The courses in this game are just as much the stars as the cars. The dazzling downtown locations are massive, dominated by skyscrapers whose light bathes the streets in a radiant glow.

The interface is largely invisible, having been dramatically streamlined to make this a more intuitive experience for newcomers to the RTS genre.

This episode has more depth than the two previous follow- ups, and its developer, IO Interactive, has introduced many intelligent refinements.

This eighth instalment in the hugely popular skateboarding series, and the first built specially for the Xbox 360, is the best and most realistic by far.

This is a game guaranteed to offend and entertain in equal measure, but it is emphatically not for children.

A simple but effective upgrade.

You could play straight through this game in a few hours, or dally with it for days. Therein lies its brilliance.

Here is a game that is both more exciting and more educational than Casualty, ER and Scrubs put together.

In short, AoE III is yet another masterly triumph.

As frantic as it is visually stunning.

Those who do not want to embark on complex challenges will still find hours of enjoyment in sandbox mode.

There’s not much innovation here — the gameplay is far too linear and there is too much emphasis on key searching to trigger the next cut scene — but for atmosphere alone it is hard to beat.

The graphics here are clean, robust and more colourful than previously, while the music, though still unswervingly upbeat, is as inoffensive as ever.

Although experienced first- person shooter players may find the going in single-player mode a little too easy, the game offers a host of multiplayer options, including split-screen on one console, or team-based mass slaughter challenges via the internet.

Experienced gamers will have a blast in cyberspace, battling with other players from around the world, which pretty much justifies the cost of broadband on its own.

The graphics here are clean, robust and more colourful than previously, while the music, though still unswervingly upbeat, is as inoffensive as ever.

A great racing title that offers some serious improvements to the existing Toca series.

The fun to be had derives from the game’s simplicity of play, its wildly colourful backgrounds, and the dexterity required to get it right.

This is a handsome game with a stirring soundtrack, with the potential to deliver weeks of very involving gameplay for hardcore followers.

The game is built sublimely, with an excellent interface and crisp, rounded sound effects that grip the attention.

And while it may lack the visual splendour of, say, "Brothers in Arms," it does fire up the imagination to deliver an authentic, atmospheric war experience that exhausts as much as it excites.

This game will become the benchmark by which all such titles will be measured. The game’s AI is strong enough to present a challenge and the lack of base and harvest management is wonderfully refreshing.

Most importantly, the puzzles are back on track. Traps, levers, pulleys, chains, chasms, secret passges, underground lakes, rotating knives — there’s a cunning solution to each, designed to keep you puzzling for just long enough to gain satisfaction in the solving, but not long enough to make you want to hurl your own internal organs at the screen.

This is a chess game of healthy pedigree, using the Perfect Chess engine previously seen in Ubisoft’s Chessmaster. Not only that, but the price is right.

Shielding, tackling and dribbling have been boosted for better on-pitch control, while business in the boardroom looms with a more comprehensive management game and careers judged over a 15-year span.

Shielding, tackling and dribbling have been boosted for better on-pitch control, while business in the boardroom looms with a more comprehensive management game and careers judged over a 15-year span.

Shielding, tackling and dribbling have been boosted for better on-pitch control, while business in the boardroom looms with a more comprehensive management game and careers judged over a 15-year span.

The graphics are pretty impressive for the Game Boy and it's worth playing just to watch those crazy critters float about the clouds. It's hard not to envy the lunatic who dreamed them up. This is a fun and imaginative game.

Fasten your seatbelt, and prepare for an awesome flight. [Deluxe Edition]

It not only looks fantastic, but uses the graphics ability of the 360 to the full, with super-smooth angles and movement, and the puzzles it presents are every bit as challenging as those in games such as Zelda, with which it shares a medieval theme. Brilliantly designed and executed, and fabulously entertaining.

Most of the camera work is not only excellent, it’s like a good referee — you don’t even notice it most of the time.

In PES6 you can make a sliding tackle and come up with the ball, and the AI has been greatly improved. The passing and shooting have been made harder to master and the players’ movement off the ball is better.

Unlike the first two in the series, which were made by a different studio, the interface is simple and intuitive, and the result addictive — the permutations seem endless.

Unlike the first two in the series, which were made by a different studio, the interface is simple and intuitive, and the result addictive — the permutations seem endless.

