Manage to grab it on the cheap though and you may find it becoming something of a guilty pleasure, a game to be popped into the Wii when all you really want to do is disengage your brain and kill thousands of bad guys while mutilating your own fingers in the process.

Graphics aside Infernal is a pretty mediocre third-person shooter in a genre already boasting Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War: given this, and Gears' inevitable arrival on the PC, it's difficult to recommend Infernal.

It often feels half-finished. The basic premise and idea is often better than its inelegant execution, and the game exhausts its pool of ideas by the end of the third level. There's a good concept resting within Undead Knights, but Tecmo have completely failed at bringing it to life.

It's such a shame Blood Stone is so average and lacking impact because it does do some things right.

It comes nowhere near Top Spin or Virtua Tennis, and what with the confusing control-system thrown-in, it can become annoying.

Overall, the game almost has an experimental feel to it.

A marked improvement over the first game, this sequel is really only worth seeking out if your Spider sense is tingling for more Marvel action. Otherwise, you may want to use your common sense and avoid.

Unfortunately the main gimmick of the game is pointless at best and frustrating at worst. There are challenge modes available after the game is completed and extra costumes to unlock, but nothing to offer real replay value.

The PS2 is still clearly still capable of impressing in the graphics department as games like Okami and God of War 2 have proved, TFatF by comparison looks like it's from a different generation entirely, one where blurry low detail was the norm.

Offers nothing more than an average game inspired by a great movie.

Five, perhaps even ten years ago Dawn of the New World would have seemed somewhat mediocre, in 2010 is just depressing.

It all feels a bit like the fun has been sucked out of this, and a paint-by-numbers rendition of a F.E.A.R game has been put in its place.

Quibbles and gripes aside it's safe to say Star Wars fans have had to often put up with worse, with last year's abysmal Lightsaber Duels immediately springing to mind. The biggest flaw of Republic Heroes, other than its generally unlikable source material, is that it feels unfinished. As a result, poor execution mars what could have been a likable child-orientated platformer.

The draw of an irresistible cast of characters - all nicely rendered as endearing retro sprites and stylish anime portraits - should already seal the deal for the core audience, but for everyone else, Cross Edge will seem like nothing more than an obscure curio.

Facebreaker has a seemingly interesting premise but has this tacked onto a very simple beat-em-up gameplay mechanic. It is definitely good fun if you have the camera peripheral and can create your own image to fight with, but is simply not deep enough to deliver a knock-out blow as a standalone game.

The fact remains that, as cutely appealing as Step & Roll can be, it essentially equates to yet another Wii offering that works in some ways but fails to make the grade because of an inability to fulfil the promise of the console's innovative controls.

It's an average at best fighting game hiding behind a love or hate it licence marketed firmly at children.

As things stand, unless you go rabid for Egypt or tired old adventure games then I would advise you pass up on this time travelling opportunity.

Consider this reviewer's naïve attitude and eternally hopeful gullibility well and truly slaughtered and replaced by a seething and consuming hatred of anything that gets unceremoniously squeezed out of Hollywood's all-profit-no-quality bunghole.

There's about ten hours of play, much of which is an explanation of the plot, while the rest is a pedestrian and pretty boring romp in terms of game play mechanics, meaning that in the end you'll probably just want to complete the game for completing its sake.

Unfortunately for Empire Earth III, some very bad AI coupled with terrible path finding, a watered down experience, frustrating battles and terrible use of character speech leads me to suggest that you spend your hard earned cash on one of the finer genre examples of late, such as "Age of Empires 3" or "Supreme Commander."

Ultimately, this game is really more of an interactive movie - the combat offers next to no challenge and there is very little replay value.

The hardcore strategy game fans amongst us will adore this. It's a true challenge and it will last a very, very long time. However if you're any less than a hardcore fan (and I mean the type of fan who will forego sleep for a week just to play networked Civilization) you might not like this at all.

AvP:R is an action game that fails spectacularly to doing anything exciting with a license built on the promise of exciting action. Instead it comes off feeling like a shell of a game waiting for someone to come along and add the ideas and fun.

Bottom line with Lord of the Rings: Conquest is that it fails on almost every level to re-create the breathtaking scale and impact of its source material. Generic at best, the game's poorly staged battles and uninspired set pieces drag the player on a plodding journey through a world of imagination and invention where both of those vitally important facets have clearly been lost in translation.

Battle of the Bands is lazy game-making based around a briefly amusing idea.

