Sadly for Konami, Enthusia is here, slightly queer, and we just can't get used to it.

It may not be a "Halo"- or "Halo 2"-beater, but at the moment Pariah is the best alternative - and that alone is high praise indeed.

This is about as complete a racing experience as you could ask for from Xbox Live.

Aside from the fact that the concept isn't nearly as enjoyable as it sounds, the poor collision detection and generally cheap feel ensures that any potential excitement that could come from the game drains away after a few minutes like motor oil from a battered engine.

It looks the part and it has al the right elements. It's just cumbersome and rarely rewarding to play. So close to being amazing, yet so obviously not. Shame.

Despite the cool weapons the action can often be repetitive, with weak combos leading to some blade-swinging button-bashing, all within an average world marred by cameras of varying efficiency.

Every aspect of Area 51 is performed with quality, but with borrowed style that's familiar yet doesn't breed contempt.

While the game may be some distance from Bungie's massive shooter in terms of quality, it's well worth a look for anyone after a quick blast in a game that will remind us all that the "X-Files" was once a decent TV show.

Indeed, it's the guards that ruin it for everyone, by being remorselessly crap at their jobs, losing you when you run round two corners, shooting erratically and - worst of all - not recognising the significance of a vent shaft as something that "leads somewhere", and allowing you to escape every time you enter one.

We'd suggest you're somewhat dead inside if you didn't succumb to Psychonauts' attractive lure; the comedy ranges from sublime to outright hilarious, the visuals are delightfully detailed and the level design, while focused on collecting for the most part, is both devious and thought-provoking.

A quick, pointless Career mode and some extremely poor multiplayer options embarrassingly fail to justify the miniscule price tag. Swerve to avoid.

Not much fun in single-player. Sure, it might make for good practice before taking your warrior online, but no-one is going to be buying it for Anubis' fight for corporate and religious ownership.

The visual splendour of the whole land will undoubtedly entice Xbox owners to the shops - and quite rightly so - but it's the underlying quests that will keep them involved in the game until the bitter end.

Dead To Rights II is confused. It's an action title where you spend the majority of your time waiting. It's a videogame where you'll out-swear the gritty characters onscreen. It's a sequel that's not as good as its predecessor.

A boring and almost totally uninspiring game. The initial premise and use of cinematic pace is nothing but a drunken flirtation with a situation that could have been, and its not long before you find yourself playing the gaming equivalent of being a milk monitor in a class for the lactose intolerant. During a mild thunderstorm.

It's simplicity personified, and it will never be the classic that the original was, but Spy vs Spy still has that mischievous spirit to bring a childish smile to everyone's face.

Obscure is well worth playing all the way through, and if you can stomach the characters and their irritating forced American idiosyncrasies then this title could well be one of the best £20 price-tag games out there.

It's still decent shoot-'em-up entertainment, and adding snipers, airstrikes, and mortar attacks to your armoury is a nice touch, but perhaps too much time was spent talking tactics rather than delivering an original game that has true hands-on appeal.

It's simple, it's short, but it's still great fun.

We can highly recommend having a crack at finishing it on the hardest difficulty setting with the lights turned down low and the surround sound up high. Especially since, on the hardest difficulty setting, your health is constantly ticking down to a base level of 25 points. For this challenge only the hardcore first-person gamer need apply. Forget "Halo 2" on Legendary - that's for whiny pussies.

If you mature, and don't get Star Wars at all it is possible that you may consider that this is more an quality Lego Star Wars product than it is a gripping Lego Star Wars game. This is one for the younglings. Move along.

For all the new moves and multiplayer modes, it's still the same old Splinter Cell it's always been. Still tense, still frustrating, still endearing, still maddening.

What onlookers don't see is hyper-active controls causing Kurenai to ping-pong about with the predictability of a pinball. Pinballs make rubbish ninjas.

If you're a huge Dreamcast or Sega fan then the online side of Battle Street may warrant a rent. But, for the other 99.9% of Xbox gamers, we'd say leave the past in the past.

