Xtreme Legends is – quite simply – the game that Dynasty Warriors 5 should have been. Some real improvements have been made, and the game is much deeper than it ever has been before.

Magna Carta has the look of a deep, impressive, addictive RPG. This is all unravelled by some ridiculously (even for an RPG) slowly-paced gameplay, some bad camera work, and some innovations that simply do not work.

A very compelling game to play and one of the few titles I will continue playing long after reviewing. In fact, that is exactly what I am going to do right now.

If I was to offer you a game that freezes up, crashes, clips graphics all day long, slows down to sub-10fps frequently, can corrupt your save game file and wipe out hours of play at random, and then ask you for £40 for the pleasure – you’d either laugh at me or hit me. I don’t particularly see the difference in what’s happening here.

You played the original Sonic games for the eye-numbing speed, the best-in-class platforming action, the wonderfully detailed backgrounds and of course, the challenge. With Sonic Rush, Sega have managed to cram in all of that with improvements, although some may not like the way in which the difficulty level is achieved.

You can customise your locker room, create your own title belts and compete for them in the much-improved online mode, connect the game to the upcoming PSP version, recreate classic matches – seemingly, whatever you want or need to do is right here. Absolutely superb.

A testimony to computer gaming brilliance crippled by a premature release.

The Movies is addictive. The Movies is compelling. The Movies is innovative. The Movies is one of those games that you could become lost in for a very long time – should you devote the time to it.

Some things are incredible. Some things are dull. It seems that the game’s good points outweigh the bad though – even if only by a bit.

A fantastic game; you probably won't play a scarier title in the survival horror genre. And if you can forgive the minor niggles you're in for a wholesome and character building experience.

To me, I wouldn’t even leave this game in the basement, as you never know who may find it.

Like long car journeys, rainy days or when there's nothing on TV, playing Trapt is one of those times when you have to make your own fun. The only real puzzle here is who but the most ardent strategy fans and death fetishists will bother.

All in all, I’m very impressed so far – City of Villains is fun, there’s consentual PvP and there’s base construction, but the best bit is that if you already have "City of Heroes," the monthly fee will also cover you for City of Villains.

It really does little better than Tekken or DOA. Possibly time would have been better-spent working on a PS3 title rather than releasing this. It’s time for the genre as a whole to move forward.

The atmosphere is as thick as ever, the battles are tougher and grittier, the highs higher, the lows lower, the enemy more cunning.

A superbly detailed labour of love. The game really benefits from over 10 years of development, and is smooth and polished.

Everything that an epic adventure needs to be. Memorable enemies, a story that allows the player to use their imagination, tight controls, and one of the most impressive soundtracks of recent note.

To enter the racing genre successfully, you need to have some boiling hot IP, promotion that would make EA jealous, or some gameplay twist so innovative that the next bored developer will rip you off instead of vice versa. Jak X has none of those.

Sure, things could be much prettier, smoother and at times could make more sense, but one of the finest control systems in all of gaming, mixed with just the right amount of attitude means that the game is right up there with the best.

If you’ve seen the TV show, don’t play poker but fancy having a go yourself, then it’s a perfect initiation to the game – complete with some of the crazy calls and raises that go on from inexperienced and tilting players. For the hardcore poker fanatic though, there’s a massive, massive amount of room for improvement.

Unique in that it is the only war strategy game available for the Xbox. It isn't unique in joining the stacks and stacks of mediocre games that take a good idea and turn it into a hollow and somewhat tedious experience.

Do you feel like hacking the living hell out of a thousand-plus enemy factions that you can easily defeat? Do you want to just repeatedly press the square button until you grow a blister? If so, then Devil Kings will be superb for you. If not, then you’re likely to be somewhat bored.

Online, SOCOM 3 is better than ever, packed full of new locations and genuinely exciting. This latest edition will do nothing to dent the massive popularity of the SOCOM series.

