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.