In single-player mode Chaos Theory isn't a big step in the evolution of the Splinter Cell franchise, and may seem a repetitive adventure so soon after "Pandora Tomorrow," but this doesn't stop it from being an excellent and visually stunning piece of work.

So this is a classic 6/10 - by that we mean that it's good fun and you'll enjoy playing it, yet you'll also be wondering what else you could be doing with your time.

It's a remarkable achievement and watching Kratos zig-zag throughout ancient Greece destroying everything in his path is a surprisingly empowering experience.

No sense of competitive racing, no sense of control and an almost total lack of emotional connection between you, the car and the road.

When a modern day Xbox game can't humble a 17 year-old arcade game, you know something has gone horribly wrong.

Barely a very, very average racing game. There are no notable qualities about the game to justify any sort of high score and the visuals are poor, but it still offers several short bursts of entertainment and at £20 you can't expect much more than that.

The digital equivalent of a Steven Seagal movie or a Yorkie bar - a man's videogame if ever we saw one. Unfortunately, it's also a game to make grown men weep bitter tears of frustration.

This game is awesome... If you like killing people, this is for you. Hell, if you like killing snowmen, or nurses, or ducks, pirates, ninja, the French...

The story mode is too short but the challenges and multiplayer options make up for it. Although it's not a massive improvement over TimeSplitters 2, it is definitely just as good in terms of pure entertainment.

Future Perfect has the perfect blend of challenges and the best multiplayer gameplay around.

We don't dislike Brothers In Arms - far from it - but can only be disappointed that we expected a classic war game and instead Ubisoft merely delivered a very good one.

Any improvements to the fun factor given to a multiplayer game is mostly down to all humans suffering from the same level of confusion given by a game that could do with being more like worms and less like a squeaking game of Crossbows & Catapults. More annoying than fun and not funny.

In many ways this is the ideal stock title that you need for those occasions when people who don't really like games end up in the same room with those who really do. And you're all out of gin.

Overall, pleasant is the best word to describe this. Musashi: Samurai Pleasant. Sounds far more apt.

It's no complete loss, for sure, and is likely to moderately satisfy the Resident Evil die-hards waiting for the next instalment. However, it's no classic despite some lovely physics due to some weak gameplay elements and its slightly simple linearity.

Deep. Beautiful. Phantasmal. These are all words to describe Phantom Dust, one of the most brilliantly conceived games on Xbox that you may never play. [JPN Import]

Playing Worms Forts is not entirely unlike finding that you have just been poured the worm out of the bottom of a tequila bottle. You're not entirely sure about whether it's a good thing or not; but swig back this odd looking creature and an hour later good times follow.

The conversion from the GameCube originals are flawless, and although some may bemoan the lack of Live support, this shouldn't take anything away from this perfect console party piece.

What we're left with is a game with a cool concept and a real sense of atmosphere that is drowned out by disappointment and frustration. Cold Fear could have been so much better had it built on the positives with a safe, more accessible control system and a few more hours on the design table.

The graphics are still rough as a badger's arse, the AI remains as remedial as ever and the slimmed down strategic side effectively eliminates the only reason there was to play it in the first place.

Nintendo obviously spent a lot of time on enemy and level design so would it really have hurt to delay the game for a few months and stick some more levels in?

The meat of the game is, for lack of a better term, utter garbage.

Rugby 2005 still sucks. Why? Well, how about the dumbest AI we've witnessed in a sports game since, well, since "FIFA Street."

As long as you don't mind your games having a bit of a kick to them, you should be picking this up as soon as possible.

We didn't want just another gun-toting FPS and this is realistic, intrinsically comfortable to play and a solid alternative to single-trigger action. But, as a long-term contender this doesn't carry enough depth to make it the ultimate combat ally.

The only factor that might put some players off is the camera movement, something that is crucial in a 3D environment. After a few hours of play you will get used to it, but every so often the camera can still be awkward - not what you want when the clock is running down on a tense decider.

