The game has scope. And so another question pops into your mind: What exactly has been sacrificed to accommodate this? The answer: A young girl, a goat and, unfortunately for Xbox owners, some technical proficiency.

To use the party analogy, if you're suitably inebriated with your mates you might get brief enjoyment out of Shrek Super Party, but youíll wake up the next morning with one hell of a gaming hangover and realise that what you thought was a good looking game is an ugly dog thatís puked on your Xbox. Trash.

A lame, tawdry and charmless affair.

For the most part though there is a clunky feel to the game. Animation is often awkward and fails to convey the vulgar flamboyance the Eighties wrestling became renowned for and sadly for the most part this is a title devoid of excesses.

Frantic and enjoyable.

There is actually much to praise in Rygar – the style, in particular, being wonderful. The seven worlds are packed with imaginative designs that range from the crumbling Coliseum of the game’s opening to islands in the sky.

This is by far the most impressive extreme sports game that we have played on the GBA. It truly is a remarkable piece of handheld programming.

The action, story and move-set keep things moderately interesting, but after a while the woolly targeting starts to grate.

The overall experience is just so average. At no point when playing WhiteOut will you ever be wowed into silence or stunned into submission, you will shrug, curl a lip and say: "Well, y'know, it is only twenty quid."

Imagine, if you will, Dynasty Warriors with magic spells, a weirder and more convoluted story, and boss fights, then shrink if all down and add a heavy dose of Anime style. What you end up with, more or less, is Mystic Heroes.

There is nothing else quite like this, and until the sequel, there never will be. Get this at your peril - your life social life will soon be gone afterwards.

The game also has fairly low requirements so will happily run on older systems.

In "Wipeout," when a missile is homing in on you, you are filled with a sense of dread and impending doom. In Drome Racers you just can’t help thinking “oh well, never mind”, which sums it up nicely.

We've been floored.

A surprisingly addictive game.

The responsive controls, intelligent racing and challenging tracks more than make up for the rather disappointing graphics that are becoming the signature of the series.

Little more than your average shooter - collect the weapons, shoot the bad guys, hit a few switches and, well, that's about it. We wouldn't object to this if it was done well, but it's not.

The gameplay is way too limited and repetitive, and you won't have any desire to move to the next level; after all, you know full well it'll just be even more button tapping. Yawn...

Still, with superb controls, well-designed courses and a structure riddled with extra incentives, there are few better arcade racers than Shox on the PS2.

If you get your kicks from smacking gangs of vomiting men then you’re probably quite at home with the shallowness of Minority Report.

It is also, bizarrely, needlessly fiddly to walk in a straight line. Its almost as if the game is expecting you to strafe as your viewpoint veers to the left and right, causing you to correct the movement on a constant basis.

There simply isn't enough in terms of innovation, subtlety or charm in this game for it to be considered worthy of spending £40 on.

A dreadfully wasted opportunity - especially when it looks so good.

SEGA Sports certainly know how to make their titles as exciting as possible – the music plays, the lights flash, the audience is pumped up, all you’d need is a hotdog and you’d have the perfect hockey experience!

An excellent sense of humour that manages to make the older gamer chuckle without offending the kiddies.

One problem with this game is the targeting system. The auto aim is far too generous, thus removing any kind of skill factor. You can switch it off but then it becomes absolutely impossible to hit anything.

Essentially a straightforward and linear trawl around vaguely familiar scenarios from the film, requiring little thought other than bashing at the buttons to attack, or flipping switches to progress.

While we rarely get hung-up about graphic quality, its obvious that the developer has put very little effort into this department – bare textures and dull colours do not excite.

An average game that may be backed by superior bonus modes and challenges, but which at heart offers nothing new and, taken at face value, fails to deliver a truly thrilling experience.

The tactical thought and reaction process is basically thrown out the window with the any notion of just WHAT THE HELL IS GOIND ON as characters attacks become ever more extreme and impossible to predict.

It’s a great game with visual flair and an immense depth of gameplay that recreates the “Sweet Science” perfectly.

We never thought we’d say this but here’s a game that seems to be drawing inspiration from "Minority Report," itself an average, licensed title.

