The only issue I have with the package as a whole is the random shoddiness of the emulation. One minute you can play through a section with all guns blazing from every part of the screen and you’ll get bucketloads of slowdown occurring.

A great puzzle element, eye grabbing funky visuals and a nice array of bonus features gives a nice sprinkle of longevity for any puzzle fan. Well worth checking out, even if it can be the most unfairly frustrating game ever created at times.

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.

Just taking the best points of a fine gaming series does not a good game make. As a huge Advance Wars fan, I’m appalled that another developer could take such liberties, but they do say that imitation is the best form of flattery.

Fair enough, it's very, very similar to the previous Xbox and Playstation 2 versions we've all played - but the added graphical touches and stable Xbox Live play make this a good buy.

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.

A credit to the series, a huge improvement on the previous title and a game you should definitely try if you like strategy games. In fact, it’s probably worth a try even if you DON’T like strategy games.

A solid title for the greater part, but is not only flawed, but not massively difficult to beat. However, I'd rather play a game that made me smile for four hours and one that made me frown for twenty.

The game has the potential to keep you playing for hour after hour, but is more likely to find a home in your PSP case, just waiting to be played when you have a spare five minutes.

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 fact that the storyline really fails to draw you in at all will doubtless be the main barrier that falls across the path of the casual player.

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.

Good, but not nearly as great as the entire world would have you believe.

Rugby 06 just doesn't begin to fix those flaws and the addition of a very few new features, coupled with possibly the worst commentary I've heard in a sports game for a long time, mean that the game just doesn't do enough.

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.

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.

On one hand, SingStar owners will love the new tracks but will hate the fact that there are absolutely no new features to be had – so we’re looking at a five or six out of ten. For gamers who haven’t played SingStar and don’t own the game, we’re looking at an eight or a nine. I fall into the former category, and I’m pretty sure that most people will too.

An example of narrative dictating game, uncovering a decent mix of game styles along the way. The developers should be commended - they've listened to their fans, grown as a team and created a game that stealth action fans will lap up.

If you liked the "Codename: Panzers" or "Sudden Strike" series, you’ll love Rush for Berlin. It’s a challenging and fun game with some real highlights and nice surprises in most levels.

Feels like a very short game. The extras, as I mentioned, will serve as a tasty bonus once you've completed the main game, but get dull fairly quickly.

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.

If you're looking for multiplayer action of a party-type nature, Nintendo's own Mario Party series surpasses Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Party Game$ in almost every way.

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

For those who can live with the formula, the only real flaw is the latter half of the game where too much trudging through previously visited areas creates something of an anti-climax after such a gripping start.

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.

The attention to detail in Yakuza is extraordinary but the overall effect is like getting everything you wanted for Christmas and not being allowed to play with it.

What surprises me about Top Spin 2 is exactly how accurately it resembles a real game of tennis.

Petroglyph have done a nice little job on expanding what was already a good game. Granted it isn’t the same as all the other RTS games out there, but isn’t that what you want – a little diversity? If the first game left you wanting more, which it certainly did for me, Forces of Corruption will most certainly fill a void in your Star Wars craving.

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.

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.

Kill stuff, level up, and do it all over again. Whether the endless repetition is a good thing or not really depends on your threshold for endless button-mashing and levelling-up, since there’s really nothing else to the game.

A cracking effort from Nintendo’s former arch-rivals, but not the longest game you could ever wish for.

When you’re on the fifth one in the series and it doesn’t play all that different to the first one, it’s probably time to stop. That’s not to say that Ace Combat Zero is a bad game, it’s just that you’ve seen it all before, done it all before, and got the t-shirt.

It's a game trapped in the past. Not the 80's as such, but in a time long before GTA showed the world what spatial freedom was all about. Freedom is a word that Radical has toyed with, not exploited. Ergo, in the case of Scarface, the world is never truly yours.

There are a few rough edges such as the enemy AI being a little too dumb and the plot being basically useless to the player, but when it comes to running through a level dispatching bullets right, left and centre, Transformers gets the job done with relative style.

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.

Some less "hardcore" players will find themselves frustrated to a fault, as Tails falls into a pit of spikes for the hundredth time, but if you can put up with the heartbreak, harking back to ten years ago can be great fun.

Super Princess Peach is as average as they come.

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.

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.

Overall, this is a none too shabby collection. The decision to buy will depend on your desire to have a true arcade version of the games and how sentimentally attached you are to each title.

Another refreshing innovation in Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2 is the directional control that you have over your serves. None of this “press left to hit a wide serve” malarkey here my friends, just pure analog control.

Good, but ultimately a shallow experience.

Tourist Trophy represents something of a watershed for me. This is the first time I’ve looked at a PS2 title and seen that the system just can’t keep up with the current generation.

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.

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.

The lack of any real reason to play the game again once the final credits have rolled also manages to hamper the score. Red Dead Revolver is truly stellar fun whilst it lasts.

A terrible shame and no mistake. Just a little variation in the missions would have been enough to send the game into the upper echelons of greatness. As it stands, you’re looking at a massive amount of style over not a great deal of substance.

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.

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.

The development team have gone all out in the tension stakes and made the game into one of the most palm-moistening titles available for the Xbox today, but the lack of AI and some incredibly shoddy graphical work takes off a considerable amount of sheen.

You can overlook the sloppy graphics, the poor narrative and the occasional rudimentary puzzle, because the design of Penumbra sometimes reminds you how inspired it is, offering the player some genuinely interesting puzzles in a properly spooky setting.

