There’s too much replaying of banal levels over and over again until you learn enough button combinations to survive long enough to reach a checkpoint. Sure, there are a few good moments – the sheer scale of the halls of the dead, and the backdrop of hundreds of charging orcs during some of the battle scenes – but the braindead playing of them renders the whole experience futile.

Ultimately, the licence both saves the game, by giving even the most basic of its scenarios a degree of weight, and hinders it by causing regular moments where you double take, realising something isn’t quite right.

The Red Army levels are stunning.

A promising shooter which ultimately ends not with the final movie, but an impassioned cry of “What the hell were you thinking?!”

Provided you have the necessary levels of patience, Gothic 2 inexorably draws you in. It’s resolutely old-fashioned without being tired, and credits you with, gasp, some intelligence instead of handing over every little thing on a plate. Now if just one single MMORPG could be this good.

Naturally wanting to be played with a PS2 joypad, the controls are difficult to use and can’t be changed, although a secondary keymap allows for the more familiar [W], [A], [S], [D] combination.

The visuals have lost their lustre in the transition from 2D. Instead of being the studious girl who had her own style who you always fancied, it’s turned into the bubble gum-chewing underachiever who, when she opens her mouth, spouts the worst kind of gutter drawl.

An example of British resilience, striving on against daft AI.

The unique graphics engine much vaunted by CDV sadly enables little innovation in the rendering of 3D effects, and only the magical powers offer something a little different, which is telling – overall the emphasis is on over-the-top adventure, rather than realistic recreation of history.

Frustrating array of random pointing and clicking.

The best comparison is a C-list Hammer Horror film. Yes, clearly utter trash – but trash that attempts to overcome its limitations through determination and imagination.

If you’ve ever been excited by Sculder and Mully, or terrified by hydrocephalic children, there’s a game for you. It’s not pretty and it’s not perfect, but we’re so glad it’s there.

One of the most rewarding games around for the devout strategist, but those less experienced will find it hard to get started, and may get disheartened by the obstacles.

There’s immense replay value here, there’s a mixture of modes and difficult levels, and there’s a damn fine game, even if it’s not quite the revolution that the first Max was.

When it’s good, it’s exceptional, but when it’s bad it’s just OK. Witness the multiplayer, which, while it isn’t as social as Halo’s first incarnation, is brilliantly handled.

While non-hockey fans can blag their way through the main game, Dynasty mode is a whole different puck game. It takes a real hockey buff to know what's going on with the different team lines, strategies, player trading and draft picking.

It's a simple, short thing, but the truly masterful handling of the lightsaber(s) this time around means it's also perhaps the most genuinely Star Warsy game in a long, long time.

As close as you can get without pen and paper, but for diehards only.

This year’s best RTS.

It teeters on the brink of greatness but never quite gets there.

Despite the heavy emphasis on replayability, only the most die-hard fans of the original series will be happy to chase the same car over an identical track again and again for the meagre promise of TV stills and rehashed video clips.

Lively, mindless carnage, with wonderful visual excess.

It’s an epic achievement in some ways, but our expectations weren’t met.

The puzzle elements are more like extremely simple exercises that you have to complete, rather than challenging problems that need solving, and the same is sadly true for the strategy.

Tron 2.0 is shockingly flawed. Given that there are so many good ideas – the skill system, the gorgeous and unique textureless neon design, the mistakes are that much more upsetting.

Daft idea, but the basic game does all you'd wish for. [Apr 2005, p.113]

It’s doubtful whether fair-weather flight sim fans will get much more out of this than they would from FS2002, but for the enthusiast, A Century of Flight is worthy of the pride and bluster that the title implies.

The focus on wizards adds far more of an edge than Heroes of Might and Magic’s army action, and the increased level of tactics puts Disciples to shame.