Beyond its intriguing battle system, Opoona is simply a monotonous trawl through futuristic cities that never impress, luscious exteriors that are never allowed to impress, gameplay that makes Crazy Frog Racer 2 look impressive, and an anorexic storyline that only succeeds in impressing on the player that the 30 hours required to drag themselves over the finish line will be lost in the pits of gaming hell forever.

Ninja Reflex, whilst being for the most part competently put together, will leave both solo gamers and party players at best cold, and at worst hot under the collar. Pass this title by, silently and unseen in your black pyjamas.

It's all well and good banging on about games that defined childhood gaming experiences, but essentially what does an 80s kid from North London know when he's horribly sunburnt and tipsy from a few sips of Sangria? That was then, and sadly for Capcom Puzzle World, this is now.

Pride, squabbling and calamitous design decisions have ultimately left the game a meagre shadow of its potential self. Its biggest problem, outside of its lacklustre design, is that you and the band have to ask yourselves, in the midst of a music game session, "shall we bother fumbling around the shelves looking for that copy of Guitar Hero: Van Halen?"

Fallout's strength has always been found in the moral decisions and branching pathways. There is simply none of that to be had in this episode - it is simply combat. While it can be fun, and possibly challenging with a lower-level character, it's not what Fallout is about. There is no real plot, either - it is background information to the Fallout universe, and that's all.

Somewhere under the flawed exterior there are some good or even great ideas buried inside but these are sadly let down by some unforgivable glitches in the most fundamental parts of the RTS mechanics, problems that are thrown into sharp contrast when experienced through the unforgivably dull campaign mode.

Silent Hill is consistently creepy, Resident Evil is absolutely action packed, while Obscure is undeniably unsure of itself.

The fact is there's nothing really here. The gameplay is too repetitive, the slow variation in what's asked of you is as minimal as it is uninteresting - you're asked to mix up the order of certain buttons are pressed in order to further progress your character's ability and score, but it simply begs the question...why? When I could be playing anything else, why would I bother with Prey the Stars?

Pretty visuals and in-depth character evolution fail to gloss over the disappointment caused by a hackneyed story, an annoyingly flawed real-time battle system, and a shocking lack of difficulty.

This kind of thing has been done so much better so many times before there's no reason to invest your time and money here, even if you've a hankering for ancient Greece.

It is not that the game doesn't have its fun moments, because it can be that, it is just that they are very short-lived and don't really go any further than the first level. Disappointing.

This game may be cheap but it often feels even cheaper. It's not just the simplistic mechanics at work but the rough edges which begin to cut once the initial lubrications of happiness at replaying a classic title have worn away. From icons that shift slots on the UI to redundant information screens being favored over the existence of useful ones, Colonization 2008 feels more like an intern project than a game that should be sold to the public.

The title completely lacks innovation, engagement, or for want of a more empirical term, soul. It does not even have the accolade of being actively bad, it is instead just utterly mediocre.

As the studio responsible for the ace Total War series, it's difficult to understand how they've managed to get this so very wrong. It's a real shame that what seems like a decent idea ultimately emerges as a visually unappealing, impenetrably tough and devastatingly unrefined sci-fi strategy title.

Given the intriguing nature of the narrative and the potential for development in such a plot, it's surprising to see such a bland title. 300 offered a glimpse of what could have been created with a little imagination and it is a shame that Ancient Wars - Sparta, despite the innovative unit management system, fails to deliver overall.

It is not that the game doesn't have its fun moments, because it can be that, it is just that they are very short-lived and don't really go any further than the first level. Disappointing.

It's not that Dungeon Maker does all these things in a bad way exactly, it just does it in an extremely uninspiring way that makes it instantly forgettable once you turn your DS off.

The RTS foundations are in place and there are plenty of core and online missions to test player mettle (and patience), but, as with Battlestations: Midway, the control interface is still unwieldy, the action is still stodgy and unfulfilling, and the aesthetics are still hampered by distinctly last-gen failings.

Considering the wealth of amazing movie content spawned by the creative powers at LucasFilm, it still boggles the mind that LucasArts is seemingly incapable of crafting a truly worthy gaming offshoot that encapsulates the wonder and excitement of Indiana Jones or the star-gazing imagination of Star Wars.

The truly frustrating thing however is that with some rather elementary things fixed (AI that isn't so terminally stupid, environments that don't look like they were made out of papier-mache, an involving combat mechanic) DW games would become not only more enjoyable for the mainstream but also surely more enjoyable for their fan base too. Until then however this is, and will continue to be, an experience to excite the devoted few rather than tempt the masses.

