Blacklist isn’t a revolution for the Splinter Cell series but a refinement of everything that came before, enticing new players and welcoming back those who enjoyed all of Sam’s previous escapades.

As far as sequels go, Shadow Hearts: Covenant gets everything right by improving upon nearly everything. As far as RPGs go, the quality of the game is obvious.

Anyone with an appreciation for old school arcade games will have a blast with The Club. Just remember to leave your brain with the doorman.

For Pirates! on the go, it's a very good effort and brings to the masses a franchise that was once only available to a select few with a decent spec PC, however the limits of the handheld market may annoy some.

Sure, this game is nowhere near as difficult as its SNES and GBA predecessors, but it still requires all the strategy and thought required to make it great.

It’s not the top fighting game out there, but it’s certainly the best Mortal Kombat game in some time, and the use of DC characters only adds to the fun, even if the whole thing is absurd.

Despite those small issues, BloodRayne: Betrayal works, and works wonderfully. WayForward has done an admirable job dusting off the BloodRayne franchise and resurrecting the red hair dhampir. In the process they did the unthinkable, finding a way to inject a welcome dose of class into the comically trashy franchise.

Even though it isn't a direct adaptation of a film, Stranglehold is probably the best example of a movie-based game to date.

It is a much more refined game than Left 4 Dead and an improvement in every way.

An awesome game. It takes everything fans loved about the previous installment, and amplified it ten fold to create another vivid adventure for one of Nintendo's most celebrated characters.

The dark, gritty atmosphere is captured perfectly. I can’t get over how great texturing looks on the Xbox 360. Tile looks dirty. Graffiti on walls looks genuine. The texturing effects in this game are beyond awesome. The lighting is also incredibly detailed.

In the end, though, what really carries The Stick of Truth along is its innocence, something that may surprise people who have read the stories about Euro censorship but is unlikely to come as a shock to fans of the show itself, which has always offset its raunchiness with an odd sweetness. This is, simply put, pleasant to play.

An entertaining romp.

Technic Beat also provides some of the best two-player action around.

For fans of mobster movies, Mafia II is the ultimate toybox. It has period clothes, music, and architecture that perfectly evoke pre and post-war Americana, and a gritty script to boot.

It’s a supernova of colour, particularly on a HD setup.

For all of you Castlevania followers out there, be prepared for yet another intriguing story of vampires, the undead, and the supernatural.

A four-player wireless multiplayer mode is just icing on the cake for this game. Loading up the game with some friends and fighting scores of foes is even more fun than the single-player mode, but even without a group of buddies this is still a game worth owning.

It brings back a style of platforming that hasn't been seen in over a decade, and it pulls it off with a great assortment of well-designed levels.

It’s not perfect and there are a few things which could do with a bit more care for the next game - largely the lack of co-op and fairly dull story and characters - but nonetheless, this is one of the most beautiful, explosive and entertaining shooters of the console generation so far. Bring on Killzone 3.

Fez is quite a game, especially for people who look for interesting atmosphere and setting in their games.

The shoddy script will annoy and disappoint everyone, but luckily, the rest of the game is solid, and even impressive.

An entertaining FPS experience. It isn’t perfect; it’s not going to leave an impression on you like Half-Life 2 or FarCry did, but at the same time it will entertain you and keep you glued to your seat.

I had tremendous fun with Arena Wars; its fast paced action and tactical warfare proving to be a godsend after endless struggles and yawns on various RPGs.

It's best not to go into the game expecting a true Final Fantasy experience, but diehard RPG fans won't be disappointed.

GRID isn't a hugely deep game, but it has an impressive array of small features and presentation pieces that serve to make it feel bigger than it really is.

While the ridiculous amount of options may be appealing, the bland and lifeless presentation kind of takes away from the experience. It's kind of ironic that a game that places so much emphasis on realism, yet utterly lacks it in terms of both visuals and audio. If that's your kind of thing, you might want to opt for the PS3 version instead. It doesn't matter, though; MLB 11 is about baseball, and it's got it where it counts.

For 800 points, this is near essential.