In fact, every element of Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown kinda loses its comedy sheen over time, inviting the doubts to creep in and fester in your mind: Could it be that Capcom aren't actually having a laugh? Are they serious about this game?

The control system is still good but the rest of the game is still shockingly weak.

Who would want to admit to buying this? We’d certainly be too embarressed to show this to any of our friends, enemies, neighbours, random strangers off the street, pet cat...

With no training mode demonstrating how to best persuade a piscine creature into your boat, this game presents a painfully dull exercise in frustration.

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

This really is the most onerous, excruciating thumb-mind-and-soul-numbing experience we've had the sorrowful displeasure of witnessing. To play it is as concerning as listening to a long, drawn out joke that you have to pay attention to follow, only to realise the that the punchline is embarrassingly racist. The devil would cry. This is embarrassing.

It's simply so nut-twistingly rank, so grit-sandwichedly unpalatable that any speechless incredulity invariably gets rammed into your brain with more than enough force for it to pop right out the other side, leaving you gasping with an enlightened sense of faecel awareness.

Simply put this is the worst game we’ve seen on the Xbox. Before you even touch the controller you have to endure the pathetic excuse for graphics. The textures are about as bland as you can get, the visual effects are comparative to the Game Boy Advance and the vehicle models do anything but inspire.

Akin to a dirty secret, such as catching your best mate's mother in bed with the dog, Stake is a something that is best forgotten for fear of some sort of mental trauma a few years down the line.

It’s quite scary to think that one or two people might pick this game up on the strength of the Gravity Games license alone.

With almost no exception, it is the worst game ever to be reviewed in these pages. It’s simply the most cynically created, idly designed and unbelievably unenjoyable title yet made for the Game Boy Advance.