If you're bored of the current slew of "shoot, run, shoot, run" FPS titles, then EiB's limited tactical bent might be enough to liven things up for you.

The epitome of a sound investment. Exciting gameplay, some very innovative uses for the stylus and graphically passable, this is one title that really hits the spot.

FIFA 06 set me up good. During the first half of the first match, I was all set to be completely amazed. Then I went four goals up before the thirtieth minute and things went downhill from there.

Cross Racing Championship 2005 has the makings of a very good game indeed, but with a couple of rough edges that slightly (and really only slightly) spoil things.

The occasionally dodgy AI, the god-awful music and the camera grumbles make Blitzkrieg 2 feel a little rough around the edges, and when you’re competing against strategy games like THQ’s seminal "Dawn of War," you can’t afford that.

A bit of a mixed bag. Astounding presentation, some very clever innovations (such as "Warp Speed" as standard on a 1940's aeroplane) and some very slick flight action is broken up by slowdown and a feeling that you've seen it all before.

If you can get past the delinquent, fiddly menus, then you can play a pretty decent third person stealth ‘em up, which has some ingenious little gimmicks and a decent storyline.

You can’t help but feel that this is the type of game perfectly suited to the DS; inventive, addictive and something quite refreshing – a genre injected with a new lease of life on a new platform. It won’t take you long to complete Another Code, but the nature of the game mechanic will ensure you will enjoy doing so.

A nice looking, functional 3rd person action shooter. But the similarities with existing and even classic titles, plus a lack of any real innovation at all hardly makes Total Overdose stand out a mile for the more experienced gamer.

There’s no one title that makes the package an absolute must, but if you want an arcade-perfect (and multiplayer) Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, you’ve come to the right place.

I was expecting a lot from Instincts, and boy, I got it. Smooth as silk, pretty as a picture and as vicious as an angry lion, Jack Carver's second title is as good as his first, and is pretty much a must-own for any fan of the FPS or stealth genres. Top notch.

In some cases, I'd have preferred to see the home console versions being ported over. Off Road Thunder for example, was a much better game on the Dreamcast than it was in the arcade.

Any action/adventure fan is looking at a fairly solid proposition here, but don't be surprised if the beauty of the game isn't enough to push those feelings of deja vu and boredom to the back of your mind.

Shows very little in the way of innovation, but the limited scope of the game allows it to shine all the more, delivering to its player a refreshing slice of good, clean fun.

Whatever the future may hold though, Fahrenheit is itself a compelling, truly adult adventure of rare literary and filmic qualities, and that’s more than enough to satisfy for now.

A wonderful puzzle game, a superbly frantic challenge and some ridiculously funny dialogue make up a package that you’d have to be a complete fool to miss.

Good, but ultimately a shallow experience.

I couldn't get past the bad spelling, lack of save ability and the general frustration. For some reason Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes just gave me very negative feelings.

Never losing focus on the fun design and interesting gameplay, Battalion Wars succeeds in presenting itself as a solid, well-rounded title.

Armored Core: Nine Breaker was destined to be a poor game from the moment the developer said "I know, let’s take the story mode out!"

Strangely addicting and fun for the first thirty minutes, that feeling soon wears off as the flaws in the gameplay slowly reveal themselves until you’re so frustrated that you will probably not be in the best frame of mind to complete game or play it for any length of time again.

Graphical improvements are minor, the gameplay enhancements are built to match and the AI is still as awful as it ever was.

A fair game that tries to do a little too much. The puzzle, platform and racing genres are all represented as advertised, but none of them are pulled off well enough to provide a particularly engaging experience.

If you like ice hockey, then NHL 2k6 delivers the goods – and how. The franchise mode will suck you in for the long haul, and the party games are easy enough to pick up for some multiplayer action.

Burn enemies to death with White Phosphorous or just gun them down using a multitude of weapons. Whatever your mood, you're sure to have a good time.