The bottom line is if you can put up with some quirky controls and are a massive fan of the originals then this is probably worth a look. However, if you are a purist and perhaps have a favourite Metal Slug outing, then you should wait for it to appear on the Virtual Console.

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

The cracks show very clearly after the game drags you in by providing a trouble-free first mission, and they are enough to completely kill the game for anyone who only has a passing interest.

Despite being set in another dimension, Sudeki feels believable and somehow real.

UGAG can very comfortably be compared to a Rubik’s Cube – it isn’t very pretty or enticing, it’s just an extremely straightforward, ball-bustingly hard challenge. It almost deserves two separate scores. If you like a challenge, then add [30] more points to my final score. If you prefer a bit more of an easier time, then detract [50].

The presentation is nothing short of stunning in places, but is nothing above terrible in others. It hooks you at the beginning with a promising storyline and the popular setting, but just seems to not care if it keeps you on the line or not, sinking into mediocrity way too often to ever draw you all the way in.

In front, it is one of the most beautiful, well presented and solidly put together sports games that you’re likely to see. Then, you get onto the pitch and the game engine lets everything down horribly.

Excellent gameplay is the order of the day here, and the classic franchises will make Dreamcast and Saturn fans teary-eyed just at the thought of them. This is the best EyeToy compilation to date.

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.

For general fans of racing, there are many, many titles available that will satiate your need for speed better than this effort. Not a tragic attempt, but at the same time, IndyCar Series 2005 is as close to average as they come.

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.

At times, things look great and play well, but this is all too rare. For the majority of your playing time, you'll be doing the same things over and over again, whilst wandering through what's fast becoming the stock set of urban environments.

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.

Players that are new to the KOEI party will undoubtedly feel overwhelmed in the first mission, stunned in the second mission, and then ultimately bored by the time that missions five and six rear their blood-stained heads.

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

Should never have been released in Europe. By removing the co-operative aspect of the game, they've infected the game with a particularly virulent strain of the T-Virus. It shambles purposelessly for your attention, mindless of its origins. Totally dead on arrival.

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.

The seemingly simple process of having a working camera and an enemy lock-on system has been neglected and as a result we’re left with a ‘nearly’ title – one of those ‘it could have been really good’ situations.

Scaler was never going to set the gaming world alight, but if you're looking for something to while away a few more of those cold winter hours, you could do much, much worse.

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.

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.

As far as racing games go, Full Auto’s arcade handling provides a welcome change to the rigours of the superb "Project Gotham Racing 3," but the slowdown and – in some cases – downright bugginess means that it won’t ever take you to gaming nirvana.

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.

You'll not appreciate the "on-rails" feeling that Killzone provides. You will appreciate the wonderful graphics and score that ' barring the enemy voices ' is one of the best I've heard in a long while.

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

If you aren’t a Dragon Ball Z fanatic, then you’re pretty much looking at a very average beat ‘em up with some pretty graphical effects and a few aerial manoeuvres. If you are a fan, then I have a feeling that this will fill a portable gap, but certainly not for long. Badly flawed in places, but not a terrible way to pass the time.

I really wanted it to work, and continued in the vain and unfounded hope that it'd all come good at some point. It doesn't.

Shoots for the stars but barely breaks orbit.

PQ is but a one-trick pony. It does what it says on the box and very little else. Your brain will get a workout, but 30% of the time it’ll be a practical one as per the title, with the other 70% being used to think of other games you could be playing on your PSP. Original yes, fun…not so much.

If you come into Enchanted Arms looking for something as epic as the Final Fantasy series then there’s a hefty chance you’ll leave disappointed. That’s not to say this is a bad game at all. Enchanted Arms plays like most would expect - an average RPG. Nothing more, nothing less.

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

It looks old, it plays old, the music is just annoying, the cut scenes are poor, the video sequences of amateur re-enactors, and the sound doesn’t utilize modern systems like EAX.

With graphics almost fit for an FPS and lots of "shiny", plus real military hardware recreated in great detail, it's also a title to get the gaming enthusiasts rig warmed up as it draws them steadily into addiction.

World Poker Tour isn’t a complete loss. If you want poker on the go, then this is a fine choice. Just don’t expect to use it as a training tool, or to hone your skills, since the gameplay more often than not suggests that the title should be World Bingo Tour. Fun and atmospheric at times, very, very frustrating at others.

There are other minor niggles, but none should detract from the surprisingly entertaining experience that Keepsake offers.

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.

Nothing terrible, nothing amazing.

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.

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.

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.

Some people just won’t get it, but everyone else who plays it will fall completely in love with the concept, the control system and the entire look of the package.

UFO Aftershock is, in short - strategy gaming brilliance, spoilt by lacklustre interfaces and controls, and one truly terrible camera.

The game fails simply due to a lack of polish and attention. You can play 9-ball and 8-ball in "World Championship Snooker 2004," so I would recommend picking that one up instead to satiate your need for cuestick action.

The fact that early on, a tutorial message appears to announce that "Rahma may go out of view occasionally, but don't worry" pretty much sums it up for me. I don't want my main character to go out of view and the camera system should stop it from happening, but rather than fix the problem, we've got a nice smoke and mirrors message to excuse it. I don't want excuses.

Incredibly strong plot. Unrealistic, yes, but absolutely compelling at all times – enough to make you go back and play through the game again from the other Agent's viewpoint, just to fill in a little more of the story that you might have missed.

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.