In a complete reversal of modern trends, these are games whose visuals play second fiddle to the sheer wealth, diversity and involvement of tasks on offer, all the while playing on some very tongue in cheek moments and dark humour that even Hollywood's finest would have a tough time trying to rival.

If there was an award for best grenade launcher sound effect in a game, Rainbow Six 3 would win. The bass-filled 'thwooomp' as it launches (and the room-shaking explosion that follows) make up just one of many Guns-N-Ammo-erotic moments. [XBM]

Looking, sounding and playing as brilliantly as ever, it's such a relief to know that the hype behind this game can be believed. [Import]

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.

It's about being in one long and deeply worthwhile experience that manages to do the impossible and improve on what has gone before, and then has the confidence to expand itself to a size that defies belief. Pack some sandwiches, it's going to be a long trip.

When it comes to what people will now demand of a top videogame, Nintendo has moved the goalposts off the pitch, into a lorry, down the road, into the airport, onto a plane and halfway round the world to a different continent entirely.

This is the single most impressive piece of software the PS2 has seen since "GTA3." Where the Rockstar game innovated in its style of play Frontline innovates in the perfection of its execution. We’ve seen first-person shooters before, but nothing like this. Nothing as superbly crafted as this.

To have a game this amazingly good on day one brings tears of joy to our eyes. Everything in Halo is going to make you praise the day you were born.

These games are massive, easily rivalling any recent console release in terms of size, scale and re-playability.

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

A remarkable achievement of proportions we never imagined possible. It has single-handedly changed the way we see all videogame entertainment and the repercussions it should have for the industry are staggering. In one fell swoop your entire games collection has become obsolete, all other games seeming pathetic attempts to waste your time.

There are wow factors on top of wow factors here. Everything from the gorgeous visuals to the way the game plays scream one hundred per cent cool...The multiplayer mode is nothing short of bloody amazing.

To accompany the breathtaking graphics is a soundtrack of pure extravagance, and it does wonders to heighten the action and suspense, we can tell you.

Everything about Vice City positively reeks of genius.

It could be argued that Halo 2 multiplayer is not only leagues ahead of any other broadband enabled game, but it may even leave the single-player experience in the shadows. The options for online play are far more varied than even Ubisoft's Clancy titles, and the interface and lobby systems represent everything that Xbox Live is truly capable of. [XBM]

Half-Life is brilliant in every respect with huge monsters appearing later on, Half-Life gets so spooky it hurts, so frightening people simply watching jump!

Nothing comes close to the feeling you get when the Eznite shuts down your systems for the first time and you have to reboot.

A thoroughbred that out-strikes the opposition as if it were high on steroids. Put bluntly, we're not gonna get a better beat-'em-up. Tekken 3 is a killer app that is close to perfection.

We've been floored.

The biggest, best and sexiest racing game ever. What we have here is a gigantic car game that's such enormous fun to play because of three main elements: unparalleled realism, ground-breaking graphics and the chance to spend a lot of money.

Goldeneye is even better than "Mario 64." Even Oddjob could figure out what that means! A Nintendo 64 without Goldeneye is like James Bond without a vodka martini.

Every moment spent in the game world, from the ramshackle village to the far-from-abandoned military installation, is pure, adrenaline-fuelled fun. The game doesn't want to be big or clever - it wants to take you on a roller-coaster ride that leaves you breathless. And it does.

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.

THIS IS THE BEST ADVENTURE ON THE GAME BOY ADVANCE!

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.

Burnout 3 is as pure a gaming experience as we have had the pleasure of kneeling before for longer than we can remember and we've been doing this for a long time.

A work of Tolkeinesque proportions and not only the greatest RPG of our times, but one of the greatest games of all time. Wholeheartedly recommended.

If you feel that your love for games is diminishing, play this and be welcomed back to a Technicolor world of total obsession. If this game was a person, we’d stalk it, search its bins and collect snippets of its hair. [Import]

An epic story, accompanied by fantastic visual effects, a comprehensible battle system, and a glorious soundtrack. All in all, probably the first truly emotionally-moving experience ever to grace a console. A grand achievement.

The Live aspect of Black Arrow is the finest you'll find on the Xbox, and the new 3.0 support adds a further, inevitable, depth to what was already a first-class shooter... You need this game because it is utterly and unashamedly brilliant.

One of the most clever, crowd-pleasing, tense, dramatic, beautiful and playable games ever conceived.

