When you first take a gander at Daxter, you see a beautifully recreated Jak & Daxter game on the portable Playstation. Some thousand bug squishings later, you’ll realise that looks can be extremely deceiving.

Imagine a free-roaming King Kong game, with a main plot line that you can ignore as you run through the jungle, beating the piss out of dinosaurs with tree trunks and rocks. That would have been awesome. Instead, we were given this six to eight hour snooze fest.

But in all honesty, this is a game I'd be embarrassed to own, and I own "WCW Nitro."

We want interesting levels. We want a variety of enemies that challenge us. We want cool guns to kill them with. Instead, the developers did what they wanted. They put doors on ceilings and tables on walls and little switches to hit to pull you where they want you to go. They forgot everything that makes games fun.

The graphics and sound might be a great leap forward, but the rest of the game fails to meet any of the current criteria for a good first-person shooter.

This reckless, half-cocked release is not just insulting to the thousands of gamers who’ll pay full price to receive an inferior product that others will buy cut-price a few months down the line when it’s finally been chopped and changed into a playable state, but detrimental and damaging to a team of developers who clearly have a real passion and love for the games they create.

With no story or true narrative to latch onto, there's no reason for players to care about what's going on. And there's only one thing ever going on in Dear Esther: nothing. Broken up into individual pieces-the graphics, writing, and music clearly show talent and might have led to interesting stories or games-but together they form a dull, lifeless experience that's quickly forgotten.

Without the tactile use of a proper analogue stick, or a significantly more forgiving sense of level design, Cling! is a game only suitable for the most dedicated masochists. And, before playing this, I might have included myself in that distinguished fraternity.

Its incredibly short stature makes ZOE an almost pointless re-release, and the de-evolved frame rate handling of 2nd Runner isn't much to pine for unless your PS2 copy was lost, stolen, or destroyed. If this is an effort to get people amped and ready for the recently announced Zone of the Enders 3, fans certainly deserve better than this.

A poor game shrouded in an illusion of mediocrity.

This lack of polish could be forgiven in a game with tight gameplay, but that’s not Battlecry. Your Veritech feels wimpy and clunky in every mode.

The blue stuff could be an analogy for the game at large – unexpected, cool to look at, but utterly, maddeningly infuriating and with little resemblance to what the forces that birthed it set out to achieve.

The whole notion of a scored review seems a little arbitrary in the face of the niche and dedicated fanbase this game will attract, and its attempts at populist window-dressing are virtually pointless because for the rest of us, the whole entity is at its most lenient completely mystifying, and at its most uncompromising utterly impenetrable.

From the sleep-inducing gameplay to the wooden dialogue and stale story, the whole project feels phoned in Hunting ghosts has never been so bad.

As far as driving games go, this is a must-skip.

For ancient king and Elvish lord, Guardians of Middle-earth is stuck in the Mystical Bog of Latency Irritation. Its system's solidly built and there's the appearance of depth crying to be uncovered. However, those cries aren't being heard. This isn't the first time a multiplayer-only XBLA title has effectively been broken online. It deserved a better fate than this.

This is a sub-par licensed shooter without any real sense for what it wants to accomplish.

It's highly energetic in attitude and then does all it can to hamper and slow the player's progress and enjoyment. All filler, no killer.

Clearly a lot of love and effort has gone into making this game and both Endeavor Bros. and Monkube should be applauded for creating one of the best-looking and most endearing games on the casual market, but the fundamental gameplay issues cannot be ignored.

While its myriad of technical issues are certainly detrimental to anyone’s enjoyment, it’s the lack of ambition in reinventing its aging mechanics and tired mission design that leave Unity treading water.

The straightforward progression is perfectly suited for a diet RPG, but the underdeveloped systems and mindless combat bring the breakneck pacing to an exasperating crawl.

In a way, the game does live up to the hype: they wanted to ban it for its gratuitous violence and I can see why. Funny how they didn't just get out and say that the game isn't worthy to be played; that would've made things much easier.