There are some great touches, like how you can throw a gas canister over a crowd, shoot it and let hot fuel rain over the heads of multiple enemies, but they’re simply not held together.

It's not GoldenEye, let's get that clear; but there is plenty in the game for it to stand up and be counted as a genuinely class title.

Everything about this game sounds better on paper. The locations, range of vehicles and even the zero gravity final show down all fall short of their billing.

Quite involving after a while with some excellent puzzles for you to solve and many strange people to talk to, but it does take quite a while to get into.

Every minute of the adventure is packed with excitement and intrigue as you set out to discover exactly who's behind the mysterious 'accident' that destroyed the station and killed everyone aboard.

A competent fighter that has potential but just misses the mark.

The character models look scarily authentic and the damage simply has to be seen to be believed.

The masterpiece that is Splinter Cell gets under your skin and stays there for a very long time... The kind of game you do want to go through over and over simply because it is a delight to play around with... A true work of art.

To us it began to feel a little stale during the loading screen.

The learning curve is pure genius... A perfect game in almost every way.

It's easily the best of the series and with enough depth to silence the franchise's many detractors.

A surprisingly enjoyable, accomplished and involving game. In fact despite the limits of the boxing genre, playing Rocky is much like watching the films.

The fact that the game is so difficult is purely down to the excruciatingly painful controls.

If you’re a youngster who’s into Shrek, loves Hungry Hungry Hippo’s, but whose Mum wont buy it for you, then Shrek Super Party will be just the thing you’re after.

The action just lacks the fluidity and finesse of some of the competition, like "Tekken" and "Virtua Fighter," and that certain sparkle that makes good beat-’em-ups great.

It plays like a cobbled together collection of repetitive, below-par sub-games. Quite simply, it’s extremely boring, and the sensation of fun never once makes its presence felt.

Although not very technical, there is still a great deal of fun and the Disney sparkle just shines through.

Played at leisure, though, this remains a bewitching adventure, and one that true Harry-maniacs will want to return to again and again.

You want to impress us? Be the Grand Theft Auto of BMX games not Beavis and Butthead on a bike.

As a game for adults who have little interest in Harry's mythology and hype, The Chamber of Secret is a nice looking game which is too linear and far too easy to follow to offer any real challenge.

The intelligent imagery used in the novels gave them a universal appeal, whereas the relative simplicity of the videogame would suggest that the target audience is far narrower.

It’s hard not to enjoy FIFA 2003 and, though not in the same league as "Pro Evolution Soccer" in terms of gameplay, for the gamer who wants the most atmospheric and authentic football experience there is no equal on PS2.

It's worth a look for fans but once again this is a non-essential Star Wars adventure.

A definite improvement on last year’s version and while it’s still some way from perfection, it is the best and only proper offering this Xmas.

Essentially, what we have here is a lightweight arcade-style driving game that’s great fun to play in the short-term. Sadly, the whole thing comes to an end to rapidly.

Whatever the mission, the same problems rear their ugly head. The gameplay is dire; you don’t even want to see what the second mission is, let alone get to the end. The graphics are atrociously bad -- perhaps the worst on the GameCube.

It’s sluggish and unresponsive and absolutely riddled with annoying bugs that should have been detected early in the production process.

It doesn’t take long to work out that they’ve basically reduced an intelligent thriller into a brainless beat-’em-up. Be warned!

The digital controls are extremely precise and you won't find yourself falling to your death very often.

This game offers the most realistic facial models to date, with every single hairdressing error and facial tick of the FA and the 450 worldwide team members featured in stunning detail.

A fantastic achievement and a must buy for any Resident Evil fan. The new gameplay additions may even sway those of you who couldn’t get to grips with Remake.

It’s not the quality of sound or graphics that should make you consider Rally Fusion as your next purchase, it’s the depth of the challenges – the variety of which will take you a decent while to explore and conquer.

A good fun game for a while, but the short story mode lets it down a little bit.

Not what it appears to be. It’s like pulling a blond stunner in a club only to get home and discover your ‘date’ is better endowed than you, and with five-o’clock shadow to boot.