Despite the pedigree of the licence, very little of the movie's quality has made its way into the game. The characters are bland and the presentation of the narrative is decidedly uninspiring. It feels like a half-finished game and, whilst the idea has a lot of potential, is decidedly lacking in quality in its current form.

Final Fantasy XIV offers the potential but for now, it's lacking in too many areas to recommend.

It works, it's competently put together and it does indeed run like a dream on any old machine. Yet it is totally lacking in any spark and there really is an unbearable sense of ennui from the very outset of the tired looking and cliched intro sequence.

While there is no denying NASCAR 2008 does a perfectly competent job at recreating the sport, it's not a good enough racer when compared to the genre as a whole to tempt anyone but the most devoted of NASCAR fans.

It's too fiddly and obtuse to appeal to children, and too generic and tacky to cater towards the discerning taste of a gaming adult. The only possible reason you'd have for wanting this game is because it's cheap.

Drakengard is not shockingly bad, just unadventurous and frankly quite dated.

Ninety-Nine Nights 2 is dull, tedious, frustrating, and many other negative words.

Whether you'll ever get to see much of it is highly questionable, though, given that the time between starting and becoming completely despondent with ArchLord is likely to be minimal.

Sadly, the ongoing diatribe of criticism cannot be allayed by Two Worlds' character evolution either, and although its undeniably involving weaponry, items, and magical alchemy features do provide moments of considered worth amid the gathering disappointments, they're not able to drag the experience clear of its own destructive inadequacies.

I'm sure no one deliberately went out to create such a boring experience with depressing backdrops and uninteresting characters, but that's exactly what has happened.

Family Game Night Volume 2 is an awkward one to recommend when bearing in mind the costs of the physical board games.

The overwhelming feeling, the more you play D-A-C, is that what it really needs is more Star Trek in it.

It's horribly awkward to play, causes genuine pain after a while and thanks to the limitations of the DS cartridge has horrible sound quality. If you can get past important issues like those then the game itself is nice enough, but that's a very big if.

A strange game, its impenetrable combat will put off most D&D novices while the more experienced who are able to forgive (or simply understand) the lack of information will find its horrible interface minimises any enjoyment they may have.

If you are a big fan of darts and watch it religiously then I can see this game being right up your street, especially during the months when it's not on the television. But for those of you out there that occasionally have a session with your pals down the pub then I suggest you stick with the traditional way of playing darts and avoid this title.

It's a criminally malnourished set of events that never accomplishes anything more than a series of stale time trials that force the player into frustrating cycles of pause and restart. If that's your bag, it's been done far better elsewhere.

A game like Hard Rock Casino can provide all the virtual casino action it likes but it's never going to provide the same thrills and spills that a simple pack of cards, bag full of coppers, crate of beer and a few good friends can do.

It is just SimCity Lite, and really provides no new challenge or choices. Of course, I did still enjoy raining a meteor shower on my metropolis - probably a little too much, thanks to the frustration I had built up while playing.

While it's conceptually the game we were told it would be, every component is so underdeveloped, the game world so patently artificial. Only the customisation tools stand tall, but even they're of so little consequence that they're almost instantly forgotten.

The chakra move sequences are by far the best part of the game. It's a fun novelty for a while, but the single player is not satisfying enough and the multiplayer simply not fun enough for me to be able to recommend this title. Fans of the show will absolutely lap it up, but anyone else will quite frankly be a little bit baffled.

For committed (good one - Ed) fans of this rather niche genre, Time Crisis 4 might appeal, and it does offer flashes of high-quality entertainment, but frankly most of what Namco have delivered is largely uninspired, and the GunCon 3 controller is certainly no mould-breaker.

An endlessly contrived core adventure filled with dislikeable characters, non-existent evolution, and a promising Wii Remote battle mechanic ruined by shoddy camera control combine to send Crystal Bearers to a decidedly deserved demise at the bottom of the bargain bin. Fish it out at your peril.

The only relation to what Championship Manager used to be and what it is now is the name. All the talent left with Sports Interactive.

Heed our advice now, be yee a Pirates of the Caribbean fan or nay, and steer clear of this scurvy-infested wreck of a game.

Time Crisis Razing storm provides a brief throwaway thrill before its true colours are laid bare. It's not utterly terrible but it's not far off.

A surprisingly poor product considering all that the developers needed to do was effortlessly copy someone else's character design onto someone else's game design.

It feels rushed and poorly thought through and a distinct lack of identity is coursing through the game from start to finish.

The game is large and the dedicated gamer will be kept busy for quite a while but I personally cannot imagine why on earth anyone would chose to subject themselves to such an undertaking. With so many superior games on the market there is no obviously legitimate reason to recommend Cy Girls.

