finished the game with only a quarter of the collectible fragments and very little idea of where to find them? Well, I just can't wait for the FAQs to start coming out.

While the years haven't been too kind to their spruced-up SD assets, the chance to fully experience the MGS saga is one Xbox 360 owners definitely shouldn't pass up.

It's cute, and you can use the character creator to build some ruddy adorable puppies and kittens. But if you've got The Sims 3, this might feel like little more than a loveable but only semi-substantial expansion pack. On it's own, it's yet another decent slice of wholemeal life-sim.

Amy is a travesty from start to finish, a game that plainly admires but fatally misunderstands its peers. Save yourself an infinity of soul-crushing distress, and forget you ever heard about it.

We're all for dolled up remakes of arcade classics, and those are some lovely backgrounds, but this one needs to be rescued from the limitations of its own design.

Only falls short of its own grand ambitions. [Jan 2012, p.103]

Not perfect, but decent gun-run fun. [Jan 2012, p.103]

The magic hasn't worn off yet. [Jan 2012, p.102]

On-rails action for the morally oblivious. [Jan 2012, p.100]

A sweet idea, hobbled by the hardware. [Jan 2012, p.99]

Decent game hindered by hidden costs. [Jan 2012, p.98]

More than being a sub-Flash compilation of insulting video games, this casts doubt on whether Hasbro understand what makes its non-digital games good. Or perhaps it just thinks people who play video games are so stupid they'll gladly lap up any old crap. Whatever the reasons behind FGN4 - this is reprehensible.

Your Shape provides decent replacements for both of these things, with all the arbitrary but absorbing nonsense of levelling up, medals and badges. This might be the first fitness game we'll use after reviewing it.

Brilliantly charming and consistently entertaining, it's a true XBLA classic.

We can generally overlook a bit of going-through-the-motions in campaign add-ons, but not when the add-on in question mishandles the backstory of a trilogy that defined a genre. Though serviceable, RAAM's Shadow never does its own premise justice.

A laugh-free and miserable undead slog. [Christmas 2011, p.111]

Teeth-grindingly frustrating platforming. [Christmas 2011, p.111]

Dull genre-bender with more features than fun. [Christmas 2011, p.110]

Probably cheaper to buy real gems. [Christmas 2011, p.109]

Functional, uninspiring tie-in. [Christmas 2011, p.109]

Enjoyable sim that we've seen before. [Christmas 2011, p.109]

If you've got the space, get involved. [Christmas 2011, p.107]

It's all a bit on the Mickey Mouse side. [Christmas 2011, p.107]

Unsophisticated but effective fun. [Christmas 2011, p.105]

Very good, for the few who can take the pace. [Christmas 2011, p.105]

"it's for fans" isn't a good enough excuse. [Christmas 2011, p.105]

As a single-player experience, it's every bit the quality of a full-priced shooter. [Christmas 2011, p.97]

Eurocom's recycled but robust offering might have been worth it if Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 weren't stealing the limelight this Christmas. Golden Eye Reloaded is fun, but fails to square up to the FPS big boys.

In its natural habitat, with two players sitting on a sofa together, this evokes the best of the '90s 2D fighting boom. It may lack the glossy finish of recent Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tekken releases, but it still feels slick and rapid enough to stand by its polygonal brethren. If you like your fighting games with a dash of nostalgia, this fits the bill beautifully.

To paraphrase Bret Hart, it's the best there is, the best there was, but next year's will probably be a little bit better again.

While New Game+ lets you restart the adventure with all of your gear and experience, there's not much variation to the storyline, and the light RPG conversations add little in the grand scheme of things. That said, if you're aching for a solid, fun co-op game, War in the North might be worth a stab.

It's Trials HD, but it's also rubbish. [Dec 2011, p.105]

Mostly just crashes and burns. [Dec 2011, p.105]

Nicely filling, but could do with some relish. [Dec 2011, p.103]

It has the wind beneath its wings. [Dec 2011, p.103]

Added depth doesn't add much. [Dec 2011, p.101]

Brilliant, bite-sized entertainment. [Dec 2011, p.101]

So cheap our small complaints are trivial. [Dec 2011, p.101]

With practice, intelligence, and a steady aim, you'll find your own satisfying path to greenskin genocide. [Dec 2011, p.99]

A fast, fun varied MMA fighter. [Dec 2011, p.92]

As it stands, we've rarely been so bored when travelling at 150 miles per hour, less inspired by a police chase or less interested in the plot of a videogame. In the end, the game's only held together by staples of the series, namely a huge complement of cars and no-nonsense grippy physics. That's just enough to elevate it to the status of competent racer, but definitely not enough to earn a recommendation.