A tired old game with very little to say for itself. Please Tom Clancy, we know it made for good source material for your books but leave the Cold War behind. It's over already.

Other mech shooters like "Steel Battalion," "Phantom Crash," "Gun Metal" and even "Robotech" featured a new approach to the genre. Sadly, this isnít the case here. But if you're after some mindless action then this is the place to come.

While any petrol-heads who are starved of a racer would do well to get this – as it’s not a bad game by any means – everybody else would be wise to sit on their hands and wait until something a bit more ‘special’ comes along. "Colin McRae 3" will be here in March.

The visuals are excellent, commentary exciting and convincing, and overall enjoyment is top-notch. Highly recommended.

For today’s player, Shinobi will quite simply be too frustrating to see it through to the end. Sad but true. Making this one for the masochists of yesteryear.

Playing Serious Sam is like one long deathmatch only the grunts youíre up against are far from clever.

The physics engine wraps the package up nicely, so much so, that watching five bikes leap like frogs across the countryside becomes very mesmerizing.

Looking visually identical to the PS2 version is forgivable (just about), but loading in-between the level sections isn’t – especially when you continue from exactly the same point as you stop... [yet it's still] an exceptionally good game.

It would be easy to dismiss it as a PlayStation port but it's a top game in it's own right, if you're prepared to look beyond the occasionally ropey visuals.

The visual display of space and the ships is still badly executed but with tightened up control methods and an enjoyable plot to wage war through as the Federation develops a station that can detect cloaked vessels.

The best golf game available.

While there are a few tweaks, this is essentially the same game as the previous three.

With beautifully realised fantasy words to explore and depth that belies its surface-sweetened nastiness, this is one that will satisfy all who feel the need for unbridled platform action. And attitude.

A hugely engrossing game that is varied and challenging enough to last you a fair while.

One very addictive and most enjoyable game to play for both the battles and the huge number of possibilities for your mechs.

Pre "Splinter Cell" this was undoubtedly the benchmark in stealthy gameplay and innovation within this genre, but post SC it’s a solid game that, despite having a wealth of engaging modes outside of the main game, must content itself with second place behind Ubi Soft’s outstanding sneak-’em-up title.

Deep it isn’t, but there’s no denying that this is one of the most action-packed titles you’ll play on the GBA for some time.

A distinct lack of pace (something that made the original so absorbing) also makes the action far less exciting than it should be.

Suffers from a lack of any true excitement, and you really won’t care whether you win or lose. The narrative is dull, it looks like an old PC game in places, the FMV is juddery, the story a no-brainer and the controls fiddly.

Playing against another person is far more satisfying as the level of error and ingenuity creeps into the game.

Not since "Zeus: Master Of Olympus" have the gods smiled so benignly on RTS worshippers, and for new adorers and regular acolytes alike, Age Of Mythology is a revelation – this is a must for followers and atheists alike.

The bottom line is that Smackdown!: SYM is the only wrestling game on any console (not just the PS2) to have everything that the fans want… and a whole lot more. If that’s not enough of a reason to go out and get it, we don’t know what is.

Generally speaking, the game is weird to look at. Which is a bit of a shame really because it's great fun to play.

It’s slow running, sluggish to control and there’s some horrific pop-up.

A slight update of a decent game but with other similar titles making significant additions to their gameplay itís in danger of stagnating.

Through four years of massive commitment and seasonal hell with over 300 vehicles and 600 infantry types, this a game to challenge the serious gamer.

Whether you choose to take part in a tournament against the world’s best or just opt for a single match where you try and improve your score, PGA Tour 2003 is a golfing treat.

Everything about Vice City positively reeks of genius.

There are no new developments in the game mechanics to speak of, it’s just the classic turn-based combat gameplay that kept us giggling throughout the last decade.

Just sit back, switch your brain off, chill out and enjoy what is a fine snowboarding game.

If more effort had been expended so as to maximise this versionís potential, weíd have a real stunner here. As it stands, we have merely a decent conversion of a great game.

It’s easy to pick up and play, it’s addictive, it’s chock full of bonuses to unlock. It is by far and away the best golf game we’ve played.