It seems set with doing the bare minimum (a lot of the time, not even that) and expects it to be acceptable just because it’s splashing around in a small pond starved of enough shooters to hold the flag without it.

When you play a game and find the most immersive sections are cut-scenes and the game isn’t called Metal Gear Solid, then you know something isn’t quite right.

It’s a shame that the concept was implemented so poorly, an example of sacrificing quality for mindless movie-licensed mush. With the absolute lack of difficulty and simplistic design, it’s a real wonder as to what Activision was expecting when they unleashed this game upon the masses of unsuspecting gamers.

Alice: Madness Return has a terrific visual style and intriguing ideas, which is why it's so frustrating to see what could've been a clever game turn into such a tedious, drawn-out mess.

It shouldn't be a gamble for online multiplayer to work though. In the end, Quake Arena Arcade rings its own death knell and doesn't give Quake III Arena the justice it deserves.

A bitter disappointment. It's a soulless, miserable outing that manages to make zooming around on crotch-rockets dull and frustrating.

I like my FPS shooters to deliver a single-player experience too, and Painkiller: Hell Wars flatly fails in that regard. If you're looking for online deathmatch, Painkiller: Hell Wars is a reasonable purchase, but don't expect anything from the single-player experience, particularly, enjoyment.

Shamefully, Fists of Plastic won’t have you reliving your childhood memories for long, as the tiresome challenges and lack of online execution will have you beating yourself up quicker than you can fling your joypad across the room with dragon-punch shaped irritation.

At least know this: I didn't enjoy my crime spree nearly as much as I should have.

From Software’s goals with Ninja Blade appear to have been slim to negligible, and with a considerable portion of fans of the infinitely preferable Ninja Gaiden ready to buy up anything with a similar remit, they’re unlikely to be nearly as disappointed as I am.

Infinite Undiscovery is never particularly awful or broken. The music is excellent, and overall the presentation is pretty solid. It’s just that this is one of those games that seem to drag on even though it’s a relatively short game.

The new story is generic, the exploration hampered by unnecessary backtracking and the dreaded locked door puzzles.

The imprecision of The Fancy Pants Adventure's platforming segments leave a lingering feeling that it's still trying to appeal to an audience that's OK with a quirky-yet-limited platforming game.

Just Cause reeks of wasted potential. The story could have been interesting, but the generic characters and bland execution aren’t endearing in the slightest.

The character models in the cutscenes look embarrassingly poor, with Mary Jane not even looking like Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire looking fat.

The difficulty level is almost non-existent, AI is laughable, and there’s little creativity involved with the development of Layle’s powers or the places he explores. Not to mention the headache-inducing backtracking you’ll have to endure. It’s sad, considering how gorgeous some of parts of this game are.

The art, the audio, the level design, it’s all just sorta “there”, and feels creatively bankrupt.

Honestly, Last Remnant is just another JRPG with a fresh coat of paint and a few unfinished ideas.

It brings more than its fair share of content to the table but fails to ever truly distinguish itself as more than an average mini golf title.

The camera does not work well enough to capture everyone on screen at any one time. Much of the game was spent battling with the camera, in open spaces, spinning it around to find where the other unseen opponents were. It gets worse within enclosed spaces, when there’s little room to maneuver.

Too Human had a lot to live up to after 10 years of imaginings and re-imaginings, and it's sad that a game which was slated for greatness fell so far from it.

It's far too long and tedious, allowing us to save along the way, when its old school appeal would have been better served by fewer levels, no saves and less repetition.

The game is a real mess, with shoddy graphics, a badly constructed and executed plot, repetitive and flawed gameplay, bland multiplayer elements and a serious lack of atmosphere.

A disappointing outing from Mr Esc and his associates, as we’ll be expecting something very different for the next installment.

Despite the flaws in the execution, it's more Choplifter. And for a select few, that still means something.