As the entire game is played at fever-pitch, you soon find yourself looking forward to the next mission briefing, if only for a chance to catch your breath. The only mystery to Black is why there is no multiplayer mode, since such intense battle settings would make for great competitive bouts.

As a first-person shooter, Prey makes up in design for what it lacks in depth. The game moves along swiftly, balancing a strong narrative with solid puzzle-solving and some very tasty eye candy.

OutRun2 is not a game that you will spend hours playing at one sitting, but you will experience lots of very happy five-minute bursts.

An efficient training mode allows you to take to the trails with confidence, though you might find the crash course more entertaining.

Watery additions aside, the rest of the game is pretty much business as usual. The parks need cleaners and repairmen to keep the rides running, and the punters need well-placed ATMs and stalls to shop at.

Shielding, tackling and dribbling have been boosted for better on-pitch control, while business in the boardroom looms with a more comprehensive management game and careers judged over a 15-year span.

Each activity comes with a tutorial from a virtual instructor, and as you kick out at the falling balloons on the TV screen it’ s impossible not to smile. And how often do you see that down the gym?

An endlessly inventive and incredibly addictive game.

Though NFL Street 2 does enough to entertain for an hour or two, fans of proper football, played with feet, are likely to find it quite dull.

Forget storylines, or any pretence at one: this game is simply about quick reflexes and lightning-fast button- pounding.

Though NFL Street 2 does enough to entertain for an hour or two, fans of proper football, played with feet, are likely to find it quite dull.

The thing that sets Ham-Ham Games apart from other recent GBA releases is its dazzling colour. This game is refreshingly bright and cheerful, bucking the current trend in handheld games for darker, neutral colours.

The classic moment section, which features 125 well-known situations, is one of several nice touches in this game.

Though The Godfather is competent, it is also bland, despite the voices of James Caan and Robert Duvall, and you rarely feel a sense of power.

The learning curve is gentle, the controls simple to master, but there's little new here.

Beautifully crafted, Sid Meier’s Railroads! is a masterful experience — as you would expect from the master himself.

The courses in this game are just as much the stars as the cars. The dazzling downtown locations are massive, dominated by skyscrapers whose light bathes the streets in a radiant glow.

As the entire game is played at fever-pitch, you soon find yourself looking forward to the next mission briefing, if only for a chance to catch your breath. The only mystery to Black is why there is no multiplayer mode, since such intense battle settings would make for great competitive bouts.

The number of times I got ripped apart by wild dogs made me regret ever wanting to be a lizard. Didn’t stop me coming back for more, though.

The learning curve is gentle, the controls simple to master, but there’s little new here.

Though NFL Street 2 does enough to entertain for an hour or two, fans of proper football, played with feet, are likely to find it quite dull.

This is not merely about killing anything that moves (though it helps), since horse-riding and poker playing are among the many other skills needed along the way.

This close to Christmas, Special Forces is probably for the game’s most loyal fans only — the folk who have played it so much that they are already desperate for new features to layer upon their already intense online experiences.

The graphics are terrible. They tried way too hard to make the people look as they do in the animated series, but the result is that it all looks pretty flat. Even the first Budokai had more depth. People tell me that I judge the game too much by the graphics. I agree; but this isn’t right. Seriously.

Rugby, with its elaborate set-pieces and impenetrable laws, is a hard game to render on computer, but this is an extremely good try.

This may be a fine simulation, but it is not entirely realistic – for example, hapless government ministers do not meddle, passenger trains are not cancelled because drivers pull sickies and no key routes grind to a standstill because of leaves on the line.

The characters are just as brilliantly executed, with a range of facial expressions, voices and movements that would do any animator proud.

Fans of the series will have plenty to be happy about, but you can't help feeling you've been here and done that in the previous games. That's the real horror here.

As in the film, every other word is a four-letter one, and although the graphics can be a little choppy, the game is at least engrossing, with levels short enough to demand that they be replayed.

During matches, a new passing feature allows for better control of long passes, using a combination of buttons to produce greater ball control in mid-air. In the right hands, the new move can be lethal.

What singles out this series from the rest is that it homes in on the sheer intensity and ugliness of war.