A glorious example of how much fun there is to be had when you let rip with both barrels. Screw reality - ridiculous overblown madness like this is exactly why video games are so great. Thanks for justifying our pastime, Volition.

Bulk can work to a game's disadvantage if there's nothing drastically new on offer, however, and Revelations' later stages are a bit of a slog. It's just as well this is Ezio's final hour, because enjoyable as the game undoubtedly is, the base mechanics were showing their age in Assassin's Creed 2. Recommended, then, providing you're not expecting a massive overhaul.

The love that's gone into this HD remake makes it more than worth its budget price. If you've never checked out this series, don't get bogged down by details: Halo is about a big bloke shooting cool guns at cool aliens in cool places. Ten years later, that's still enough.

There's no downside, save an easily-forgiven sense of familiarity and the absence of online co-op. You can't even resort to the usual retro-gaming caveat of high difficulty - the learning curve is perfectly judged, the checkpoints agreeably spaced. This is the year's best platformer without the faintest shadow of a doubt.

Skyrim may frustrate you at times, but it will work its way inside your skin and replace the marrow of your bones. It never gives you an opportunity to neatly stop playing. Even if you manage to tear yourself away, the locations and the people will rattle around in your head. It'll give you stories to tell your friends, (although you should remember that many people simply won't be interested), and it'll give you an entire region to bend, beautifully slowly, to your will.

Without question a better game than the previous three CoD games and easily the most spectacular in the series.

While the first half hour of Sonic Generations is jarring, it's really worth sticking with. There's a lot of fan love here, from showdowns with your rivals - Metal, Shadow and Silver - to revisiting some familiar but excellently reworked levels. But it's a scarring shame that the Sonic 1 emulation reminds you how smooth Sonic should be. And he isn't.

For a renewed sense of wonder about Kinect, simply play this game. In exactly the same fashion as last year, Rare is at the cutting edge of what the device is capable of and as a result Kinect Sports Season 2 is, yet again, an essential sports game.

Disney Universe is a sweet game, as you'd expect from the saccharin mouse. But it's not an ambitious game, and after playing for a couple of hours, the illusion of the dense level design wears off, and you might feel it's a little bit thin. With more going on, and more reasons to go back to conquered levels, this could have been brilliant.

A clear improvement on its already-excellent predecessor and is now absolutely the dance game that Kinect deserves. Those who can't stomach the more narrow selection of musical genres will be upset, but this is still the slickest, sexiest dance game around.

It's very much one of the year's best shooters, but for all Frostbite 2's volcanic achievements, it's more a triumph of consolidation, blending elements from past games and popular competitors, than a triumph in its own right.

Our favourite addition is the brilliantly insane Karaoke mode, which enables you to sing along to instrumental versions of the famous theme music. Less hilariously, but more usefully, there's support for eight players over Xbox Live to replicate the legendary showdowns that occurred at amusement arcades around the world in the mid-'90s.

Better is good, but it isn't great. [Nov 2011, p.110]

That's some good footballing sir. [Nov 2011, p.110]

Ugly and complex, but still worth a flutter. [Nov 2011, p.110]

The lack of Xbox Live play kills it dead. [Nov 2011, p.107]

It'd make a great TV show, though. [Nov 2011, p.107]

There are still a few cracks, but this still rocks. [Nov 2011, p.101]

The Missing Link is an elegant, self-contained campaign-in-miniature that packs almost as many options and exactly as much atmosphere into a third of the space.

The game doesn't benefit from the novelty of Rocksteady's first, pitch-perfect effort, but based on the quality and beauty of Gotham's pair of correctional institutes, we're perfectly happy to be incarcerated again.

It's a colourful toy that'll distract young children long enough to give you precious hours in the kitchen drinking fortified wine.

