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 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.

There’s not much left to do in games after this.

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

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

An explosively over-the-top romp.

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.

The graphics are sublime — smooth and detailed even on the increasingly humble PS2, yet with enough gimmickry to make the replays delicious feasts.

It’s a gritty Second World War caper that loads the gaming experience to the hilt, leaving players battered, bruised and thoroughly stirred.

Pandora Tomorrow is a miniature masterpiece. This goodlooking, great-sounding and convincingly voiced espionage thriller delivers two satisfying game outings.

The level of detail in the various maps and multiplayer levels will have you reeling, while the integration of voice communication software allows you to chat with friends, in real-time, in mid-battle.

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

It’s a simple idea, but the best ones always are.

A solid, nicely rounded 3-D adventure that is annoyingly satisfying to play.

Shadow of the Colossus has more style than real substance and it is slightly baffling why Fumito Ueda, the game's creator, didn't develop this into something a little more Zelda-esque in order to make best use of the world he has created. He might have had a classic on his hands.

This is one of the best-looking games on the Xbox. That it also boasts fluid, intuitive gameplay, and does not condescend to the audience by making the fighting too simple or automatic, is miraculous.

The courses are stunningly handsome and the golfing action and ball physics are true to life. The game has an almost limitless replay value.

The game is at its best when played online or across large networks, since real opponents can be ingenious and make better fidgety targets.

This all-new version adds minute details to the daily rituals of the little inhabitants — you can almost zoom in to see specific ingredients as meals are prepared, or read book titles on shelves. Watching the Sims dance is a triumph of animation.

The locations are varied, but with the usual generic locations, and a repetitiveness noticable in the track layout for each stage is reduced somewhat by the addition of numerous shortcuts along each route.

Just for its astonishing look — imagine a very bright 1950s cartoon about a future full of robots — this port from the Gamecube is worth the money.

The locations are varied, but with the usual generic locations, and a repetitiveness noticable in the track layout for each stage is reduced somewhat by the addition of numerous shortcuts along each route.

This sim certainly delivers the goods. Keeping an eye on the details involved in running a winning team is so engrossing that, once you accept your first management job, you can bid farewell to months of free time.

A thoroughly immersive product, thanks to handsome level design, decent sound effects, an unnerving music score and lines delivered by real actors, including Diesel himself.

Yes, there are tweaks, better graphics and further development on the cars’ physics, but nothing groundbreaking. For the most part it seems that the past four years have been spent improving the playback of your car whizzing around the track once you’ve finished the race.

With its bright colours, chirpy soundtrack and tricky but not wall-bashingly frustrating challenges, this is a game you will pick up once and never put down.

The courses are stunningly handsome and the golfing action and ball physics are true to life. The game has an almost limitless replay value.

The courses are stunningly handsome and the golfing action and ball physics are true to life. The game has an almost limitless replay value.