"SimCity" in its later incarnations became too laborious, so that cyber-builders even found themselves planning and maintaining water systems. City Life scores high by keeping things more straightforward.

Fans of the series will have plenty to be happy about, but you can’t help feeling you’ve been here and done that in the previous games. That’s the real horror here.

During matches, a new passing feature allows for better control of long passes, using a combination of buttons to produce greater ball control in mid-air. In the right hands, the new move can be lethal.

There are countless appealing touches about the 100 or so additions here, such as the chance to take pictures that you can then hang up at home. Absorbing fun.

The game becomes more strategic as it progresses, I am assured by fans of the ten-year-old series, but by then it is very hard to care.

Though The Godfather is competent, it is also bland, despite the voices of James Caan and Robert Duvall, and you rarely feel a sense of power.

Roam around Tokyo, find some bad guys, see some load screens, a couple of cut-scenes, some more load screens, press some buttons in fight mode and so on.

Forget storylines, or any pretence at one: this game is simply about quick reflexes and lightning-fast button- pounding.

The game-within-a-game concept is fantastic and the simulation of the MMORPG experience is flawlessly executed.

Even by the high standards already set, Pursuit Force is an astonishing title... The best PSP title yet.

Project Rub makes no use of the DS’s wireless communication feature, so there is no multiplayer event. Still, this off-beat gem is a must-have game for any fledgeling DS collection.

The construction sites are nicely animated, and newly ordered buildings pop up quickly.

As in the film, every other word is a four-letter one, and although the graphics can be a little choppy, the game is at least engrossing, with levels short enough to demand that they be replayed.

From the introductory scene featuring a Darth Vader-esque Megatron to the grand-scale boss fights later in the game, this is a thoroughly entertaining and well-constructed title.

The graphics are not as exciting as those found in "Command and Conquer: Generals" and the interface, like its predecessor’s, is rather flat. However, the ability to interact with virtually anything on the map makes up for this shortfall.

While serving up some more cerebral fare with the violent action is laudable, and the graphics are very good, by extending its sights, Shadow of Rome just fails to conquer.

Fans of the Nintendo SNES classic "Pilotwings" will literally jump at the chance to parachute from any of the aircraft for spectacular views of the vast landscape below. There is bound to be a sequel, because this original is so good.

Fans of the Nintendo SNES classic "Pilotwings" will literally jump at the chance to parachute from any of the aircraft for spectacular views of the vast landscape below. There is bound to be a sequel, because this original is so good.

Frighteningly addictive.

Admittedly, the assorted firepower offers little excitement, but the experience is convincingly upbeat thanks to the game’s droll sense of humour.

The tone is jocular, the script humorous and well acted by, among others, Little Britain’s Anthony Head.

With its simple gameplay and involving story, Spartan: Total Warrior is a perfect blend of strategy game and hack’n’slash romp.

With its responsive controls, choice of 16 top players and a variety of game modes, SCTPT2 is a winner.

Although the bikes are fast during the races, they are overwhelmingly underpowered when pulling off at the start of a race. Twist the throttle all you like, but lift-offs provide all the G-force of a gnat.

This is a sterile affair which, although adequate in every department, excels in none.

The tone is jocular, the script humorous and well acted by, among others, Little Britain's Anthony Head.

During matches, a new passing feature allows for better control of long passes, using a combination of buttons to produce greater ball control in mid-air. In the right hands, the new move can be lethal.

Has a strong, coherent storyline that whisks Red from novice gunslinger to competent bounty hunter in what proves to be the mother of all shooting practice games.

This outing is more rounded than the original and has more choice - such as eight courses to play compared with only three in the original - and at £17.99 it is good value.

Has a strong, coherent storyline that whisks Red from novice gunslinger to competent bounty hunter in what proves to be the mother of all shooting practice games.

Fans of the Nintendo SNES classic "Pilotwings" will literally jump at the chance to parachute from any of the aircraft for spectacular views of the vast landscape below. There is bound to be a sequel, because this original is so good.

More experienced gamers may scoff early on, but will find more rewards once they start to build up a mini-army of Pokémon, which they can trade online with other dedicated players.

The variety of moves keeps the game engrossing. You may be unlikely to return to it once you have played it, but reuniting Captain Blue with his movie seems reward enough.