The awkward touchscreen controls forced upon a 2D platformer cause physical discomfort and turns the difficulty ramp up from a hard incline to near vertical. Instead, a low-key PC release with controller support would have been better suited. It wouldn’t have resolved all issues, a straight port never will, but it would have lowered the hurdles that cause a barrier to entry here.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time on Wii is a complete mess. It’s simply unpleasant to play, which is a real shame, because content-wise it’s not half bad.

F1 Race Stars provides small doses of enjoyment alongside larger doses of frustration and injustice, thanks to its stubborn insistence of remaining both an F1 and karting game.

For some, it may be enough to simply have a new Nascar experience, but as a game, it’s not going to hold an appeal for anyone beyond those who simply want a straightforward replication of the sport.

Grasshopper has made one of their more mechanically satisfying titles, but to enjoy it you have to put up with all of the other muck. You’ll have to choose whether Killer is Dead is the loveless romance for you.

To top it off, an experienced player can get through the game in five hours, and there isn't much in terms of replay value. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is a poorly executed, thoughtless game that is best to be avoided.

In its present state though, I cannot recommend Lord of the Rings: War in the North. If patching is successful, I can only recommend this to starved genre fans, but don't expect much.

Every texture repeats over and over again until your eyes cry out for something different. Even the artificially produced skies are bland and generic, possibly so the clouds don’t upstage the boring enemies you fight again.

Lost Planet 2 may satisfy fans of shooters and Japanese arcade games looking for a hybrid - at its best, it's a mix of Gears of War and pattern-based action games - but it will probably frustrate them, and it will definitely offend everyone else.

Scarygirl is riddled with countless inherent flaws that make the game, in no simpler terms, bad.

It's weird, very weird. Mini-game compendiums are usually a mixed bag of sweet and sour, but WTF contains more of the cringing variety.

So what did it need besides a miracle? Depth. Lots of depth.

Exploring an entire island in order to race is tedious in itself. The need to win first place every time forces you to replay a track until you race perfection. The controls are slippery, and the gameplay seems sluggish. The Touch Screen features are poorly implemented. The difficulty, AI competitors, and convoluted mini-games are pathetic at best.

By trying to match up to juggernauts such Gears of War and Halo, Fracture ultimately becomes a prisoner shackled by predictability and poor design.

Whether or not this is worth the 400 Microsoft points, is entirely up to how much fun you think you can squeeze out of a very limited game with next to no variety.

All in all, The Undergarden is definitely a game that is to be avoided by puzzle enthusiasts, ultra violent droogies, or people who like to be given a clear purpose before giving anything their attention.

It's nowhere being as wealthy as Dead Money, it's more dishonest than Honest Hearts, and compared to Big MT, it's the real Big Empty.

Developed by Arush Entertainment, this urban-themed FPS game makes a few stabs at greatness but ultimately misses its mark by, oh, about a mile.

Despite its intriguing but flawed multiplayer suite, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is one of the most underwhelming shooters of recent memory.

There’s a mixed bag of ideas present in Wanted: Weapons of Fate, but as a whole it feels terribly rushed.

The levels are gruesomely themed, but their simplicity, brevity, and linearity are disappointing. The sheer amount of glitches, questionable controls, laughable AI, and easy stealth mechanics make the game seem like a poor rendition of "Splinter Cell."

But once you’ve stripped away the enticing pictures, unquestionable innuendo and blatant sexual undertones, you’ve got a wrestling game that is mediocre at best. The story and characters are laughable, gameplay is dull and sluggish, the presentation is a mixed bag, and the incentive to actually complete this game is practically nil.

No wonder it was so hard to get into this clubhouse, it appears the foundations are fatefully unstable.

When the included episode and a couple of the music tracks are the highlights of the game, there is something not right about the entire package.

The problem is that the motion sensing is abysmal; the game will frequently misread your commands, resulting in your character shuffling through the stances until he either miraculously makes it through or smashes his head into a bloody pulp.

In a year beholden to console gaming's finest offerings, this is impossible to recommend.

Facebreaker shows some promise at the start; it’s plucky, full of spunk, and mildly charming. But play it more and it becomes apparent that it’s nothing but a one tricky pony. That charm and dazzle soon withers away along with your enthusiasm, and Facebreaker ends up punching itself in the face.

