Compared to the rest of its shooty ilk, this is among the best of the bunch. [Dec 2012, p.111]

Whimsically presented. [Dec 2012, p.111]

Pleasantly distracting. [Dec 2012, p.111]

It makes you feel more of a baller than wearing shades indoors. [Dec 2012, p.110]

If you crave a slice of nudge-nudge, chop-chop weirdness, it's a curio shop worth visiting. [Dec 2012, p.105]

Like much of WRC 3, the driving isn't bad, just ordinary. [Dec 2012, p.105]

A slick, good-looking package. [Dec 2012, p.104]

By turns air-punchingly joyous and bite-your-Vita frustrating. [Dec 2012, p.95]

A cynical grab for gullible gamer Christmas cash made to coincide with Vita's first festive period, this COD shouldn't just be declassified; it should be erased from existence.

Race Stars makes sense when taken as a distilled caricature of everything F1 – rainstorms sweep in and temporarily change the landscape, safety cars slow down the leaders and bobble-headed heroes shout insults in vastly exaggerated (casually racist?) accents. It's a chocolate pretzel of a racer that's worth a spin for anyone looking to avoid the chin-stroking of F1 2012.

Tether the plethora of modes here together and you get a Power Rangers-style mega-force that 's much more than the sum of its parts, and only the overly familiar template and a lack of soul keep it from nabbing a higher score. Although it's technically brilliant, running at a constant 60fps, it lacks the esoteric charm, ideas and personality to rank as a true classic.

This is a fantastic package - a dark, witty tale of death and retribution that can be whatever you want it to. It captures the ebb and flow of tension that stealth games forgot about years ago, but presents it in a way that feels utterly contemporary. [Dec 2012, p.88]

It won't keep you amused for great stretches at once – it feels a bit more like a really great app than a fully fledged game – but for enjoyable chunks of puzzle-centric play to dip in and out of, this hits the mark.

What it might lack in terms of raw driving appeal, LBP Karting compensates for with a charmingly unhinged single-player, chaotic multiplayer and all the customisable bells and whistles you could ask for.

While the game's temple design is never quite as consistently expansive or ambitious as a Legend Of Zelda, Okami's art, sturdy combat and inventive noodle-teasers have aged as gracefully as Jeff Bridges distinguished chin fur.

Worth checking out both as a PlayStation, and gaming, fan if you want to see an evolutionary step on the way to where we are today.

Part of me wanted to give WWE 13 an even higher score. Namely, the 14-year-old part that would love to dust off his '98 King Of The Ring VHS and watch it on repeat until it disintegrated. Although my inner Attitude-loving teen doesn't quite win out, this is still the most authentically detailed, lovingly crafted grappler ever committed to disc.

It's achieved a vicious racing experience that thrills so much more than it frustrates, and it's pushed vehicular multiplayer forward significantly, setting the bar so high it's hard to imagine who can better it.

So much was promised, and so little that's new has been delivered. Certain fundamentals are woefully sub-par (the horse riding is absolutely shameful), and it's either laziness or a troubling lack of creativity that's led to such a generic and repetitive selection of story missions. And yet the game is saved somewhat by the wealth of content it includes (and the well-integrated, largely compelling nature of these side-dishes), and the moments that remind you just why this series remains such a big draw.

It's the repetition that grinds you down. Boss battles provide brief breaks in the monotony, but they're just the seeping gizzard of consolation inside a disappointing, fleshy haystack.

Assuming you can patch it and it works, what you've got here is a basic shooter that, when it remembers what it is, can be fun, and when it forgets, goes mad.

Not just another fumbled tie-in but a painfully wasted opportunity.

Doom 3: BFG Edition has its darkly atmospheric highlights. But a generous amount of content can't salvage a package that's decidedly dated. If you want a cracking Id shooter, buy Rage on PS3 for about a tenner, because this is one mission to Mars you're better off skipping.

The Unfinished Swan deserves high praise for being inventive, unique and absolutely beautiful. But this shouldn't obscure the fact that these things apply more to the look and the core mechanic than the gameplay and how said mechanic meaningfully develops. The engagement with the narrative and characters isn't on a par with that of the top titles in a similar vein, and there's a lingering sense of what might have been.

Joe Danger's return is as thoroughly enjoyable as his debut – a combination of predictable physics, challenging level design and varied tasks make it more than a "play once, discard" downloadable. Perhaps it doesn't quite leave the safety of the original's blueprint enough, or capitalise on the excellent concept of making a stunt-heavy movie, but it remains a chirpy, robust platformer with surprising depth.

A game as dead in the water as its protagonist's bullet-ridden backside. [Nov 2012, p.119]

When a game brands itself "bizarre", I expect something a little more off-the-wall than a 2D fighter. [Nov 2012, p.119]

It's easy to get sucked in. [Nov 2012, p.119]