Absolutely essential as a multiplayer title, but if single player action is what you're looking for, the appalling AI that some characters display is a bit of a let-down - although there is fun to be had.

Beat Down fails to inspire, excite and-most importantly of all - it fails to entertain.

Nintendogs shows its attention to detail in the main game modes in so many different ways. [JPN Import]

The most substantial – and perhaps the most essential - title on the DS right now, and the perfect antidote to the short-lived fun of gimmicky mini-games.

Shoots for the stars but barely breaks orbit.

I say "incredibly destructible", simply because it is. Should you plough into a tyre wall, the tyres will roll all over the track, making navigation treacherous when you find out that your car reacts somewhat realistically when you try to drive through them as if they aren't there on the next lap, and you inevitably end up rolling the car.

Psychonauts isn’t for genre enthusiasts; Psychonauts is for anyone who’s ever looked at a game.

You’re impressed by the graphics, and then the sound comes along and kicks you in the head with some of the most appalling suicide-inducing midi tunes that have ever been part of a finished game.

Graphically and sonically, Kirby: Canvas Curse excels and impresses with apparent ease. If you fail a level, then that wonderful “one-more-go” feeling that eats up so many hours of our lives as gamers comes into play, and whilst this game isn’t the longest by any means, it’s possibly the most enjoyable on the format so far.

Technically a poor game, but this is one time when the overall value is greater than the sum of the parts – just.

The best action game available for the DS today, bar none.

Thankfully, you can turn off the VGS display completely and never see it again. Manabu Akita's system is a clever one, certainly, but did the developers really need to find the most annoying place on the race screen for it to live in? I don't think so. Rant over.

A fine selection of courses, a smooth graphical performance, intuitive controls and some of the most addictive gameplay available for your PSP mean that Everybody's Golf really is a challenger for the title of "Best European PSP Launch Title."

The single player experience is good enough to practice on before you go into battle with your friends, but the battle itself is where the action is at.

All you need to know is that if it was a poker hand, Forza would be a royal flush. If a football score, it would be a 7-0 win. As a game, it is the finest straight-up racing game to grace any home console system and as such, is an absolute must buy.

To not buy this just because you don't 'see the point', want to 'use guns and rockets and stuff' is just cutting your nose off to spite your face. You will have fun playing this, and with no monthly fees, you can afford to.

What can't be overlooked though, is the fact that the game started out as a technical demo to show off what the DS can do. Since then, little has been done to turn it into a fully fledged game.

Indeed, Polarium isn’t so much about your stylus skills, rather your ability to create continuous paths on the screen to change as many blocks to the correct colour in one move as possible.

Poker fans will lap this up, and a few non-poker fans like myself will become converts simply due to the fact that the game explains things so clearly. As much as the laws of logic say that I shouldn't be saying this, World Championship Poker is a highly addictive game.

On the one hand, Spy vs. Spy is a fun, engaging, throwaway platform game that comes in at the right price. The addition of the multiplayer modes and classic game are just a bonus. On the other hand, you've got a fairly buggy and technically inferior platform game that contains just enough inventiveness to get by.

Despite the intervention of the US Marines, there are some glaring flaws, which have somehow been overlooked.

The soft-focus haze of the original has inevitably suffered due the PS2’s lack of hardware anti-aliasing and indeed, the watery recreation here simply makes the low-res textures and dull palette look muddy and indistinct.

If you’re a die-hard Rayman fan (they exist, believe me), then even you will probably be a little disappointed with Rayman DS. The game as a whole doesn’t even come close to the high points of the series.

An average package by anyone’s standards, especially given that most people’s mobile phones can play a mean version of most of the games on the cartridge for a similar cost per title.

If you're after a genuinely funny game that features a massive challenge, then if you can overlook its obvious faults, Worms Forts: Under Siege will serve you well. The exploding refrigerators are just a bonus.