The Dark Judges do not conjure up the fear they bring to the comic and are too easily defeated, but still, it's Dredd done by Dredd people for the Dredd public, who will love it.

Probably the most accurate sport-to-videogame conversion around.

The quality single-player shoot-'em-up that the Star Wars franchise needed. It's slick, quick, and easy to play with a sharp tactical edge that slides effortlessly into some free-flowing warfare.

The control system (using the right stick for punches) is an inspired idea and has been well balanced with the stamina meter. However, it only seems to work smoothly half of the time.

For all its flaws though, Scrapland's immersive gameplay, enjoyable storyline and quirky, unique atmosphere are more than enough to keep you hooked until the very end.

Depth is a rarity in sports games with an enjoyable single player mode even rarer but Fight Night Round 2 has managed to come up with both.

Every aspect of Tekken 5's production is of the highest quality save one area - the game's Devil Within mode - the latest take in the Tekken Force series. Visually bland and repetitive in a way only the very worst scrolling beat-'em-ups can be. It's a crime then that completing it is the only way unlock Devil Jin. [JPN Import]

The levels are well designed with bright, colourful graphics throughout, making the game seem almost like the film, and with so many personalities to talk to there's never a dull moment.

More than any other game around, Dredd vs Death is destined to be a real fan favourite. Sure, we love the Lawgiver, in places the visual style works well, but generally this is a run-of-the-mill FPS dogged by an adherence to the laws of Dredd’s world. This is little more than a dependable shooter.

Beautiful to look at, it's as rewarding as ever to play and, judging by the attention to detail that has been lavished on it, it's the most lovingly-created game ever. The chances are that you'll fall in love with it too, as only people who are obsessed with cars can fall in love with inanimate and soulless objects.

A dumbed down first-person shooter designed specifically for the PS2, which isn't equipped to run the more exciting elements of the Deus Ex universe. The result is a bland shooting experience that may as well run under the title of 'Generic Game With Fancy Guns' - a real shame when the potential to create something truly different was handed to the developer on a plate by Eidos.

If you love old-skool challenges and want to test your SF skills against the world's best, then this is the perfect collection. If only it came with a stained cigarette holder to clip onto the Xbox the retro feel will be complete.

In its haste to take football back to the streets, EA forgot to make pit-stops at gameplay and fun. When MC Harvey is the best thing you can point to in a videogame, you know something has gone drastically wrong.

Xenosaga II is a worthy follow up with richly detailed characters and great battling, but it seems a little unfair to expect European gamers to jump onboard so late in the game.

The problem here is simple laziness. Constantine is a dull, monotonous shooter with few redeeming features, do yourself a favour and buy some of the superb graphic novels instead.

This entire concept is ridiculous. Why, oh why is your team so rubbish? Falco is supposed to be an 'Ace Pilot' for crying out loud. Your team is supposed to be the galaxy's last, best hope, yet they can't even shoot more than two enemies on any given level. They may as well not even be there and save us the worry.

Not only is the atmosphere of this one second to none, the game that it surrounds is massively rewarding and challenging in equal measures.

Namco's game seems content to be mediocre, and for a game that carries the Tekken legacy on its shoulders (and will probably sell a huge number of units as a result) that's just too disappointing to forgive.

Style is nothing without substance.

Luigi seems even floatier, and embarrassed head-shaking ensues when you see Princess Peach throwing shapes like a bad-ass Crip from the Wes' side. Ooh, where's she hiding the Glock?... NBA Street V3 is superfluous and expensive.

A rare victory for the kid's game genre and shining example of how these games should be done.

The whole experience is beautifully rendered in high resolution, which makes for some sumptuous details in the graphics.

Unless you count the prospect of photographing a different playmate as enticing there is little to encourage you to play on. And the Playmates all look reasonably similar anyway.

It feels so alive, so believable, and so utterly charming that the end credits will fill you with a sense of loss and longing rather than one of total relief, leaving you with little doubt that a sequel is begging to be made. More than anything, it sets a new benchmark in gaming.