Whether you're haring along some cliffside road, desperately trying to keep yourself from sailing to a painful death, or just fiddling with your sponsor challenges for maximum return, WRC 2 is an involving and rewarding racer. It's still not as great as the DiRT games, but it's not as far off as you might think.

If you enjoyed Dead Rising 2, then you'll enjoy Dead Rising 2: Off the Record - but that's because they're identical.

The problem is the pacing of the game. Missions are too long and repetitive, which causes the drama of the dogfight mode to wear out. The problem is worse in helicopter missions, where the strategy of the dogfight mode is replaced by panic rolls when missiles are close and some rude checkpointing.

Developer Kylotonn has crafted the least appealing fantasy brawler imaginable, its stillborn mechanics drenched in over-compensatory cutscene-driven storytelling, its charms limited to the lure of unlockable combos and abilities.

Forza Motorsport 4 is a racing game that tries to be all things to all people, and you know what? It actually pulls it off.

For ten hours, longer than many entire games, RAGE feels massive, open and beautiful. It's crushing to discover that it's all smoke and mirrors, but while the illusion lasts, it's brilliant.

If you can swallow the pad-mashing mechanics and wince your way through Silicon Knights' ham-fisted attempts at delivering back-story, there's a certain satisfaction to be had replaying to unlock new suits and powers.

For a game that's sometimes frighteningly unfair, it's shocking just how compelling Dark Souls is. While the first game was merely ruthless, its successor feels like full-on psychological warfare - we've played difficult games before, but this is the first we've seen that actively seems to be conspiring against you.

While the core game is arguably as fun as FIFA's it just lacks the depth to sustain the challenge. The gap has closed. Can PES regroup and build again to really challenge for the top honours next year?

When you consider the revised physics engine and fine-tuned player AI, this year's FIFA steps up as one of the best updates in a long time. A goal machine of a game and a compulsive purchase that not even Arsene Wenger could resist.

Enjoyable anime nonsense robot attack. [Oct 2011, p.103]

Rubbish. [Oct 2011, p.103]

A faded Arkham Asylum facsimile. [Oct 2011, p.103]

Fails to convert its potential. [Oct 2011, p.101]

A scrum-ptious morsel for Rugby nuts. [Oct 2011, p.100]

On its own, The Gunstringer might have been tough to recommend. As part of this bundle [with Fruit Ninja], it's a unique, funny, flawed and downright loveable Kinect experience. Buy it before your soul turns sour.

While it's never going to be as surprising or novel as Codies' first stab at Formula One, for a seasonal update there's a remarkable number of tweaks and changes, all of which are for the better. What's more, the game has become one of the most substantial and compelling multiplayer racing offerings around and, with the addition of co-op at whatever diffi culty you choose, is more inclusive for all skill levels than the majority of online racers.

The story isn't amazing, but it takes a cheerful back seat to spending time with the characters we've all grown to love over the last five years. And, best of all, nearly all of the loose ends are tied up. In single-player it's easily the best game of the series - and online the Horde, Deathmatch and Beast modes stand a good chance of making you forget about Battlefield and Call of Duty. Bravo, Epic.

If you're stuck for a Devil May Cry substitute, give this a whirl. It's a little too scanty to qualify as God's gift to action gaming, but it's definitely going to heaven when it dies.

The lobotomised, slash-block combat is the final straw. Rise of Nightmares offers nothing in the way of action, puzzles, intelligence, or maturity. It's a heartbreakingly lame way to kickstart the adult Kinect genre.

Don't be fooled by the identikit visuals: Crimson Alliance is frantic, fresh, and utterly brilliant.

But Space Marine's key flaw isn't, oddly, that it tramples its brainy heritage to mush. It's that the game doesn't trample hard enough.

There's loads wrong with Dead Island. It's as riddled with holes as the festering flesh of its primary antagonists. Every element of the game you can conceive of is infected with issues that would ordinarily be terminal. By all rights it should fall flat like a faceplanting undead shuffler. But just like those persistent, putrefied corpses, Dead Island keeps trundling on, somehow remaining shambolically entertaining throughout.

Despite the fact that Shadow Planet is an exploration game that doesn't have enough to explore, the charm of the visual style, the ambience of the world and the silent communication itself makes the short journey completely pleasurable. Just be aware that you're dropping a tenner on something pretty that won't fill an evening.

The best bit of Fallout DLC so far.