The most depressing game I've played in a long time.

Overall the game smacks of rushed development. 49gamers obviously decided that they would speed the game out for the Olympic tie-in, regardless of whether they had the license or not. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't anything particularly exciting and is in some places completely devoid of entertainment.

With more players I'm sure it will hold up against the big boys of the run-and-gun multiplayer world, certainly looking better than most. But without the players to fill the rooms, Warpath is pretty much meaningless.

Yet for all the hours I've enjoyed putting into the multiplayer, I still feel insulted by the thoughtlessness of the single-player.

X-Blades is, in summary, really just one long button-mash-fest, and doesn't require much subtlety as a result. Unfortunately the story and graphics do not do enough to make up for this simplicity - the game is of a decent length but sadly just gets very samey towards the end. Nothing special, overall; one for genre fanatics only.

Coming to the PSP at a time when appetites are being well and truly wetted for "Killzone: Liberation," a game that shares a similar top down viewpoint but appears to use it to far better effect, there can really be no good reason to recommend 50 Cent: Bulletproof (G-Unit Edition).

By losing the open city nature of previous games and restricting you to organised events the series has lost a large part of what was fun about it in the first place. Add to that the fact that the driving itself seems to have become horribly broken since last year and suddenly you're left with a game that's relying solely on its image to shift copies.

Sadly, Rebellion's staid middle-of-the-road performance continues with Shellshock 2: Blood Trails, which, although not unequivocally broken, is so thoroughly unappealing and 'last generation' that it's all-but guaranteed a well-deserved place amid the lower echelons of gaming mediocrity.

Beyond its shameful lack of a single-player component, which its gameplay attributes are absolutely screaming out for, Shadowrun feels somewhat unfinished, like a beta trial for better things to come - only it is a finished offering and it is never going to deliver.

If I haven't already made it blisteringly clear, I'd advise avoiding Heroes over Europe.

A cheap shoddy cash in.

As depictions of large battles go its probably the least epic I've ever seen, hampered by an engine that seems unable to cope with more than ten or twelve characters on screen at once and some of the most soul destroyingly boring combat you'll find it manages to take a fantastic premise and some of the most visually striking source material around to produce a game that will be filling bargain bins around the country within weeks.

In the end The Shoot provides the occasional bout of enjoyment for a single player but almost none for multi. It's not all bad but its design choices get in the way and forsaken the experience. It gets some use out of your Move controllers at least but don't expect anything of any substance.

Apart from the topical title, Flushed Away shares the same type of brain busting boredom we've all come to expect from these sort of lazy cash-ins, with the added disadvantage of leaving itself open for some puntastic criticism... absolute toilet.

Steel Diver fails to offer a lasting and enjoyable experience.

Given another six months development time we may have been talking about a real treat, as it is we're instead talking about a game that fails on every level to do the licence justice.

To put it simply, if the idea of thirty very simple arcade games with no real objective other than good old fashioned high score setting appeals and you can put up with the strained atmosphere of craziness then you may get some fun out of this well presented but ultimately flawed collection.

Personally I get a similar amount of pleasure from cleaning the oven or mowing the lawn, both of which I can do for free and both of which provide some tangible benefit when I'm done rather than just making my thumbs hurt.

Ignoring, as is really only fair, the poor timing of its release there's still a multitude of reasons why you shouldn't spend your hard earned money on Winter Sports: The Next challenge 2009. Mow the lawn, look at the lambs or just enjoy the extra daylight, whatever you do with these warm spring days make sure it's more enjoyable than playing this.

A blatantly shallow excuse to create yet another exercise in brutality and abhorrent language. The game lacks any form of motivational justification, and setting it in realistic surroundings, force feeding an uninteresting cliche-riddled narrative across truly banal missions, and then relying on violence and blood-spattered cursing and imagery to pad the gaping holes, makes the '18' certificate assigned by the BBFC ('M' for Mature in the US) seem sadly insufficient.

It's ugly, it's poorly executed, it's riddled with technical glitches, its A.I. is laughable, it's boring, unoriginal and thoroughly unrewarding.

A rotten excuse for a game.

When the only reason you're compelled to continue playing a game is to point and laugh at how badly the entire thing has been thrown together, you know that it has major problems.

One feeling I do get from the game is that it is a finished title, and quite a lot of effort has been put into pleasing Gundam fans, the only unfortunate thing is that whilst trying to add in the lore and even upgrades that the player can try to achieve for their mech, the game suffers too much from the over-repetitive.