This is a quality sci-fi blockbuster brought alive with sleek visuals, superb voice characterisations, explosive sound effects and a robustly stirring music score.

The result is sweaty-palmed fun, teaming the adult joys of a well-paced thriller with the childish delight of playing hide-and-seek in the dark.

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.

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.

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

The graphics are divine, with vast urban locales and spectacular crashes. The cars handle well, and each vehicle has its own characteristics. Yet this is no easy driving game - one of the reasons why, subject matter aside, it carries a 16+ rating.

Doom 3 has its flaws, but remains a graphical, audio and visual tour de force.

By turning round the normal rules so that the D-pad operates the functions and the right hand buttons deal with the camera, this intuitive system gives the gameplay a huge boost and also reverses the law of diminishing returns for sequels.

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

This is a cracker. A lot of thought has clearly gone into making the most of the DS’s touch-screen capability here, and it works gloriously. Sure, you still walk down dark corridors blasting anything that moves, but here you are in control as never before.

The graphics are solid and sharply focused, while the cities that used to expand all too predictably now take on more organic growth patterns that spread to encompass land between cities more naturally.

But the really ingenious element is the Drivatar AI, in which the computer learns your driving technique.

The game contains scores of puzzles, requiring a mixture of logic, observation and luck. What’s great is that it gives you time to solve them, rather than placing you under constant pressure from grisly baddies. There’s also a plot-twist or two.

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.

A completely engrossing game, designed for the patience of adult players, that will stand up to an almost infinite number of sessions. It's a technically marvellous achievement by David Cage.

The over-theshoulder style does allow for the seamless integration of glossy scenes to drive on the plot and add a more genuine movie-like feel to the game.

Raising your virtual puppy is so realistic that this game should come with a ringing endorsement from Battersea Dogs Home.

An epic, not only because the immaculate world you inhabit is so immense, but also because the gameplay is fantastically intense.

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.

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.

The over-theshoulder style does allow for the seamless integration of glossy scenes to drive on the plot and add a more genuine movie-like feel to the game.

Decent graphics that hold up smoothly in the height of fighting, plus atmospheric cut-scenes, great locations and superb sound effects all measure up to a memorable, if utterly exhausting, experience.

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

Once you swap AI team-mates (and enemies) for the real thing, there is no turning back, as you find yourself diligently looking out for your team-mates, with whom you will need to co-operate to sweep scenes clean of troublemakers.

At £19.99, this is a highly impressive add-on, and although it has only 11 new single-player levels, none of them is a walkover.

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.

Fans of the cartoons will be happy to know that the game contains everything from the originals, including voices and bad jokes.

Graphics are fresh, with plenty of animation and the multiplayer mode offers some new alternatives to the "deathmatch" and "capture the hill" scenarios.