Only the steep difficulty curve may prove a deterrent: later levels especially can induce fits of blind GBA-throwing rage. For those with the grit to play it, Astro Boy: The Omega Factor makes a refreshing alternative to all those meandering wander-em-ups.

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.

Challenging, smooth, plays incredibly well and is as accurate as you would like.

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

One for multiplayer action mainly then, but still much, much better than the last few Olympic attempts.

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.

Play through the game for a while and you'll find something new that you previously wouldn't have believed possible. As I mentioned before, climbing up to the top of the highest skyscraper is something that simply HAS to be tried by all.

This game could have been so much better than it is, but I didn't think it would ever turn out as distinctly average as it has.

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.

An above average game. Most people will love the intense action and gunplay that features so prominently, whilst putting up with the control issues, occasional camera problems and sometimes downright annoying fact at you can complete a mission and feel very proud of yourself, before being told that you failed and that you have to do it all again.

Gets a final score of 70 simply because the minor changes to the PS2 version have somewhat lowered the quality of the gameplay experience. A lot of the tension has been forceably removed by the anomalies with the lighting system and for a stealth game, if you don't have tension, you don't have much else left to be going on with.

It isn't the longest game in the world and neither is it the toughest, but the psi-actions provide good entertainment for longer than they really should with the stealth action on offer standing up well, to boot.

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.

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.

Full Spectrum Warrior contains more polish than your average shoe store. Top notch stuff, and for once, I can't think of any way to improve things.

The different aspects of the game are so well-balanced that no single aspect ever wears thin or seems too prominent, and the game really lets you take on the challenges as you see fit.

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.

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.

It does fail in attempting to create an identity of it’s own. Instead, choosing to plagiarise bits and pieces from successful titles within the genre that have come before it.

When you drive an autumnal rally in Britain with the leaves blowing up in your wake only to find that when raining, those now-wet leaves stick to the ground, turn into mulch and affect your vehicle's handling – you know that you're in the presence of a cracker.

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.

It could have been a great game rather than a merely average one if it backed up it's shiny new exterior with some added substance. Expect to be pleased, but don't expect any surprises.

The frontend system looks like it has been pulled from a PSone title and the loading times are about as quick, whilst in the octagon, the fighters seem to have lost a little definition and gained a few of the dreaded “jaggies”.

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.

Good, old-skool, over-the-top sporting fun. Get a few mates round, teach them how to play in five minutes and have a blast. A fair few hours will be wasted in singleplayer mode too. NBA Ballers is probably the best arcade basketball title since the original NBA Jam, and one that is just as much fun.

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.

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.

So limited in multiplayer, fairly pointless in single player and far from anything that could be termed as “technically excellent”, Onimusha: Blade Warriors is a missed opportunity. What could have been a fantastic multiplayer game has ended up as a bit of a lame duck.