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

Every Shine is a joy to collect, with hundreds of different tasks to carry through... These different tasks mean that the game always feels fresh, and you never know what to expect next.

A work of art, a piece crafted to such infinitesimal detail that every second of the experience has the capacity to cause the player to gasp with exhilarated pleasure from the opening race of the coupe series, right through to the final, devastating Crash Junction on the Burnout world tour.

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.

The best beat-’em-up you can get and it certainly puts "Tekken" in its place showing that 2D still rules the roost.

A title which has almost infinite replay value because every time you play it it’s a different game. Even if you repeatedly just play the same map over and over again the variety of things you can do and the impressive AI of the CPU opponents means that it’s never the same game twice.

While Medal's mechanics are every bit as sophisticated as "Goldeneye," it's clear that PlayStation isn't up to the task in terms of graphics, though that shouldn't be any surprise. What is does have is gameplay by the trench-load, war movie tension and really grizzly violence.

After all, any self-respecting Halo 2 Live player who actually misses out on these nine new maps is probably beyond help anyway.

One of the most well oiled pieces of software to be released, ever. This can stand proud next to the likes of "A Link To The Past" and "Ocarina Of Time." You'll be coming back to it again and again for many years to come.

You MUST experience Resident Evil. Swoon at the graphics, cringe at the gore and prepare your nerves for the ride of their lives.

The finished result is a game that rewrites the book on realism in videogames. The length they have gone to to recreate the experience of driving the world's best cars around the world's most exciting cities will astound you.

Full of options and it plays like a dream, but even if you're not playing you'll be impressed.

New modes, new vehicles and a whole new batch of trophies and awards to obtain (including the awesome Vertical Takedowns that see you falling from a height to land on a rival) all make for an experience that has enough in common with the sublime "Burnout 3" to create a feeling of comfort, but is different enough to test you all over again.

Beneath the day-glo grass and cuddly-wuddly wittle characters beats the brutal, steroid-pumped heart of a sadistic beast who eats raw liver and stamps on puppies for laughs. Everything about Diddy Kong Racing is perfect.

Pure, unadulterated, hard-core, ass kicking, pop a cap in ya' ass action and gunplay. Max Payne levels it’s .45 and sends stealth quivering back to the marketing table, where it belongs. And it’s all the better for it.

If you never buy another title for your Game Boy Advance, then at least get this one – it’s worth the cost of the console, all on its own!

To play this is to love it - there is so much to do, so much to learn and so much enjoyment to be had from this that I cannot see anyone failing to like it.

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

There is so much to do in this enormous, indepth game that you could get sucked into its fantastically animated absorbing world and stay there for weeks. Donkey Kong 64 deseves the fanfare of being the most eagerly-awaited game since Zelda.

The most beautifully balanced, well-crafted 2D beat-‘em-up to grace God’s fair Earth.

Quite frankly you’d be pushed hard to find a better extreme sports game anywhere and we believe this could possibly be the best game available on the GBA.

In a nutshell this can be described as the best GBA fighting game on the shelves.

'brilliant', 'fantastic' and 'a breathtaking work of genius.'

The storyline to Majora’s Mask is far superior to that of the first game and besides the camera and the occasional annoyance created by the advance of time, the puzzles, quests, objects and characters that you meet in this game make it a more than worthy sequel.

If you want to experience something a bit different and something that will genuinely chill you to the bone, take note; you need this game. Eternal Darkness takes adventuring and horror to levels that "Tomb Raider" and "Resident Evil" will never reach.

Short of smacking your knees with a sledgehammer and scraping your face with a cheesegrater, the genre couldn’t really feel much more realistic (and no, none of us plan to stand on one of those daft ‘skateboard PS2 peripherals’ either).

One of the most ingenious games ever to come from the Nintendo stable.

The graphical detail throughout makes this a new watershed in handheld game design.

The icing on the cake though is the two-player link-up game...it’s fantastic! Believe us when we say that StreetFighter has never been this playable or fun – you simply have to own it!

Like so many classics, the fun in Tony Hawk's 3 comes from being given a liberating amount of freedom.

It's fluid action all the way, absolutely no problem to pick up and learn for even the most novice of gamers, striking to look at and lengthy enough to keep you going for months. And we've still not played it in English. [JPN Import]

There's quite literally nothing else about Virtua Fighter 4 which comes close to disappointing as much as the graphics – and considering that the game still looks marvellous, that's the best bad-news-good-news we've ever had to tell anyone, you lucky people!