Better visuals and a more complex conversation system would have made this a game to live up to the legendary magazines. Almost.

So where are the virtua fighters in Virtua Fighter Cyber Generation? They are in there, it's just they're well hidden and take some time to find. Maybe they're too embarrassed to be associated with Sei's mess of a game or maybe they got lost on their way to "Virtua Fighter 5."

Fans of the comic book will rejoice in how their beloved anti-hero has made such as magnificently bloody transition from page to pixel without loosing any of his edge along the way, which is not down to just one singular entity, but rather all involved who strived to keep the game true its dark Marvel roots founded in the adult Max series.

Shallow, repetitious and overly simplistic.

You'll find yourself sailing aimlessly for hours - the watery setting of Suikoden IV is ridiculously vast and barren and to make matters more exasperating, your boat's top speed and handling would embarrass most tugs.

Still, at least you get to get out and enjoy easily the worst thirst-person controls devised.

A breath-taking game. It's majestic in scale, beautifully realised and virtually flawless in execution. Scary, shocking, captivating and, in every sense, brilliant.

At it's best this is a fiery action adventure, at it's worst it relies too heavily on pootling around a map while the sense of combat is halved the moment you use any weapon that doesn't cause a massive explosion. It's also rather brown.

If the game world wasn't so big and the developer wasn't trying to push the limits of the machine then Mercenaries wouldn't be anywhere near as playable. As it is the sense of immersion in this huge war is inspiring.

This ridiculous level of world destruction becomes infinitely more enjoyable when you play a multiplayer battle.

The new mini-games aren't particularly enjoyable for longer than five minutes at a time, but there are quite a few on offer making it a real case of quantity over quality.

It still feels clunky compared to the bling slickness of "NBA Street Volume 2" but that owes more to the fact that American football is more about fat men made of burgers barging each other over than it is playing with style and finesse.

The Wall Moves and 4-On-4 mini-games will be great incentives for anyone who wavered over buying the original but it isn't nearly enough reason for returning fans to reinvest.

DragonBall Z: Budokai 2 isn't really a fighting game, well it is, it's just not a good one.

This must rank as one of the blandest-looking shooters on the Xbox - after all, we have been treated to Mercenaries and Microsoft's own MechAssault 2, so there really is no excuse for the low-res, blandly textured environments found here, made all the worse by the disgracefully close draw distances.

Gameplay progresses at a frustratingly slow pace, and it seems the most rudimentary powers of deduction have been substituted for the need to find a small piece of evidence hidden away in the least likely place.

The title may well have been one of the best-looking games to ever grace an Xbox but compared to the PC offering it resembles an early beta version.

In fact other than the addition of Silvia, Viewtiful Joe 2 is remarkably similar to the original - the majority of flaws included. But when the game still feels fresher than the crisp clean smell of a bath towel washed in Daz Ultra we have no reason to feel aggrieved.

Freakiest of all though, are those sunken-eyed ghoulish geishas that pop up every five minutes - more chilling than any slathering zombie. Brrr.

The game delivers an all important experience that harks back to the elements that made the films great when they were originally released, and even from the start it becomes obvious that a phial full of that authentic LucasArts MagicTM has been sprinkled throughout the game.

Whether you're frantically picking up letters to give to the Shy Guy postman, or mowing as much grass as you can, the games are inventive, manic and most importantly fun. [JPN Import]

It's basically a faster, looser version of "Sands Of Time," with all the extra trimmings the first title lacked. It may well drive you completely round the bend, make you feel mentally retarded and keep you awake at night, but with so many developments and delightful touches included it's certain to become game of the year for a great many platform lovers once again.

With a comprehensive (and more importantly, rather good) multiplayer game complementing the rather hard campaign mode, Ghost Recon 2 is at least heading in the right direction now - and for the moment that's good enough for us.

The young Prince did a superb job, but amidst the darkened clouds he's aged with some style and the beautifully excessive fighting system creates a much-improved character and a better all-round game. [XBM]