The game’s combat system needs an overhaul, the levels lack inspiration, and the presentation will make your eyes water. When compared with its contemporaries, this game lacks the shine and polish that gamers are expecting when they try out their DS for the first time. This is shameful way to start the new batch of DS games.

It's a shame that our final goodbyes to the cityscape of Omega is so passionless and dull. If Bioware intends to release more episodic content for ME3, I hope they don't rely on their increasingly tired combat system to do all of the work next time round. Let's have some more of that character back, okay?

Zack Zero is strictly amateur hour. Everything from its awful production values to the way it bungles simple platforming is an indicator that the developers lack direction. Even if the player manages to look past the dearth of new concepts and the poor execution, the crashes and profoundly obnoxious pop-up messages will ensure they've given up on Zack Zero long before the credits role.

Touch Detective is terrible in all the ways that make an adventure-puzzler (like the aforementioned Phoenix Wright, or Monkey Island, or Grim Fandango, or etc.) worth its salt. Go spend your £20 on Cluedo, because at least then you're controlling the pathfinding.

It may have been fun back in the 1990s but now there’s just not enough depth to gain any sort of prolonged enjoyment out of it. Short bursts in multiplayer can be mildly enjoyable, but for 800 points it’s simply not worth it. It’s crazy to think they were originally going to charge 1200 for what is a bare-bone remake.

Mister Slime is the dictionary definition of bland.

Even Shikigami fans in particular will be displeased, because MLB2 isn't the flawless port that it easily could have been, featuring horrible dubs: Like school in summertime – no class (An enemy really pulls that unfunny Fat Albert insult out of his ass, I kid you not.)

With better pacing and a lot more balancing, Mars: War Logs could have been a fresh, satisfying take on BioWare’s proven formula. Its intriguing premise and characters eventually succumb to its broken systems, creating a fiction you’ll hope sooner to finish than completely understand.

With poor combat and clumsy controls, repetitive gameplay, and many frustrating design issues, Hyrophobia is not the wet dream we all wanted, just a conceptual one.

If this was the final project of a programming student who waited to the last minute to complete, then we can at least chalk up all the errors and poorly written storyline as factors needing improvement. Sadly this is not the case.

Something like Fist of the North Star deserved something better than just a blatant copy/paste job. Ultimately, all the buckets of blood in the world fail to hide this is the same thing players have grown disenchanted with a generation ago.

For a game where the sole mechanic is to draw lines, it’s ironic that not long after starting, you’ll feel like the ink is already starting to run dry.

It may be dubbed the ultimate collection but even on consoles the BFG Edition is far from ideal. As a PC game its existence is highly questionable; any esoteric changes made on id's part have already been done better by a dedicated modding community.

All in all, Entwined is a flawed game with some good ideas, but none of them coalesce in a cohesive, interesting way.

Archaic button mashers such as Beijing 2008 just aren’t relevant anymore.

TMNT feels like a really, really early build of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, stripped to its bare bones and given a movie license to shift copies.

An unfortunate conclusion to a once promising trilogy.

As an ARPG it’s average at best, but its MMO trappings only compound the frustration.

Though the collection features a few gems like Billiards and Laser Hockey, much of the lineup is composed of half-assed mini-games with little to no depth whatsoever.

Maybe the fans will find something enjoyable about controlling their favorite heroes via a randomized deck of cards. For the rest of you, go play some Solitaire. You deserve it.

The most innovative feature is that different creatures may appear depending on what time you dive.

Even if the game were technically sound, Puzzle Quest 2 has since been released, so going with the lesser option of Puzzle Chronicles would be a poor investment on just about every level.

There's some initial promise here, but it's ultimately a regressive, if not a lateral move from the last game, hampered mostly by its own lack of ambition, scope, and an overly demanding release schedule.

The only thing Death By Cube has to offer that its competition doesn't is an excessive level of blood (or red robot oil), but that alone doesn't warrant a purchase.