More brutal than anything we've seen before on PlayStation, the open structure of the game and lack of energy bars are welcome additions to a genre which was frankly getting stale.

It is so good you’ll find it difficult to put down.

Despite being on a handheld, the visuals and music in the game really astound – they create just the right mood for a game about vampires and other nasty stuff.

The gameplay is sumptuous, and is helped along considerably by a smooth learning curve and a constant 60fps update. The biggest surprise of all, and one which we've mentioned several times, is the depth the game has to offer.

But what strikes us the most is how polished it feels. It's pointless going on about the gameplay because by now you know it's flawless. [JPN Import]

The fact that Smackdown! Vs RAW manages to both encapsulate the essence of the WWE while also delivering a highly skill-based and technical beat-'em-up means that even those without a taste for wrestling will be able to enjoy at least most of what the game has to offer.

The interface is simple despite the huge number of men at your disposal, Shogun is the next step in war-gaming, as accessible and fun as C&C but with vast scope and grand aspirations.

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

Totally immersing from the start, never letting up and always lashed with the sort of extreme violence that we’ve always wanted.

A shotgun blast of colour and speed, Wipeout 3 is not something you'll forget easily. It's the biggest, finest-looking, finest-playing game of an exceptionally good trilogy.

Overall, this is the most complete Smackdown game yet, with changes and improvements everywhere you care to mention and a fighting system that's such fun, knowledge of the WWE isn't even necessary to enjoy it.

A masterpiece of handheld gaming.

Within minutes of starting out, you will find yourself totally immersed in the world inside your PC. No longer will you care about what''s for dinner or how you pay the rent. Instead, you will be worrying about how to raise finances to build catapults, or how best to storm the nearby French castle.

From chasing down a hijacked Interceptor to protecting friendly forces or shutting down an enemy base, Spy Hunter rarely leaves you with less than four things to think about with each of the fourteen levels boasting some of the most exhilarating set-pieces your likely to have witnessed for some time.

The most complete FPS we have ever seen. This is it. We have it now. We have a game that is as essential to your console happiness as a memory card, Dual Shock and big comfy armchair.

Indeed, it's only once you've actually sat down and experienced every element that SSX3 has to offer that you can see how much more complete it feels against all the other snowboarding games that focus purely on one style of gameplay.

EverQuest is certainly the more immediate of the two online role playing games but it still has a lifetimes worth of enjoyment in it.

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.

The definitive, most universally appealing WWII title ever made. It's not that the game does anything more or less than its digital brothers in arms, far from it, but instead it strips the genre down to the bare essentials and this turns it into one of the most pure shooters we've seen for some time.

This is the game we have wanted to play since we got caught setting fire to teddy bears in 1984...An excellent multiplayer combat game, a tremendous Star Wars Experience.

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...

Easily one of the best multiplayer racers ever made.

The camera is extremely intelligent, zooming in and panning out where appropriate to give you the best view of proceedings. On the odd occasion where the camera doesn't give a perfect shot of things, the camera buttons make fixing the view very simple. Rare has got a serious rival for the title of N64 3-D adventure game supremo!

Tremendous fun... Gameplay is rarely this pure. Get monkey spanking!

Half-Life 2 establishes a class-step in gaming we haven't seen since "Elite" on the BBC Micro.

Resident Evil 2 is not just a great game, but also proof that the N64 can do the supposedly impossible when developers put their minds to it. An incredible achievement.

EA has turned in a shockingly playable Bond game that looks as good as it plays – and that is damn fine.

By having multiple game styles - many of which are only additional to the main ones, as opposed to overpowering - helping enhance the overall experience rather than weaken it, Beyond Good & Evil is all the better for it.

But be warned, this game is horribly difficult early on and it will take even the most capable gamesplayer an age to complete.

Combines elements of countless classic games and adds three years' worth of great ideas to create something that in our opinion betters Nintendo's best attempts.

Prepare to be dazzled, gob-smacked and taken for the wildest ride of your life. And that's guaranteed... a masterpiece. The best game we've played for ages and absolutely recommended.

A groundbreaking title that takes the genre in a new and exciting direction. Capcom has once again managed to breathe life into a genre that had been stuck in something of a rut of late.

This is one of the fastest, most intense racing games we’ve played on any system and makes rival games look absolutely sedate by comparison.

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.

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.