A game that you can pick up instantly, learn to play within seconds (watch the handy tutorial for all the moves) and then not put down for a fair few hours.

If asked to sum it up in one word, Pokémon Dash would be termed as “interesting”, rather than “essential”.

The best action game on the current generation of systems; it has everything you could ever want in such a title within the genre – including the most important facet of all, depth – and lots of it too.

The level design is regrettably less inspired. Many stages are disappointingly contrived to funnel the player into acting out a fixed, linear solution, precluding creative tactics and diminishing the realism created so well by the visuals.

Republic Commando should really be viewed as an incredibly solid, compelling, stylish title that has the ability of being able to be played over Xbox Live should you fancy it.

If you've played and enjoyed other fighting games on the Xbox or any other platform for that matter, but you've never played "Third Strike" then this is well worth a try. The fact that you also get "Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition" and the Street Fighter II animated movie thrown in as part of the deal is purely a bonus.

To call this game pointless would be trite, but it’s unrelentingly shallow and really nothing more than mental chewing gum. Nothing else tastes quite like it, though, and if you have any sense of fun about you, you’re bound to enjoy the goods.

The combat system is as well done as anyone could ask for and is enough to make you play again and again. Unfortunately, the sections involving Octavianus’ are only punctuated with such pleasures, generally coming across as uninspired and fairly clumsy.

Graphical flair is measurable in bucket loads, and the longevity of the title is not in question since multiplayer and Xbox Live modes are included (with both working well). What confuses me is how I can play the game for half an hour, and then be so bored with it that I'm desperate for the match to end, so I can save my progress and do something else.

The perfect vehicle to kick-off the new era of immediate, accurate control that the DS brings along with it; instantly open, as it is, to new and seasoned gamers alike.

This game probably won’t win any awards for originality. But even as it is, comic fans will be especially pleased, and it’s more than capable of providing the desired bang you’d expect for your buck.

As a Suikoden game, its lacking something - that sparkle, which could be found in the first two in the series. Suikoden IV may not be quite the Suikoden game we were hoping for, but a decent role-playing adventure none-the-less.

We didn't expect that once we had been given our orders by the Sergeant, we would find so many bugs, glitches and plain annoyances to hinder our progress through the seedy underbelly of old London Town.

Best game on the GameCube? Definitely. In fact, if there was ever a game that required the purchase of its native console just to play it, then this is it.

An incredibly solid title, and one that keeps Pandemic's run going strong. You'll be coming back once you've completed the game, just to play with the vehicles.

The single player experience is good enough to practice on before you go into battle with your friends, but the battle itself is where the action is at.

Despite some putting issues that can be worked around and the fact that the “spin” system just doesn’t seem to work 90% of the time, the game holds up well and provides an involving experience that suits the system down to the ground.

Sprung: The Dating Game has a bit of a cheek to include the word “game” in its title. The guys behind it could have at least been honest and included at least one of the words “awful”, “pointless” or “tedious” too.

A tiny map exists in the top right hand corner, but in a full race, it only indicates your position – which renders it useless when you need to know how far in front the leader is.

Absolutely essential twitch gaming, and the perfect way to wear in your new DS.

To be brutally honest, the flaws in the putting system kill the game almost completely dead.

An undeniable classic tainted by an awful control mechanism that still doesn’t feel natural after some ten hours’ play, with a few fun extras more suited to the input method.

Snake Eater just pips "Resident Evil 4" when it comes to boss battles, with Konami's title boasting some of the finest boss confrontations since the first PlayStation Metal Gear Solid; we’re talking Psycho Mantis territory now people, for inventiveness, sheer scope and fun.

Bringing your very own creation up from nothing and turning them into a successful member of the gaming society can prove to be curiously addictive.

There is improvement to be had here, and given that the jungle drums are sending a message that Madden 2006 is on the way to the DS, we’re hoping that the developers can see where they’ve faltered and that they get a chance to try again.